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Week Forty-five, January 21-27, 2002

Sunday, January 27, 2002

Just as the weather forecasters had predicted, we woke to a blanket of white in the north end of Tacoma this morning. I lingered, watching birds at our feeders outside while I sipped tea in the warmth of the house. And while I sat and watched I was chuckling, seeing Maya set herself up on the back of the chair in the living room where she could be just inches from pine siskins feeding outside the window. I captured this scene in the photo above.

Eventually the need to get out in the snow convinced me I should take Rhia for her morning walk around the neighborhood. There was about 2-3 inches of fresh snow on the ground when we set out on our walk, and an occassional snowflake fluttered down to the ground as we ventured over to the edge of Mason Gulch and then back toward home. Not surprisingly, the greatest amount of bird activity today is at the bird feeders around the neighborhood. Elsewhere, the birds are hunkered down in the trees, waiting for the slowly melting snow to fall from the trees, halting the small snowslides that keep cascading down from the branches above them.

The snow did cause at least one causualty in the neighborhood - a branch one a tree a few blocks from here that split under the weight of the snow.

I ventured back home and put Rhia in the back yard, then I couldn't resist another droplet photo. This time the melting snow left a droplet hanging from the budding greenery on our forsythia bush along the front porch, and just to the right of the droplet a bit of snow remains to melt away.

This has been a refreshing Sunday!

Saturday, January 26, 2002

We had some real winter weather today! I woke this morning to find about half an inch or so of fluffy snow on the ground, and though it melted pretty early in the morning, it was nice to look at first light. The dusting of snow can be seen in my photo for today, taken out the living room window as I watched birds feeding. Our feeders were overwhelmed with birds today. Sparrows, chickadees, juncoes, pine siskins and starlings nearly emtpied the feeders that I had filled just yesterday afternoon. And nearby the crows and robins watched the scene.

I did take a walk with Rhia as the snow was melting, and looking down into Mason Gulch I could see robins flocking from tree to tree, with a couple of yellow-shafted flickers joining in the feeding. I halfway expected to see a hawk or merlin out hunting for breakfast, but I didn't see any raptors on our walk.

The real snow hit tonight. Natalie and I were at a social gathering most of the evening and it started snowing while we were away. And even though the snowfall only amounted to another inch or so, on the post-midnight drive home the roads were sheets of ice. Thankfully, our heavy station wagon with front wheel drive handles the snow fine, just as long as I slow down and drive cautiously.

Friday, January 25, 2002

Snow! Nothing stuck to the ground today, but for a while this afternoon there was snow falling. Sometimes I can get my satisfaction from just seeing snow falling, and the huge flakes drifting in the breeze this afternoon were great to watch! There is a good chance of more snow this weekend, but for now I will be happy with seeing the white fluff fall.

I drove along the frontage road alongside Highway 16 again today, trying to see the red-tailed hawk that I have missed seeing over the last couple of weeks, and still there is no sign of him on the south side of the highway. I have heard from other Audubon members that he is still around, but I just seem to keep missing him.

Meanwhile, as the day faded into night, I took a quick break from my work to step onto the front porch and snap a shot of the sunset - the sunlight breaking through the clouds that threaten to snow overnight.

Thursday, January 24, 2002

I had to drive down to Ruston Way and sit inside the pickup with the window rolled down to get a photo today. It was another windy and even rainier day than Wednesday - by the time I went to bed tonight more than 1.36 inches of rain had fallen in the last 24 hours. And so I drove to the waterfront with M to look at the rain-streaked sky and watched the gulls, cormorants and grebes diving for what must have been small fish not too far from shore.

The shot above is a group of cormorants sitting on top of pilings from a long-forgotten lumber mill.

Wednesday, January 23, 2002

Wet conditions and a heavy workload kept me from being outside very much today. And so I took no photos, and other than walking Rhia around the neighborhood in the breeze and rain, I spent my time indoors.

Spring is around the corner, right?

Tuesday, January 22, 2002

It felt like winter this afternoon as I walked the shores, watching killdeer in the new binoculars we received for Christmas, down at Dickman Mill Park. Temperatures barely rose above freezing today and the wind was biting through my clothes. The weather didn't seem to bother the red-necked grebe, barrows goldeneye and various gulls along the waterfront.

I marked the cold day with the shot above of a cormorant on top of one of the pilings off the park's shore.

Monday, January 21, 2002

I think I am suffering from mid-winter photographer's block. I went for a cool walk around the neighborhood this evening in search of a photo for the day, and while I do like the shot above that looks north from the site of the old library building nearby toward Maury Island and Quartermaster Harbor - an area that Natalie and I will be writing about in our birding guidebook - I am just not so happy doing a repeat of previous photos. I think I am just caught up in the limitations of the seasons, of one gray day after another.

On a more positive note, Natalie and I seriously dug into the outline for Birding Washington tonight, and it looks like we have a lot of the sites in Western Washington decided. Deciding what areas to include in Eastern Washington will be a challenge though, since we don't know that part of the state as well as we would like. The good thing - we will know the whole state a lot better by the time we finish this book!

Copyright © 2002 White Rabbit Publishing.

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