Kingfisher at Zuanich Point Park

 Summer is heating up so I went to the harbor early for my morning walk.  It was breezy and sunny and a lovely walk along the water.

The gray blur along the horizon is a line of clouds coming in.

Gulls were hunting breakfast and there might even have been a couple of terns fly by but the highlight of my morning walk was a really closeup look at a belted kingfisher flying along the rocks the length of the shore.  I'm using the Cornell ornithology photo below since I have never gotten a good shot of a kingfisher on the wing.

The female is the one with the rust colored belt.  The one I saw this morning was unbelted so likely male.   

A lovely start to my day.  I hope your day is as good.

BirdNote podcast: Bring birds back

 I love BirdNote.  Their 2 minute radio clips won my heart years ago and I have appreciated the bird poetry podcasts from BirdNote Presents.  And I'm on their email list so I heard about their new podcast, Bring Birds Back.  I listened to the first episode and found out that bird populations (with 2 notable exceptions) have seriously declined over the last 50 years.  What can an ordinary person/birder do about it?  That's the focus of the rest of the episodes. 

The 2 exceptions to the decline?  Raptors (cause we got rid of DDT) and waterfowl because of the Wildlife Refuge system.  So, I was heartened to learn that if we take action based on what we know, we can have an impact.  

Here's the link to their webpage which gives all the current info.

Finding joy during studio sabbatical

 My back is still being cranky so I am mostly doing not much of anything but read and watch the hummingbirds through the window.  This is annoying as I was really enjoying working with the alcohol ink but I will get back to it in a few weeks, I'm sure.  And when I do, I will use some of my bird photos as a starting point.  So today, I'm sharing some of the ones I'm considering.  I'm mostly looking for a good silhouette altho if it's a stunning bird shot, I may just interpret it in ink.

First up, my favorite Steller's Jay photo.  Part of what I'm doing while not in the studio is learning my new photo software (Affinity) and I'll be creating a layer off this photo with lines that can be used as a silkscreen.  

And of course I have to have a Great Blue Heron shot.  So many choices.  Here's a flying heron that I love because of the water background.  I think the alcohol ink will be great for doing that background.  If I use this one, I'll probably crop it in but that will be a balancing act between focusing on the heron and keeping enough of the water to give that spacious feeling.

The other candidate is one taken at Tennant Lake in April so we joked about the heron keeping social distance from us on the boardwalk.

This one is more of a classic standing pose and that's always a popular choice.

Remembering birding in So Cal

 My back is keeping me out of the studio for now and I've been catching up on some of those computer things that wait until I have time for them.  This has meant organizing my ebook backup directory by author and sorting through some bird photos.  Which led to my discovery of a report of a birding trip in 2005 when I went to San Diego and then the Salton Sea for birding.  I went with a birding friend, Tina, who took this picture of a cactus wren.

I used this photo, printed on silk with some color changes, to try out some various ideas about using bird photos to make art.  These 2 pieces are in the finished but not happy with them drawer for 2 reasons.  First, I wasn't happy with the pieces themselves and second, the stitching required to do this was just too difficult.  

So, as part of going through and cleaning stuff up, I'm looking at these older unsatisfactory pieces and wondering if they would work better as collage rather than piecing.  I keep coming back to this idea for 2 reasons.  One, I'd like to use my bird photographs in my work.  Second, I really liked this bushtit piece which was done using piecing and some silkscreening.  Also Inktense pencils.  

Looking at the piece I like in comparison to the 2 I don't like, I can see a couple of major differences.  The contrast between the photo colors and the other fabric is one.  The second is the thinner pieces of fabric work better in the bushtit piece.  So while I work on getting my back happy again, I'll be contemplating these pieces.

Birchwood Park birding

Last week, one of my birding trips was to Birchwood Park.  It's a small neighborhood park, mostly urban park style with picnic tables, basketball court and a kid's playground.  But all of those things are closed off right now and it abuts the trail that runs from Squalicum Creek Park down to Squalicum Beach.  I have had good luck finding warblers along this trail so I went to check it out.

I was pleasantly surprised at the variety and number of birds.  Alas, only one warbler, an orange-crowned, but lots of other birds and lots of good camera shots.

White-crowned sparrow was my first camera volunteer. 

The next up for the camera was a Spotted Towhee.  There's a staircase up from Squalicum Creek and at the top of it, there's a cluster of trees that get sun so it's usually an excellent place to catch some birds singing.  Spring is the time to see these towhees as they are usually shy and skulking in the bushes.  In springtime, they are bold and fearless. 

