Observations of the passing seasons |
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rob@whiterabbits.com
2003
- October - August - July - May - April - March - February - January - Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge visit, March 2001 
- Insiders' Guide to the Olympic Peninsula - Creeping with Utah Nature Study Society - Tidepool - Association for the Study of Literature and Environment 
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I didn't expect this to be a bird watching day, with winds gusting to 35 mph and dark clouds overhead much of the day, but sometimes things just don't turn out the way you expect. My surprise today was seeing the White-throated Sparrow in the photo above on a number of different occasions throughout the day. Here is how I initially describes the first sighting in a post to the Tweeters email list earlier:
Thankfully the sparrow did come back, along with the group of six Golden Sparrows it has been following around all day. I tried off-and-on all day to get a decent photo of the White-throated Sparrow, but it wasn't until late this afternoon, around 3:30 p.m., that the light was good enough and the sparrow cooperated enough to allow me to snap a couple of decent photos with our Nikon digital camera using our spotting scope as a telephoto lens. I should be writing one of the last few chapters of Birding Washington, and in fact I just finished writing about the Klickitat River area of Washington state. Back to it. A deadline looms. But sometimes the birding just won't wait! Now that Natalie and I are such avid birders it is even more difficult to drive across the better part of two states - as we did yesterday on our drive from Salem, Ore. back to home in Puget Sound country in Tacoma - without stopping to check the birding along the way. All we could do yesterday in our rush home so that I could get back to work was to notice all of the Red-tailed Hawks on the fence posts, in the trees, and on top of power poles along the route. Otherwise I did see a Sharp-shinned or Cooper's Hawk near Vancouver, Washington, although I couldn't say which it was for sure since I barely caught a glimpse of it as we buzzed past at 70 mph. Things are more stationary today. I am home, writing Birding Washington and editing photos for the book while I watch the weather change from sunshine to rain outside our Tacoma home. Black-capped Chickadees keep dashing to and from the bird feeders in the south yard, while a Western Scrub Jay calls off in the distance and a Steller's Jay scolds something in the neighbor's yard. A little earlier today, while I was out filling our feeders, I looked up to see what a crow was carrying on about and found two American Crows harassing a Sharp-shinned Hawk as it circled and rose to higher and higher altitudes in a thermal just south of our yard. Soon there were five crows harassing the hawk, until it got tired of fending off the attack and went into a steep dive, easily outpacing the crows as it speeded off to the north. Bird watching in our yard will slow down soon, as the last straggling warblers move south and we settle into the bird species that over winter in Puget Sound country. There are already signs of this happening, with Surf Scoters along Ruston Way down below our house signaling the return of waterfowl that will return some birding interest to the waterfront. And here comes the rain this afternoon, the first in a series of wet storms that will march through the area in the coming days and surely for the next few months of gray winter weather. I look forward to the return to regular Pacific Northwest weather! |