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Week Thirty-seven, November 26-December 2
Sunday, December 2, 2001
Natalie and I played catch up on our sleep today, and my only venture into the outdoors was to walk in the cold rain from the house to the car. We met today with the rest of the board of the Puget Creek Restoration Society to determine our programs and set up the structure for the organization in a more detailed way. The results of our meeting will be on the PCRS Web site soon, after we have a chance to put everything down on digital paper and have the board sign off on it.I didn't have time to take a photo today. Since I woke at 11 and then had the board meeting from 2-4 p.m., it was too dark too fast for me to get out and snap a decent photo.
Saturday, December 1, 2001
Gusting winds and rain marked the third field trip for our Audubon Society intermediate birding class today. We made the trek north to the Skagit Valley area, setting out at 6 a.m. with way too little sleep (in the case of Natalie and I, at least) in hopes of seeing a variety of raptors and other birds in the saltwater and freshwater wetlands as well as along the fields in the area between the Stillaguamish and Skagit Rivers. Despite winds gusting to 40 miles an hour or more, we did see about 40 species on our trip.
It was a horrible day for photography - darkness, rain and wind all teamed up to make high quality shots nearly impossible, but I still managed to get a few good shots with the digital camera. The shot above shows a few of the thousand or more snow geese in flight over a field near the small town of Stanwood. I didn't get any good photos of the highlight of the trip - a field near Sammish Island where we saw at least ten northern harriers flying along with four or five rough-legged hawks. It was great watching the hawks interacting with each other as they seemingly played in the wind.
My second photo from today's trip shows a bunch of the members of our group fighting the winds as they set up their spotting scopes and look out over a saltwater bay.
Friday, November 30, 2001
My time to get outside and enjoy nature was limited today. I did get to go over and tour M's new house that her family just bought in nearby University Place, but with a work shift looming in the late afternoon, the only time I spent pondering the natural world today was as I watched birds feeding in the yard south of the house. Over the last couple of weeks since we started filling the bird feeders again I have been reminded why I like having the feeders. They draw a lot of different birds to our yard that would otherwise just be occassional visitors. And along the way they also help draw predatory birds.I read an interesting article about the philosophy behind placing bird feeders out in the yard. Do we do it to help the birds? If so, we are fooling ourselves. The bird population can sustain itself just fine without our intervention, with the possible exception of the times when the weather gets abnormally cold and harsh. But I know that the real reason we put out our feeders is to offer a closer connection to the natural world around us. It offers an easy way to see what kinds of birds there are in our urban environment, and taken over years, it allows us to see what species are more prevalent from year to year.
Thursday, November 29, 2001
It warmed up outside today and all signs of yesterday's surprise snow are gone. In the light rain I made a return to Puget Creek to look for salmon in the stream, but there are still no fish to be seen. Maybe we are going to have to face a year without any returning salmon...
Wednesday, November 28, 2001
Snow! We woke this morning to an inch or so of wet snow! And, unlike a lot of the overblown snow predictions that we face here in the land of scarce snowfall, this time no one predicted the snow. I mentioned last night to Natalie that it was pretty cold and with clouds rolling in there was a chance of some snow, but even I didn't really think it would happen.
It is raining outside now, and just in the time it took me to drive Natalie down to work and then to return home, the amount of snow around dwindled drastically. We are in for another push of heavy rain and some wind today, so in a couple of hours, the snow will be a memory...
Tuesday, November 27, 2001
I know my cold was bad today, because I didn't have the energy to leave the house at all. I didn't take my walk at Puget Creek and I didn't even get outside to walk the dog or to take a photo for today.
Monday, November 26, 2001
Despite the definite onset of a head cold and some general malaise, I wandered down to Puget Gulch this afternoon to walk along the creek and seek out the salmon that are in no hurry to return to the little creek. Nope...still no salmon. But I was able to snap a couple of photos looking down the trail, even though it was already darkened by 3 p.m. At this time of year, even though the leaves have fallen from the trees in the gulch, the sun stays so low in the southern sky that it doesn't hit the depths of the gulch all that much.
The sun was shining nicely on Commencement Bay though, and after leaving Puget Creek I drove the pickup over to check for birds along Ruston Way and found the barrows goldeneye in the photo above at the mouth of Puget Creek.
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