My final camera volunteer was a Bewick's Wren found along the side trail that leads down to Squalicum Creek from the end of a neighborhood street.  He was at the top of a snag where I often find hummingbirds. 

Also found but not photographed:  bushtits, chickadees, flickers, gulls, crows, robins and a finch.  For a short walk, it was a good birding experience.

Birding continues with baby wood ducks

I've been very busy this week, between the 4 birding trips and finishing off the taxes.  Then I had to upload and sort all the photos.  So it's taken me until today to have time and energy to blog about all the fabulous birds.

Baby Wood Ducks!  Jeff joined me on a trip to Scudder Pond to see the reported baby wood ducks.  It was a warm sunny and there were lots of other folks there so we had a chance for some safe casual socializing and talking about birds.  It took us a while to locate the mama duck and her 9 ducklings but we had lots of other birds to distract us so that was cool.  Once we spotted them, the ducklings headed straight for us in that cute wandering all over the lily pads way that ducklings use to navigate.  So I got many wonderful shots of them.

I also got my first of the year rufous hummingbird.  It's fabulous when they sit at the very top of a leafless branch catching the sun with all their glorious color lighting up.  It's times like these that I start rethinking my decision to not have a honking big lens to carry around.

There was also an unexpected cedar waxwing spotted on the way back to the car in addition to all the usual inhabitants of the area.

It was a glorious day of birding and I am looking forward to more days this next week.

birding 2020: awesome week with 2 trips to Tennant Lake

This week I went to Tennant Lake to see swallows.  Twice.  The first time was cloudy and fairly breezy with a definite chill but I got some swallow sightings and got some excellent photos of a couple of Common Yellowthroats having a song duel.  Since this is possibly the second or third time I've seen one, I was thrilled.

Not only did I see a bird which has not been at all common for me, but I got the traditional spring bird singing with his head thrown back pose.   So even with not much in the way of birds, Tuesday, my first day out there, was good. 

So I talked Jeff into going with me on Thursday as I wanted to try the boardwalk.  Between my CFS and my ankles, I was a bit leery of going by myself so I was really happy he came along.  And what a great birding day it turned out to be!

We got swallows, almost immediately, and then heard lots of birds but didn't see so many until we were about halfway through the boardwalk loop in the marsh.  Then the birds just came flocking to us.  A mourning dove, a common merganser, a marsh wren, all good sightings and easy to spend some quality time with.  Then the timer went off so we headed back at a brisk walk since Jeff had a zoom meeting scheduled.  Two twists of the boardwalk later, we surprised a Great Blue Heron fishing from the platform.  He squawked, I squawked (those beaks are big and sharp) and he did a small flight hop away.  I was disappointed I didn't get a chance at a photo but we continued on.  And ran into him again a couple turns later.  This time, he didn't startle, so I got my camera up and focused and we followed him slowly down the boardwalk, pausing for good photo ops.  I got some excellent shots and it was a wonderful ending to our trip.  (Yes, Jeff made it to his meeting with plenty of time to spare.)

I posted the full body shot on Instagram, here's the head shot.

I find birding to be a wonderful stress reliever so I'm feeling great today and looking forward to setting up my backyard birding area this weekend.  I hope your selfcare routines are working as well.

2020 Birding: a swallow hunt

Today I went to Scudder Pond to look for swallows.  It's not the best place for those birds locally, but I also wanted to see Wood Ducks and look for any lingering warblers.  Alas, I missed out on all 3 of my goal birds, a frequent event in birding.  So I enjoyed the birds that were there:  Red-Winged Blackbirds, Spotted Towhee, a surprise group of Pine Siskins, an abundance of sparrows and one active and feisty Black-Capped Chickadee.   Later this week I will venture out to the best swallow spot I know (Tennant Lake) where I can see the swallows from the parking lot.

Here's some photos from early May of last year.

swallow at birdhouse off of boardwalk

And my favorite funny shot, butt end of swallow.

My blood pressure is up slightly, I'm assuming from the lockdown stress, so I am going to up my birding since that's one of my selfcare practices.  I hope you are taking care of yourself too.

Birch Bay trip cut short

So, stuff happens, right?  We ended up coming home after a couple of days since all the restaurants in our area along Birch Bay closed completely.  I can understand not bothering with takeout since they're not that busy this time of year anyway but if I'm going to be cooking dinner, I'd rather do it in my own kitchen.  And they closed the Canadian border, or at least limited it enough that day trips to Canada for birding seemed unlikely.  So, we came back.

