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Week Sixty-One, May 13-19, 2002

Sunday, May 19, 2002

Today was supposed to be a day spent searching for butterflies as part of the butterfly identification class we are taking through the Tahoma Audubon Society. We still did the field trip, but despite our best efforts checking out great habitat around the Tahuya area near Belfair and along the Hood Canal, I only saw one butterfly all day - as we were driving through the back roads of the Tahuya State Forest it flew past the car. But our instructor, Idie Ulsh who is the head of the Washington Butterfly Association, did a great job pointing out the butterfly host plants and places where she can commonly find the insects near her cabin on the Tahuya peninsula.

The highlight of the day actually took place at the end of the trip, when we were walking across a clear cut area that is a few years old in the heart of the state forest. Besides my finding the image above of rain droplets gathered in the center of the leaves of a couple of lupine stems, we also spotted a couple of Western Bluebirds in the larger trees at the edge of the clearing, and I was able to pick out a bright yellow and orange Western Tananger nearby the bluebirds.

Since we were in the area, Natalie and I and Katrina ventured to the Theler Wetlands area in Belfair before returning home. This is one of the sites we will include in Birding Washington, but it was getting too dark to find many good photos or birds this evening. Natalie and I did watch a single Red Crossbill feeding in the shrubs at the edge of the tidal marsh, mixed in with a flock of Goldfinches. And before the light faded too much I snapped a scenic shot from the boardwalk that juts out into the marsh area, with the Olympic Mountains showing as they peek over the Tahuya peninsula that we had been exploring earlier in the day.

Saturday, May 18, 2002

On this 22nd anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens we didn't make it any farther south than Olympia. Book research kept us watching birds and other animals - first at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge and then at the site of a new trail along Mud Bay to the south of Olympia. It was a great day for bird watching. The sun kept peeking out of the clouds, giving enough light for the more than 40 species we saw today to go about their bird business. Some of the highlights of the viewing included hosts of Tree Swallows, a Savannah Sparrow shown in the photo above (which was taken through our spotting scope), a bright yellow Common Yellowthroat male, our first Cedar Waxwings we have seen this spring, and a host of warblers - Yellow, Wilson's, and Yellow-rumped.

Most of the bird species we saw today were at Nisqually, which has to be one of my favorite places for seeing birds and other wildlife. Natalie also spotted a bright Anise Swallowtail butterfly that we watched through the spotting scope as it fluttered between the leaves of a tree in the sunshine, just a little way behind a Rufous Hummingbird that was posing in the top of a tree.

While most of our day was devoted to book research and finding birds, today's sunshine brought out the insects as well. I took a nice shot of a dragonfly along the boardwalk at Nisqually, and then late this afternoon after spending about 40 minutes trying to get a good view and a photo of some type of uncooperative butterfly along the trail near Mud Bay, Natalie spotted the Brown Elfin butterfly in the photo above as it tried its best to blend in with the browns and greens of the salal leaves alongside the trail.

Friday, May 17, 2002

It was a brisk and breezy afternoon for a walk along the waterfront near Old Town here in Tacoma, but M and I took a short walk nonetheless. I kept an eye out for birds in the area, but the shores along Ruston Way are not as busy now as they are in either the heart of the spring migration or during the fall and winter when there are more waterfowl hanging around. I snapped the shot above looking to the west as the low tide lapped at the shoreline.

Monday, May 13, 2002

Today's rain took a break this afternoon, just long enough for me to sneak out and snap a shot of the bright white lilac that borders the north edge of our front hedge as it was being highlighted by the sun.

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