What do they see?

Two birds on Tyee Spit:

Pigeon, finding something to eat in among the stones.

So ubiquitous they are, so tame, that sometimes we forget to notice how beautiful they are.

Eagle, watching the Strait.

What is he seeing up there? Possible meals, gulls, fish? Or does he also see the blue of the sky, the patterns made by tidal currents, the texture of the green, forested hillside across the water?

Turning to look at me; "What are you doing, crunching around down there?"

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Dos pájaros en Tyee Spit:

    1. Una palomita, buscando golosinas entre las piedras del estacionamiento.

Tan comunes son, siempre presentes, que a veces, por habituación, no apreciamos su belleza.

    2. Una águila, observando el estrecho.

¿Qué estará observando allí? ¿Presa: gaviotas, peces? ¿O verá, como nosotros, lo azul del cielo, los diseños que dibujan las corrientes en el agua, la textura del bosque verde en la isla opuesta?

    3. Volviendo para mirarme — ¡Tanto ruido haces con tus pies en las piedras allí abajo!¡Déjame en paz! — Y vuelve otra vez a su contemplación del estrecho.

Branches, not quite bare

The hydrangea outside my kitchen window is all over new buds. A sign of early spring, maybe, or just a response to the warm weather; it may be a mistake, if we end up with winter weather later this month.

The red alders are wearing their red catkins, too. They started producing them last November, and a bit (or a lot) of freezing weather won't phase them.

Red alder, Alnus rubra, January 2025.

The male alder flowers are the long, reddish catkins. Female catkins are smaller, and oval-shaped, greenish when they're new. Both male and female catkins appear before the leaves, but the males will drop off once pollination is finished. The female catkins will develop into small, brown cones; these stay on the tree over the winter. About now, the seeds will be dropping from between the scales of these cones. The first beginnings of pinkish leaf buds are showing at the tips of the branches.

Snag with eagle. No buds on this tree, but there's lichen.

Big-leaf maple. No leaves, no buds, no catkins yet.

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Hay botones nuevos en la hortensia en frente de mi casa. ¿Señal de primavera, tal vez? ¿Una respuesta al clima que este año, hasta ahora, ha pasado por alto el invierno? ¿O un error que se pagará si es que veamos temperaturas de invierno más tarde?

Los alisos rojos ahora estrenan sus candelillas rojizas. Las empezaron a producir en noviembre, y no les espanta el frio, aunque todo se congele.

1. Rama de aliso rojo, Alnus rubra, ahora en enero, 2025. Las candelillas machas son largas y rojas. Las candelillas hembras son más chicas, redondeadas, verdes cuando están nuevecitas. Tanto las candelillas machas como las hembras salen antes de que aparezcan las hojas, pero las candelillas machas se caerán una vez terminada la temporada de polinización. Las candelillas hembras formarán pequeñas piñas; estas permanecen en el árbol durante todo el invierno, y ahora las semillas están escapando de entre las escamas. Y se ven en la punta de las ramas los primeros brotes rojizos de las hojas.
2. El árbol estará muerto, pero lleva vida; el águila y los líquenes que cubren las ramas.
3. Un arce de hoja grande. Este árbol todavía no muestra señas de hojas, ni sus botones, ni las candelillas que aparecerán más tarde.

Peaceful afternoon

 It stopped raining. I went down to the shore. All was still, dreaming under grey skies.

Distant blue hills, and a flight of ducks.

The recent high tides have brought in a new layer of logs to line the shore, and with them, a mixed bag of gleanings from the sea floor; kelps large and small, Turkish towel seaweeds, sugar-wrack, many pieces of sponge, by now bleached almost white, crab molts and oyster shells and eelgrass tangles ... It's all wound together between the logs.

I found this small bull kelp holdfast on a piece of abalone shell:

A small abalone, half gone, well worn down.

Inside the shell, the markings painted a picture of waves splashing on a beach.

Splash!

I came to the dike facing the shallow lagoon behind the breakwater, at the moment, with the tide far out, only a circular mud flat. In the distance, where the sea has built a new spit, aiming to enclose the lagoon entirely, I saw a white speck on the sand. The little pocket camera's zoom found it; an eagle. And more. Here's the photo, uncropped.

Eagle, muddy tide flats, green alga-covered rocks, and Purple Martin nest boxes.

And I see in the photo what my eyes couldn't discover: that someone has built and installed new nest boxes. That makes me happy. And what a job that must have been! That mud is deep, sticky, treacherous. As the sign says, "Unsuitable for walking".

Photo taken 3 months ago. Missing nest boxes. Glad they've been replaced.

A Skywatch post.

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Dejó de llover. Y me fui a la playa. Todo dormía bajo un cielo gris.

Foto #1: El mar, el cielo, montañas azules en la distancia, y una bandada de patos volando.

Las recientes mareas altas han traído muchos troncos nuevos para dejarlos tirados en las dunas, y con ellos, una colación de fragmentos de vida marina: quelpos grandes y pequeños, algas Toalla Turca, kelp de azúcar, muchos pedazos de esponjas ya blanqueados, las mudas de cangrejos, conchas de ostiones, enredos de hierba marina Zostera, y más.