But not before trying out some of the birding possibilities.  We got some great views of scoters from the walkway in front of our condo on the 5th floor.  Alas, my eye issues meant I needed to use the big screen to aim the camera and the glare from all that sun on Monday made that not work well so I only got one good distant shot.  Not bad for no walk birding though as long as you don't mind the gray wires slicing through the view.

Tuesday we went to Semiahmoo fairly early.  Small birds weren't out in numbers altho we did see a Bewick's wren in the bushes.  Again, lots of scoters and gulls.  And lots of benches so I didn't get a chance to use my new stool altho I carried it along with no problems.

There were clouds and early morning light so the colors are very different but this is good enough to see the distinctive scoter beak.

But the best shot of the day was a closeup of a gull. 

I'm not great at gulls but I'd call this a Glacous-winged Gull.

We'll be trying out the monoscope and the walking stick at the heronry here in Bellingham while doing our social distanced birding.   I'm going to do as much birding as possible because it really helps me stay calm and happy. 

Birding accomodations for CFS/ME

Jeff and I are heading off to Blaine for a week, roughly 35 miles away and we'll be cocooning in a condo near a fabulous birding spot.  Lots of reading, videos and takeout food in our future.  But to make it easier for me to go the whole 1.6 mile roundtrip distance at Semiahmoo Spit, I have some accommodations I'll be trying out.

Here's everything but the electric scooter. 

A folding, adjustable stool so I can sit instead of standing when we pause the walking to look at birds.  Standing causes more fatigue than walking or sitting so I want to avoid it as much as possible.  A walking stick to help reduce the fatigue.  And because I love multitaskers, the stick has had a bit of hardware added to the top so I can mount my new monoscope on it.  The scope comes with a phone camera attachment to allow digiscoping and the complete setup is smaller and much lighter than a full scope with tripod.  Here's hoping it works.

The stool is super easy to fold and collapse and comes with an attached strap for either hand or shoulder carry.  The claim is it can support up to 330 lbs so it should be very stable and easy to use.  Here's the shot of it at full extension.

We're looking forward to a week of no news reports, lots of birding and enjoyable reading and movie watching.  Here's hoping you're doing the same!

Bellingham Heronry is under construction

This last week Jeff & I went to Fairhaven to visit the heronry and try out a new restaurant.  The herons have started building and remodeling their nests and the deciduous trees haven't leafed out yet so the viewing was fabulous.  Alas, while I took my camera, I left the SD card sitting next to the computer so all the photos were taken using my phone camera.  Next time, I'll prepare better.

The largest lumps in the photo are the nests and the other ones are herons.  Binoculars or some kind of scope are very helpful as the nests are up in the top of trees and the trees are separated from the path by a generous fenced greenbelt area.  However there are at least two dozen herons there working on the nests so it's a wonderful opportunity to observe them.

There were also lots of other birds as it was a sunny day. 

Mallards and buffleheads predominated but we got some quality face time with a couple of chickadees who wanted to chat. 

A good day and the kind of stress reliever I need right now.  Hoping you are coping as well.

Summertime joy: birds & roses

Yesterday was spent with a friend, celebrating her birthday by looking for birds and flowers.  Bright sunny day, warm weather, time at the ocean with a friend of more than 35 years.  Life doesn't get much better than that.

Unfortunately, we had misread the tide tables and went to Semiahmoo Spit at low tide rather than high.  Not many birds at all but a day with time to watch the water sparkle and smell the sea air is a good day.

We then decided to go check out the heronry in Fairhaven with a stop at the always fabulous Colophon Cafe for lunch first.  The herons are active, apparently trying to teach the babies to flap their wings.  The young are still fluff balls so it will likely be a bit longer before the kiddies try to fly down to the water on the other side of the walking trail.  We did find several small birds along the train, including the singing Bewick's Wren above.  This was a new bird for Mischa and the First of the Year sighting for me so that was nice.

We ended the day visiting the rose garden at the corner of Cornwall & Illinois.  The roses are all in bloom and we took some nice pics of some of the most glorious.

Mischa was looking for a multi-colored rose similar to Tropicana and this was a nice grandiflora showing some of the same color blending.  This is also on my list of roses to put in the front yard when I get to redoing the yard.

I hope you all also have a glorious summer weekend.  After all the walking yesterday, I'm spending today reading and enjoying our airconditioning. 

