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Week Forty-two, January 1-6, 2002

Sunday, January 6, 2002

This is the season when nature is laid bare. I was thinking that today as I walked the dog around the neighborhood and looked at the assortment of bird nests that sit at the tops of the stick-figure trees. I snapped a photo of one nest sticking out precariously near the end of a set of branches in a tree just a couple of blocks from home. I am not sure what kind of bird used this nest...I still have a lot to learn about birds before I could even guess at identifying a bird by the remains of its nest.

I do want to welcome newcomers to reading this Web site. Natalie and I were featured in an article in the Longview Daily News newspaper today, and the address for this site was included at the end of the article. I haven't seen the article yet though...I should see a copy in e-mail tomorrow...

Saturday, January 5, 2002

I took Natalie over to try and find the red-tailed hawk today, and sure enough, we found him in the same area where I saw him yesterday. This time we got out of the car and tried to get a photo, but once again he played at being shy. Natalie took a couple of shots of him from a distance, but we couldn't get close enough for a really great shot.

It turned out to be lucky that we spent the late morning hours looking for the hawk, because a couple of hours later the clouds darkened and rain started falling that lasted well into the night. I didn't get a photo as a result.

Meanwhile, on the book front, I started work in earnest on Birding Washington. I am compiling a master list of bird watching sites that have been written about in various other books and sources over the years so that we can pick and choose the 100 or so birding sites that we will write about in our book. A lot of work lies ahead...that much is clear. But I sure look forward to learning a lot over the next 10 months as we travel the state and write about some of my favorite places.

Friday, January 4, 2002

Mt. Rainier cast its shadow across the sky this morning as the sun rose from behind the Cascade Mountains and beckoned a new day. If I would have been thinking, I would have dressed and rushed out to get the sunrise shot from a better vantage point, but when I saw the shadow this morning I rushed up and onto the back roof of our house and climbed out in bare feet to capture the moment. A minute later, the shadow was gone...

* * * * *

Later this morning I went in search of the red-tailed hawk that hunts along Highway 16, and while I missed seeing him on my first pass through the area, after I took a few photos of the Narrows Bridge with the Olympic Mountains in the background, I turned around and started driving away and had a great closeup view of the hawk. I rolled down my window and brought the digital camera up to take a photo, but he would have nothing of it. The hawk slowly took to the air and flew another 30 feet away to land on top of a light pole that borders the highway. I guess he was camera shy today.

Thursday, January 3, 2002

Now this is different. I was wrapping up my walk with Rhia this morning about two blocks from home when I glimpsed a hawk chasing a crow. Usually this situation is turned around, with crows ganging up to chase hawks and eagles out of the neighborhood, but this hawk had the definite upper hand. And, as luck would have it, I had my digital camera in hand. So I did the best I could while holding onto the dog and trying to keep the hawk in sight and switch the camera to its highest resolution setting and somehow get a shot or two before the hawk took off for good. Somehow, I managed to take a couple of photos, and the one I show above is the best of the two. But I had much better looks than this at what appears to be a sharp-shinned hawk as it made a half-dozen dives and chases at the same crow.

I must have watched for at least 10 minutes before the hawk grew tired of my following it around and it abandoned the crow to fly south along Cheyenne St. If I didn't have Rhia with me, I am sure I could have followed it some more and taken better shots of the magnificent bird. It was really interesting to see the hawk pulling a turnabout on a crow, and it actually hit the crow a couple of times in mid-air. What a treat to watch!

I might get back outside later today to see if there are other predators hanging around in search of a meal. With all of the trees completely bare of leaves and with it being the heart of winter, this always seems like one of the easiest times of year to see merlins or sharp-shinned hawks hunting in our neighborhood.

*****

Later this afternoon as I drove over to see M for a little bit, I found this red-tailed hawk sitting on a light pole between the local access road and the eastbound lanes of Highway 16. It is probably the same red-tailed hawk that I saw sitting on a light post on an overpass over the highway yesterday in the morning, but when I saw it yesterday there was no way to pull to the side of the road and get a photo.

I took this shot looking through the front window of my pickup, so it isn't quite as clear as it might have been if I stepped out of the vehicle. But I didn't want to risk spooking the hawk by opening the door.

Wednesday, January 2, 2002

My first walk of the trail through Puget Gulch this year led to some interesting sights. Most notably, the downy woodpecker shown in the photo above. It let me get within 10 feet of it as it fed on insects gathered in the bark of a tree. I had an even better look at it just a moment after this photo was taken, but the batteries in my digital camera had run out of juice. By the time I reloaded with the freshly charged spare batteries, the woodpecker had enough of my intrusion and made its way to another spot to feed.

I found the downy woodpecker about half the way up the .75 mile trail. It fed on the branches and trunks of trees while a small flock of golden crowned kinglets teased me with flitting glimpses that nearly led to photos. I didn't get a good enough look though, so that bird will have to wait for another day.

I didn't expect to get bird photos on my walk. I ventured to the gulch to walk the entire trail for the first time in a month or more, and things have changed quite a bit. Mosses and mushrooms rule the landscape right now. But the most apparent changes are the fallen trees that litter the bottom and sides of the gulch. Right at the same place where I saw the kinglets and the woodpecker another large and rotting maple tree has fallen and shattered across the trail, creating an obstacle for anyone walking up the trail. It looks like some mountain bikers have created ramps with bits of shattered branches to make traversing the fallen tree possible on bike.

Tuesday, January 1, 2002

I spent the first day of this new year exploring trails and catching glimpses of bird life in the pouring rain as I mountain biked on a ridge near the Orting Valley. Jason and I got together once again for a New Years ride, and once again we managed to get ourselves turned around a lost in the woods with daylight fading fast. I am not in the best shape for long bike rides right now, but we gutted it through a 15 mile ride and made the right guesses to find the car with about 20 minutes or so of light to spare.

As we rode round and round on the trails in the White River Tree Farm area, I kept hearing the birds around me - kinglets, winter wrens, flickers and an occassional steller's jay. And on the drive out to the trails I caught glimpse of a couple of red-tailed hawks. But this was simply not a good day for birding.

Since I was away from home and mired in the mud and grime of biking, I didn't carry the digital camera with me and I didn't get a chance to capture a fresh photo for today. Instead, I am using my one favorite shot from 2001. After taking thousands of photos last year, it is hard to select one shot as my favorite, but my stab today is a shot of a huge barn in Sequim taken with the snow-capped northern Olympic Mountains in the background. I took this shot in February while Natalie and I were on our short vacation to celebrate finishing our book, Insiders' Guide to the Olympic Peninsula.

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