En un pedazo de concha de abulón encontré un anclaje de quelpo chico.

Foto #2: La concha con su anclaje. En el fondo, troncos apilados en las dunas.

Foto #3: En el interior de la concha, se ve un dibujo de ondas de mar salpicando la playa.

Llegué al dique que limita la laguna atrás del rompeolas. En ese momento, con la marea bien baja, era un campo de lodo. En la distancia, donde el mar está construyendo una nueva lengua de tierra, con el fin, parece, de encerrar la laguna, vi un puntito blanco. El zoom de la cámara de bolsillo lo encontró; era un águila. Y vió algo más, un detalle que mis ojos no lograron descubrir.

Foto #4: El águila, piedras cubiertas de algas, el lodo. Y nidos de golondrinas purpúreas.

Y lo que veo en la foto es que alguien ha construido e instaldo cajas para nidos nuevas. Eso me alegra. ¡Y qué trabajo eso ha de haber sido! Ese lodo es profundo, pegajoso, peligroso. Como dice el letrero: "No Apropriado para Caminar".

Foto #5: El mismo sitio, hace 3 meses. Entonces faltaban las cajas de nido.

Esto ha sido un post de "Skywatch". Ve, y mira fotos de cielos alrededor del mundo.

Odds and ends

Tidying up the June photo folders: There are distant birds, ...

Eagle in the mist. Oyster Bay.

Cormorant, ready to dive again.

... roadside flowers ...

Foxglove, with 4 spiders and a bug. Can you find them all?

St. John's wort. With glossy beetle. I love the "stiches" around the edges of the petals.

flowers with a leaf for identification purposes ...

False bugbane, Trautvetteria caroliniensis. I think.

Or maybe not.

... and a whole stack of tree trunk photos. But I'll leave those to their own post.

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Estoy organizando las fotos que saqué en junio y que no llegué a subir. Hay pájaros en la distancia, flores al lado del camino, y unas flores con sus hojas, para ayudar en la identificación. Y muchas fotos de troncos de árboles. Pero esas, las dejaré para otro dia.

Fotos:

1. Un águila entre la neblina.
2. Un cormorán listo para sumergirse de nuevo.
3. Unas dedaleras, Digitalis purpurea, con 4 arañas y otro bichito. ¿Los puedes encontrar todos?
4. Hierba de San Juan. Me gustan esas puntadas a las orillas de los pétalos.
5. Trautvetteria caroliniensis. Creo.
6. La hoja.

Just because

... I like old wood. And eagles.

Eagle and totem on the museum lawn.

... and long, long memories.

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Águila y totem, en frente del museo. Repositorio de memorias de antaño.

One feathered eagle

Every year local chainsaw artists gather in a park at Willow Point to carve logs into sculptures. This year, there were dragons, bears, eagles, salmon, among others. I walked around looking at them; marvelous! Some were beautiful. But they were too new, too bright, too alien to the park around them: I looked at my photos and deleted them all. Another day, after a few rains.

And then there was this old totemic eagle, who's been standing in the shade for 8 years, gently blending in.

Someone seems to have thought he needed feathers. Only one available, though. In the background, a brown bear.

Things on pilings

Just because.

Signs, windsock, barnacles, chains and ladders. Quadra Island ferry landing.

Fireweed.

Gull.

Not a piling. Snag with eagle, from the ferry.

Hard working parents

Bringing home the groceries:

Purple martins at their nest box.

Seen from the Royston Seaside Trail, across the bay from Comox.

The male is purple and brown; the female is the one at the nest; she has a grey collar. She fed the youngsters first, then the male came in with his offering.

Look closely; there is a wire cage above the nest box. As I was leaving, an eagle came and perched on the top of the pilings. Were it not for the wire cage, he could have made a good lunch of martin chicks.

Bare branch serendipity

Another reason to appreciate the winter months: driving by on the highway, en route to collect water for my aquarium, I saw an eagle's nest, usually hidden behind green stuff. I turned off at the next road, turned again, and again, and came up on the tree from the far side. From one spot, I had a clear view, without too many intervening branches.

Eagle and her nest.

She's eating something pink.

Another turn, and I found another viewpoint, from someone's driveway.

The eagle. I can't see what she's eating.

Of course the nest is empty at this time of year, but now I've found it, and the two possible spots from which to view it; I'll be back in the spring.

Eagle and four crows

Through the windshield while I waited in a line of cars for the light to change.

Tree skeleton, holding a dozen or so yellow leaves still. And the birds.

And then the light changed and the car behind revved his motor. Get a move on!

The glare

On a ruined tree, torn apart as the hillside swept down to the river in the last Bella Coola flood, an eagle was surveying the river on the far side of the highway. He didn't appreciate my presence, nor the camera poking out the car window.

"Hmmpph! Intruders, always intruders!"

I eased the car forward a few feet, hoping for a closer shot, and he dropped off his perch and flew away, up the hill and over the trees beyond.

Insane eagle

These two photos are total duds, but I can't look at them without laughing.  This eagle was on the sand at Boundary Bay beach at low tide and 'way off in the distance. The gull came up behind him, and he started to dance.