The beauty of ordinary birds

I went to Scudder Pond yesterday, hoping to see some swallows, maybe a warbler or two.  Alas, my hopes were dashed yet I had a wonderful day because I got some closeup looks at some of the common birds.  First up, some Canada Geese were in the pond.  Normally, they are in the larger, deeper pond down the hill but this time, they were right there.  And not at all shy about having their photos taken.

I kept getting interrupted by the extremely active and numerous redwing blackbirds.  There were at least 6 squabbling over who got the best perches to sing from.  Alas, it seems my autofocus on the camera has a really hard time seeing a small black bird as the focal point rather than a shadow.  That combined with their inability to sit still meant I got lots of shots of a black blur atop a cattail.

Sparrows were fearless.  One has apparently been fed often enough that he kept hopping closer to me to see if I had some seed.  Once I pulled out the camera, he flew off, of course.

But the big surprise was a bird perched high atop a branch but not singing, just keeping an eye out.  The sun was bright enough and he was far enough away, that my eye was fooled into thinking it was a junco.  (Smallish bird with a black hood, brown body.)  It wasn't until I was processing the photos earlier this morning that I realized I had some quality shots of a towhee, one of my favorite common birds. 

Here's to the beautiful birds, common and rare, and to celebrating spring.

Post Point Heronry or where the birds are

April is when the herons start building their nests here in Bellingham and it was a challenge for me this year to get out there for photos before the trees got all their leaves growing in the way.  But we did a couple of days, one with good lighting, so here's some heron photos. 

I'll start with the best shot I got.  This heron was doing some morning preening so getting a good shot of the head in between the leaves was a challenge.

And to truly see how the leaves can get in the way, here's the action shot  spoiled by the leaves.

Post Point has more birds than the herons, of course.  There's a nice cove where the ducks and a killdeer hang out and an adjacent dog park with lots of shrubs for the smaller birds.  Alas, I neglected to snap a shot of the oystercatchers who have moved in but I did get this good shot of the bufflehead.  I've never been close enough to see the green on the back of the head before so that was a nice new experience.

I also got my first warbler of the season on the walk back to the car.  No photo, alas, but all in all, a very lovely birding expedition right in the middle of Bellingham.

New birding board game has me so excited!!!!!!!

I'm on a couple of FB birding lists and I got completely inundated with news about a new board game, Wingspan.  It also got covered by the NYT so no surprise to find out it's already out of stock.  I'm signed up to get notified when they get more printed since there's no way I'm paying triple the price to buy one right now.    But isn't this just the coolest birdy thing ever?

The pic is from the publisher's website as is this description of the game. 

"You are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your habitats (actions). These habitats focus on several key aspects of growth:

Gain food tokens via custom dice in a birdfeeder dice tower
Lay eggs using egg miniatures in a variety of colors
Draw from hundreds of unique bird cards and play them
The winner is the player with the most points after 4 rounds.

If you enjoy Terraforming Mars and Gizmos, we think this game will take flight at your table."

Besides my natural excitement at something that is so forthrightly birdy, the reviews are good on the game & the mechanics so I'm really looking forward to this.  I know what I'm getting myself for an early birthday present!

Birthday birding: Downy at Scudder Pond

This week I went to Scudder Pond a couple of times.  The first time I just took my binoculars because of the eye troubles.  I didn't want to get a headache from trying to do too much focus change by using my camera.  This was the second time in a row I left the camera behind and once again, I had some birds do amazing stuff right in front of me.

Let me explain.  Once the trail gets past the pond and into the area between the pond and Whatcom Falls, there's a trail that heads down to the water to the left.  Right at the intersection of these 2 trails there's a dead tree trunk.  As I walked past it on Tuesday morning, a Downy Woodpecker flew in and entered a big hole at the top of the snag.  I stopped because downys are always cute and there might be fledglings.  While I was waiting and watching, the other Downy flew in.  They were both being very active so it took me quite a while to be sure they were Downys rather than Hairys and the whole time I'm standing there watching, I'm thinking I should have brought my camera.

Picture from my yard

So I went back, on my birthday, with the camera, all ready to get some fabulous shots.  Not only was the place swarming with mosquitos, but nary a woodpecker to be seen on that snag.  So you'll have to be satisfied with a backyard shot of the Downy woodpecker to show you how small and cute they are. But the camera is back on the regular birding kit list and I'll be checking again in the next couple of weeks to see what happens at the Downy home.

best of this week's birding

I got out twice in the last week, well, actually 8 days but it's close, and Pauline and I found several of the sought after birds.  The best of the lot was the Wilson's warbler we got shots of yesterday.  Pauline moved here from the east coast less than a year ago, and the wilson's is a lifer for her.  It's also a tiny little bird, all yellow with that black cap on its head and moves around a lot because warblers do that.  So usually hard to see anyway.  This one got annoyed enough at us chasing it about that it came out into the open and yelled at us.  We apologized profusely and took pictures.  I hope we were all satisfied with that outcome.

