rmcnair-huff@qwest.net
Special sections
- Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge visit, March 2001
Rob's books
Nature writing sites
Environment news
Resources
Rob's other Weblogs
Other stuff
- Nature Close to Home
- Creeping with Utah Nature Study Society
- The Nature Web
- Nature.net
- Nature writing references
- Nature writing
- Tidepool
- eNature.com
- Olympic Park Institute
- North Cascades Institute
- Orion Society
- Open Spaces
- Second Nature
- The World as Home
- Association for the Study of Literature and Environment
- Mac Net Journal
- Rob's Resume
- Natalie's Resume
- Rob's Portal
- Picture Album
Week Twenty-Two, August 13-19
Sunday, August 19, 2001
I spent some time out in the yard and garden today, in between cleaning up our house for the visit of a nature book reading group that Natalie and I belong to. It was another sunny day, prompting me to spend some of my time with the watering can, soaking the ground around the red flowering currant we planted near our bird feeder and filling the bird bath. We are slowly starting to create a native plant thicket between our house and the house just to the south of us. We are about to have new neighbors in that house, since it is for sale right now, and time will tell if we also decide to put in some kind of a fence between the two properties. For now, native plants that will cater to the birds and insects that we like to encourage to visit our yard are the main focus in that part of the yard.
Today's photo was taken on the lavender along the front sidewalk. This is yet another type of butterfly that I have yet to identify...likely a small skipper of some kind. These smaller butterflies are so much harder to identify than their larger cousins.
Saturday, August 18, 2001
Natalie and I finally made a trip to the base of Mason Gulch this afternoon in an effort to find a way to walk from the bottom of the gulch up above and beyond the sewage treatment plant to explore the area. We found a trail of sorts, an obvious deer trail that skirts the fence that surrounds the treatment plant on the west side of the gulch. I could clearly make out the indents made by deer hooves passing along the narrow, steep and not so easy to walk trail. Since we didn't have good shoes for this kind of exploration today, we opted to go back another day, but at least we know where to start now.Just across the street from the treatment plant and alongside the railroad tracks we came across the subject of today's photo - a young deer carcass. It appears that the deer, which is still pretty well preserved, was hit by a train or something as it was crossing the tracks. I debated whether I should post the image of the deer carcass, because it could be a bit creepy in some folks' eyes, but I found the image pretty fascinating. Death is a major player in nature, and it is a process.
After lingering near the tracks for a few minutes to see what the view had to offer, we drove over to walk part of the trail at Puget Creek. We're trying to make an effort to walk most of the trail at Puget Creek at least once a week, to keep track of how things will rapidly change now that the seasons are on the cusp of changing from summer to fall and to keep track of what damage is being done to the trails and in the creek by folks who keep creating ponds and such with no idea that they are potentially damaging a salmon stream. Like I was mentioning to Natalie, we need to place informational signs about our rehabilitation efforts at the creek crossings, to encourage people to aid the recovery rather than tamper with the stream.
Friday, August 17, 2001
I was not nearly as sore as I expected to be today, after doing my longest bike ride of the year so far yesterday. Due to Internet work and other work projects, I didn't spend much time outside watching nature in action, but I did make a couple of mental observations about yesterday's bike ride. For one, the distance between home and Mt. Rainier is much more defineable for me now. There is something very concrete about knowing that it is about 75 miles from my front porch to the top of Cayuse Pass, and that I know a direct and bikeable route that could take me to the White River Valley where I can see chocolate colored streams winding through old growth forest.
Thursday, August 16, 2001
What a day! I took a rare full day off of work today to do a fun bike ride with Jason. The ride - drive two cars toward Mt. Rainier, leave one in the small town of Enumclaw and then drive the other with our road bikes to the top of Cayuse Pass and ride from the top of the pass back down to Enumclaw. All in all, the ride was about 42 miles, completed in three hours, including a lunch break and a stop to sip a drink in the ski town of Greenwater.
The ride was beyond fun. At the top of the pass I held back and took in the scenery more while Jason took advantage of the mountain more and rode way ahead, gathering as much speed as he could before we made a stop where I snapped a few photos of the mountain and the shot above of Jason whisking by a couple of tourists with Mt. Rainier in the background. I was distracted by the huge number of large butterflies near the top of the mountain range, but with a constant breeze blowing, the butterflies would never land for me to get a photo and try to identify them. Well down the mountain, while Jason and I stopped alongside the road to drink some water, I did manage to snap the shot below, a close-up of a California tourtiseshell butterfly. The butterflies were so thick that they were bouncing off us as we biked down the hill.
Once we were down to the entrance to Mt. Rainier National Park, the rest of the 30-plus miles into Enumclaw were actually pretty flat or gradual uphill riding. Funny, we started at an elevation of 4,635 feet at Cayuse Pass and dropped at least a couple of thousand feet throughout the ride, but most of the downhill was concentrated in a short 6-10 mile span at the beginning of the day. It felt good to get back on the bike for a long ride, this time a road bike after last summer when every spare moment was spent on the mountain bike as I researched and revised Mountain Bike America: Washington. It's good to be back!
Wednesday, August 15, 2001
I didn't spend much time outside today. It was another warm day, but the evening beckoned me outside when I snapped today's photo of the sunlight fading behind the neighbor's house...
Tuesday, August 14, 2001
I explored a different nature area in Tacoma today - the China Lake area along 19th St. I went there this afternoon with M and her son, to walk the trails around the small lakes while M's son rode his bike. China Lake is really a small park that borders Highway 16 just north of 19th St. And it encompasses a couple of ponds and a few trails that rim the wetlands. I snapped today's photo of a daisy along the dried up side of one of the ponds.
Monday, August 13, 2001
Boy am I glad that Natalie and I decided to walk over to do some bird watching at Mason Gulch tonight. After hanging around and gazing through the binoculars at blue jays, flickers, pigeons and robins in the tree tops above the deep gulch, we kept hearing a hawk cry out just out of our view along the same edge of the gulch as we were on. Eventually, I pinpointed the source of the sound and found that just on the other side of a hedge there sat a red-tailed hawk, likely a youngster from all the crying out it was doing. A couple of minutes later it flew and landed in the top of a tree snag just 100-150 feet away from us. We spent a lot of time snapping photos, such as the one above, and gazing at the hawk through the binoculars. We had a heck of a time identifying the hawk, since it appears to be immature and lacking some of the banding in the tail that you would expect to see on a mature red-tailed hawk.
Our real treat happened a few minutes later, when the young hawk took off from the snag and landed in a fir tree nearby. It was joined by another hawk, possibly its mother. And a few minutes after that the other hawk flew from its perch to the opposite side of the gulch in pursuit of a sparrow or starling, and as it lost contact with its prey it stirred up another flock of small birds before settling out of sight in a tree top. Throughout the chase, the younger hawk remained in the fir tree closer to us, crying out occasionally.
Seeing the hawk confirmed that the sounds we have heard over the last few months of making trips to the edge of the gulch were indeed hawks crying out. At least half a dozen times we have heard the cries, but this was only the second time we took binoculars with us to scan the tree tops and see what was making the sounds. Now we will have to watch and see how long the hawks stay around. They may very well move along when the full fall weather returns...
All rights reserved.