"Come on, dance with me!"

"We make a good couple, don't we?'

Interim birds

I am feeling seriously bird-deprived. Except for the sandpipers at Crescent Beach the other day and the mallards at Cougar Creek, all the birds we have seen recently have been far, far away, and mostly on their way to distant shores. We keep making plans to go to Reifel Island, but the weather and our schedules keep getting in the way. Maybe this week, as soon as the sun comes out again.

Meanwhile, I've culled a few shots from Laurie's camera, which does distances better than my prime lens. They'll serve as a temtempié* for now.

*(Temtempié, Mexican idiom for "appetizer, snack". A corruption of "tente en pie" = "keep you standing up".)

Eagle, Crescent Beach. In an unusual pose for this tribe; they tend to be just the other side of that trunk, or see, up at the top, that white spot? or soaring over the top of the hill, heading for White Rock.

The one, lonely wigeon at Cougar Creek park this month. His vibrant colours work as camouflage as long as he stays near the shore of the lake.

"After splashdown, an explorer leaves his still-glowing space capsule, unfolds his beak and legs, and takes stock: 'Let's see, there's a big, black, short-legged bird over there, a few white and grey squealers scattered around. Not much else. But it looks like I've landed in a colony of tunnellers; look at all those chimneys! Could be worth my time to stay here.'"

Okay, I'll be sensible.

Robin hiding on us in a maze of bare branches on a misty afternoon. Cougar Creek Park.

Last year's pumpkins, with eagle

We always wonder about this: why do eagles often sit in the fields, when there are so many good trees around? They never seem to be doing anything, and there's no prey to be caught.

Unless they like rotting pumpkins and turnips.

Westham Island, just outside Reifel Bird Sanctuary.

Reifel regulars

The second installment of Reifel Island photos, in no particular order:

Coot and his shadow.

I looked up voice recordings of the coot, on All About Birds (Cornell), because I was wondering how to spell the call I hear most often. Surprisingly, they have seven separate recordings, of various squeaks, clicks, and squawks, "krrps" and "priks", but not the note I was looking for; a hollow "glop" sound, sort of like a cork popping out of a wine bottle, or a like a booted foot, stuck in ankle-deep mud, reluctantly released;, a backwards "plop". That doesn't quite do it justice, though; the other calls are grating. This one is almost musical, a nice rounded tone, suddenly being cut off mid-note. Have you heard it? How would you describe it?

Cross-eyed eagle. Not his fault; he had a branch in his eye and I took it out.

Ma Wood Duck, showing off her many petticoats.

"Hurry, hurry! Someone has goodies!"

I am always surprised at the sharp hearing of the ducks. Even against a constant chorus of "Quack, quack, quack, oh quack-quack-quack-quack-QUACK!", as soon as someone a couple of ponds away rustles a bit of paper, ducks from all over drop what they're doing and race to the source. This time, all I had to do to wake up a hundred sleepy mallards was to slowly slide the bag of seeds out of my pocket.

Fat little towhee in a wild cherry tree. Or are those small crabapples?

Three more wood ducks and reflections.

More to come, tomorrow.

Golden eagle

A few shots of the golden eagle in the tree:

The head is smaller, compared to his size, than the Bald eagle's.

Crows watching eagles, as usual.

From directly underneath his branch, the juvenile's white patch at the base of the tail is clearly visible.

This eagle perched quite low in the tree; almost within reach, if we'd had a fishing pole or similar stick. The Bald eagles we usually see prefer the tops of the tallest trees.

Golden lifer

We stepped from the street out onto the beach just north of the US border, and immediately, Laurie said, "What's that?"

"That" was a huge, dark lump in a tree south of us, black and shapeless against the light, too big for a bald eagle. We walked down to see, and it waited for us until we got the light at our backs, then flew off to stand on a post in the bay.

A golden eagle! The first I've seen in the wild! (As far as I know.)

With Mount Baker in the background.

A juvenile, by the white patches under the tail and on the wings.

A woman walking on the shore told us they nest on the cliffs above the bay, in Point Roberts.

On the way to this piling, the eagle swooped down, towards a heron fishing in the tidepools. The heron saw him coming, and rose to meet him, beak agape, squawking angrily. The eagle changed his mind and swerved up, to sit and sulk on the post.

We both missed the shot.

Two more photos tomorrow, once I've resized them.

The earth is a hollow sphere

... with us on the inside. Or so I've heard. From people who think they know*.

Now I have positive proof. See:

See that horizon? It's bending upwards, like a bowl. Not downwards, as it would be if we were on the outside of a sphere**.

That was looking north from near Kwomais Point. Here's the view looking south:

Hmmm... It looks as though it were slightly raised in the center.

Maybe the hypothesis needs a little work.

More weirdness:

Why do eagles so often sit on the most uncomfortable and treacherous part of a snag?

Yellowlegs in deep water (for him). Can't wait for the tide to go down to catch a worm.

A normal view of Crescent Beach, with gulls and the North Shore mountains. Just because I always love this scene.

* Filed under Crackpottery.
** Or near-sphere.