From cornell webpage cause mine were too blurry

I didn't take many shots on the earlier trip this month but I did get an interesting series of Common Loon shots.  It was a fairly sunny day and the loon was close enough in that I thought I had a decent shot at catching the green ring around his neck just below the white ring.  The green is usually right at the water level so it's hard to see well but I thought I had a chance with these.

zoom in & see green ring on neck

Then he switched direction and gave a better view of his back.

And then he spotted lunch.  Usually, when the diving birds are diving, it's pretty common to get lots of photos of their backs at the end of the dive just like this one. 

All of these are cropped, of course, to delete all the water around.  This last shot is uncropped to show the expanse of the water and  unexpected second bird (almost to the rocks) I caught without intending it.  The lovely thing about digital cameras is you just keep shooting.

Birding fever begins

Now that I'm past my scheduled art activities for early spring, I can concentrate on birding.  While I'm getting a somewhat late start (earlier is better because leaves are in the way now), the reports coming in from other birders about warblers and western tanagers have me fired up to go walk in the woods.

Yesterday, Pauline & I tried the Chuckanut Pocket Estuary which has a history of having many birds in May.  We got there just at high tide which brings the seabirds in closer and would have had a fabulous day except for the wind coming in off the water.  The smaller birds were not coming out of the bushes and who could blame them.  So we heard lots of common yellowthroats for example, but mostly saw ducks and other water birds.  We did see a small flock of house finches before we gave up because the birds weren't the only ones who didn't like the wind. 

We ended up hitting Marine Park where we finally found the elusive green heron and then going to the other side of the railroad tracks to pursue the warblers we were hearing but couldn't quite get bins on to get a good look, with the exception of a couple of yellow-rumped warblers who crossed the tracks to tease us.  Our first bird on the dog trail/heronry side of the tracks was a bewick's wren doing a fabulous display of singing style. 

Bewick's wren belting it out

We got a nice number of species of birds on that trail but not many good photos mostly because I was having so much fun looking that I forgot to snap photos.  I totally failed to use my camera on good shots of herons in the heronry, the 2 black oystercatchers grazing along the rocky shore of the lagoon, and a fabulous kingfisher who spent a couple minutes flying back and forth between the rails on the tracks and the snag on the far side of the lagoon.  The sun was out, the wind was calmer here and it was one of those days that sparkle in my memory.

I'm looking forward to several more days like this during May.  I hope you get to enjoy spring as well.

Thinking of birds while doing taxes...

Norwescon was wonderful except for the walking more than 12 miles and trashing my ankles.  Then getting the flu.  And then starting on the taxes, almost done, huzzah!  But during this tsunami of life stuff, I took half a day to go to Canada so I could go to part of Washington:  Point Roberts.  Where Pauline, my local birding pal, and I got to see 36 Harlequin ducks bobbing about.  And a sea lion.  And almost a dozen eagles.  I'm thinking there were some schools of fish out there somewhere...

But the Harlequins!  They are gorgeous birds and I've never seen that many of them in one place nor heard them make so much noise before.  I particularly enjoyed the group that came up almost onto the beach and played in the surf.  My camera battery died, so this picture is courtesy of Pauline.

Waiting for the wave

These guys were riding the waves as they came on shore and playing in the surf.  One of those amazing birding experiences that keep me going out there as much as possible. 

Craving Spring

There are 2 reasons why I'm really craving spring:  first, more birds.  Of Course.  And second, I really want to be past the tree pollen & sinus infection time of the year.  I'm going to visit the doctor later today to try and take care of this years' sinus problem which should improve my life considerably.  But to enjoy the birds, I'm going to have a wait a bit.  For now, I'm going back over recent bird photos and here's one I took on a walk to a local park. 

I particularly liked the hardy fuschias in the foreground.  Here's hoping I see more birds soon and am finally over my marathon of flu, colds & sinus crud.  Because all of this illness has made it really hard to get much of anything done.

Up later this week:  photos and descriptions of the destashing going on in my studio.  Fabric and patterns will be going up for sale on my etsy store as I feel better in the near future.  Here's hoping you and yours have made it through this flu season with ease.