Month: August 2017

Tideline

SlbtAu232017a

Morning

Nice to be up early. The tide is out and the local diners are taking advantage of the fact, like the Mew Gulls working the water’s edge. A young Oyster Catcher probes for sea worms and other delicacies among the rocks. Several young crows, jet-black adult plumage replacing their juvenile brown, follow this other black bird hoping, I suppose, for a free meal. Incidentally, Oystercatcher. It’s a cool name but is catching oysters really a skill? Seriously?

OysrctchAu232017

Black Oystercatcher

YngcrowAu232017

Juvenile Crow

OCandCrwAug232017

You sort of look like my mom…

A few seals are here. This adult is surely one of the females who have lately been using our safe little bay as a kind of creche. We counted six tiny pups last night at high tide. A Kingfisher rattles, takes a fish and retreats before I can grab a picture. Seven or eight Greater Yellowlegs have taken up residence here and the same number of Killdeer, piping as they scurry about. I reckon I’ve seen more than a hundred birds and animals in twenty minutes or so. Everybody’s doing their own thing, not minding me. Nice morning this one, nice.

 

SealAug232017

Harbour Seal

MwGullAug232017

Mew Gull

yllwlgsAug232017

Greater Yellowlegs

 

 

Killdeer Bath Time

 

 

 

Mount Hood

MthdviewAu72017

Haze

I’m looking down on smoke produced by fires in British Columbia and driven out the valleys of the Fraser and Columbia. With no strong westerlies, or rain, to stop it, the haze now covers the west from Medford to Whistler. And it’s hot, very hot – a hundred and five in Portland. So I’m up here at eleven thousand feet where the air is clean and the temperature comfortable. There’s even snow. I’m looking for Mountain Bluebirds, Clark’s Nutcracker and other high country species but most other visitors aren’t so inclined. They trudge past carrying skis and snowboards heading for the runs a mile away. Good on them – they’re all a lot younger than me. Skiing in August is just about the last thing I feel like doing.

MtHdAu82072017

The Ski Hill

I carry on, sidestepping rivulets of melt water and blooming alpine plants, going higher. Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels seem to be everywhere, gathering and storing food for the winter. Several species of butterflies chase each other across the broken terrain, flashing orange and black. The biggest are Tortoiseshells, strong fliers and fast. I find a comfortable-looking boulder and sit to admire slopes adorned with yellow wild buckwheat, purple asters, fleabane and lupines – how clever of nature to do the complimentary colour thing. Then I empty my shoes of ash and pumice and head down the mountain towards the smoke and heat. Ah, me. At least they have good food and wine in Portland.

ClrksnutAu202014a

Clark’s Nutcracker

MluntBlueJu30mtHd

Mountain Bluebird

GMtlgrndsqau142016

Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel

 

Paintbrush, Aster Fleabane, Alpine Aster

WesterntortoiseshellAu72017

Western Tortoiseshell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Metaphorically

DowgrpJul242017

Short-billed Dowitchers

We’ve had four weeks of perfect weather here on the west coast. Sunny, twenty-one degrees, enough breeze to keep the air fresh – it’s unnerving, like the year is stuck, like two tectonic plates binding, like something’s going to pop. Too dramatic? I blame it on Philip Kerr’s great Bernie Gunther mysteries. I’m reading one now. Following Bernie, I’m tempted throw similes around like a float rider tossing beads in a Mardi Gras parade. Anyway, the year isn’t stuck; shorebirds are passing through, juveniles mostly.

YellowlgsJul242017

Greater Yellowlegs

Greater Yellowlegs are back. A few weeks ago, I heard their rapid, three-syllable calls at night — weet-weet-weet – and now seven are working the shoreline, dashing about, heads bobbing. Black-bellied Plovers are in the area too; a large flock cruised past the Marina yesterday on their way to Discovery Island, clear, piping voices carrying far, even above the breeze and the chiming shrouds of moored sailboats.

BBPlovers5

Black-bellied Plovers

Dow44Jul242017

Short-billed Dowitcher

SBdowsJul242017

Storm Sewer Bonanza!

Four young short-billed Dowitchers surprise me by landing near a storm sewer outlet a dozen feet from a busy walkway and begin probing for treats. Seems a bit stinky to me but they seem to like it. They’ve come from nesting grounds in Alaska or northern Alberta. If they came by way of the Interior Plateau, they’ve flown above the massive forest fires threatening Williams Lake, Hundred Mile and other Cariboo communities.

So, the migration has begun, with lots of sandpipers and plovers reported in the area. It’s going to get really hot here in a day or two. Makes me long for cool fall days and soggy birding – no, not really. A rainy night though, that might be nice – like an ice-cream sundae on a…no, like a bowl of cold strawberries after a…nope…aww, forget it.