Special sections
- Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge visit, March 2001

Rob's books

- Insiders' Guide to the Olympic Peninsula

Nature writing sites
- Nature Close to Home
- Creeping with Utah Nature Study Society
- The Nature Web
- Nature.net
- Nature writing references
- Nature writing

Environment news
- Tidepool

Resources
- 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

Rob's other Weblogs
- Mac Net Journal

Other stuff
- Rob's Resume
- Natalie's Resume
- Rob's Portal
- Picture Album

Old Blogger archives

Week Seventy-two, July 29-August 4, 2002

Sunday, August 4, 2002

My hunch about keeping an eye on the butterfly bush in Natalie's parents' back yard paid off this afternoon when Natalie saw a butterfly in the yard and I ran out with the camera to get a shot of the Lorquin's Admiral in the photo above as it nectared at the sweet blooms. The butterfly was a bit camera shy, and so I ended up taking a photo of it from the bottom side looking up against the background of the partly cloudy sky. I wasn't sure how the shot would turn out, but at full size this is really a cool photo.

Along with the admiral on the bush was an even more camera shy Woodland Skipper. I don't know my skippers well enough to identify them easily, but I have no doubt that this was the Woodland Skipper that Robert Michael Pyle states in The Butterflies of Cascadia just may be the most common butterfly in the region from late July to late fall. The skipper I saw today on the butterfly bush is not the first skipper I have seen this summer though. That distinction goes to a skipper that I didn't have the chance to identify that was nectaring on our blooming lavendar plants back home in Tacoma a few weeks ago.

Although the sun was shining enough to bring out the butterflies in Longview this afternoon, earlier in the day the weather was quite different. We took a short trip along the lower Columbia River on Loren's newest boat this morning, cruising around Fisher Island and up toward the Oregon town of Rainier while watching Osprey, at least 10 Turkey Vulture kettling over the southern edge of Fisher Island, and a host of Canada Geese that must be the first wave of migrants moving south for the fall and winter. We were in and out of rain showers under mostly cloudy skies on the Columbia, as can be seen in the shot above that looks toward the Oregon shore with rain creating that stereotypical Pacific Northwest look of mist-obscured trees and landscape.

It threatened to really storm with thunder showers later this evening as we drove home through heavy traffic, but the storms never materialized.

Saturday, August 3, 2002

It feels odd this weekend to actually take a break from research for Birding Washington and spend some time with family and relax, but that is what we are doing. We drove down to Longview today to visit with Natalie's mom and dad for a couple of days, including our 12th wedding anniversary tomorrow.

One of the reasons we can take it easy this weekend is that earlier this week we had to correspond with our editor at Falcon Publishing about the deadline schedule for Birding Washington. As much as we didn't want to, we really had to push the schedule back for the book. We haven't had enough time to cover the birding sites so far, we haven't been able to write as much as we should because every weekend we are out driving all over the state, and now there are other priorities to consider like spending time with family when Natalie's mom is recovering from her stroke of a few weeks ago. Our editor was able to work with us and sadly Birding Washington won't be available in bookstores until 2004 now. The good news is that we can finish up our research with the rest of the summer and fall, we will have a December 1, 2002 deadline to turn in the first half of the book, and we will have a final deadline of March 1, 2003. This is really exciting because it means we will not be in such a rush and we will be able to write a book we are more proud of than something that we simply cranked out to meet a nine-month deadline from the time of the book signing to completion of the project (which was our old deadline).

Although we weren't doing research today, I did get outside and wander around Natalie's parents' back yard this afternoon, taking a look around for any butterflies in the air. I didn't find anything flying, but I did spend some time looking at the blooms of the butterfly bush or Buddleia along the backside of the house. This would be a prime spot for butterflies, if the weather would just cooperate.

Thursday, August 1, 2002

Natalie and I watched the sun go down at Titlow Beach tonight, and while there we confirmed that the birds I was watching earlier in the week were Purple Martins. We watched a couple of young fledgling martins on the nesting boxes and tubes just offshore as the adults swooped and glided overhead until the sun slipped behind the Olympic Mountains. Other birds we saw included Western Gulls and Glaucous-winged Gulls like the one flying in the foreground of the photo I snapped of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge just as the sunlight was leaving the huge stantions that carry some of the weight on the huge suspension bridge.

The most interesting sight of our visit was of a Belted Kingfisher that, after catching a fish from the pond where the water outlet and inlet leads to the Tacoma Narrows, was beating a fish repeatedly against a metal pole in order to subdue it enough to slip it down its gullet. It was certainly interesting to watch while we stood there, binoculars up to our eyes as the sun slipped down to mark the end of another day behind us.

Wednesday, July 31, 2002

What an interesting start to the morning. This morning, after getting up at 5:30 a.m. and seeing Natalie off to her temp job at a quarter to 6 a.m., I was up and getting ready for my own work when I remembered that I hadn't picked up yesterday's mail from our mailbox. So I step out on the front porch and down the stairs and hear a noise that makes me look up, just in time to see a startled deer standing in our yard near the rose bushes. The deer didn't like seeing a human so close. It launched into the neighbor's yard and then down to the sidewalk and headed south and out of sight along Mullen Street, leaving me amazed at the sight.

We live about four blocks from Mason Gulch, which is the most likely place that this deer came from, but I would have never expected to see a deer munching on the roses in our front yard. No way...

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

I received an interesting email last night from Robert Michael Pyle. Bob had noticed an email I sent to a butterfly mailing list where I mentioned the Queen butterfly I had seen and photographed in our front yard on August 18, 2000, and he wanted to make sure that my sighting was documented since it is the first sighting of a Queen in Washington. I followed up with the information he needed, but an interesting point in his email is that a lepidopterist in Richland in Eastern Washington had netted a Queen near the Columbia River this summer while he was surveying Monarchs in the area.

I guess I am not the only person to see a Queen in Washington any more. Of course, that was never the case, since I showed the Queen to Natalie as soon as I found it. I remember the day well...glancing out the window to see an odd butterfly flying in the front yard, stepping out to find the bright orange butterfly with its distinctive black markings, and then rushing back into the house to grab the digital camera. This is my normal reaction to a new butterfly in the yard, but this time the Queen stayed around for 15 minutes or more, allowing me to take six or seven photos, which it turns out are the key in documenting the sighting. It was a stroke of luck that I saw it, but more than luck that I could identify it. It was a present...

Monday, July 29, 2002

I watched my first Purple Martin of the summer this evening while walking with M and watching the sunset at Titlow Beach overlooking the Tacoma Narrows. We visited the park after eating some dinner and even though I was wearing my glasses rather than my contacts, and even though I didn't have binoculars with me, there was no mistaking the Purple Martins for anything else. Of course, it is no great feat seeing the birds at this park, since it is one of the few reliable places in the state where you can still see Purple Martins.

I snapped the shot above of the sun setting behind clouds that were obscuring the Olympic Mountains that would otherwise be visible to the west. This is a great spot to watch the sunset as well as to see a variety of birds. I think that Natalie and I need to visit here soon...

Copyright © 2002 White Rabbit Publishing.

All rights reserved.