Posted Feb 25, 2016 from Seattle, WA In contrast to the “We mess with Texas” trip, no sunscreen was needed on our recent four-day expedition to the Okanogan. After an early start we were going great guns picking up birds on I-90 on Friday morning. A...
Feeding birds involves making a pact with the Devil, but it got so cold and rainy I felt so sorry for the Spotted Towhees scratching around back there that I went and bought some bird food. Between the creek and the free food, we’re chumming in some nice...
Posted Dec. 7, 2015 from Seattle, WA I just realized that since the Inland Waters of Southern British Columbia and Western Washington have now been renamed, and are officially the Salish Sea, that means that a trip on one of the ferries is an oversea voyage. In...
Posted Nov. 20, 2015 from Seattle, WA I’ve heard “Don’t mess with Texas” my whole life. If I took it seriously, I would probably go to Florida, Hawaii or California to find subtropical birds in the US, rather than “messing” with Texas. But Delia and I...
Posted from the Seattle, WA, October 30, 2015 Fall is sort of a benign time in the high desert SW. No hot windy duststorms like sometimes in spring, and none of the cold that traditionally at least used to come with winter--knock on wood there's snow in the high...
Posted September 2, 2015 from Seattle, WA; updated Oct. 5, 2015 The big news from Butyl Creek is that Delia and I have designated the entire length of the creek, all the way from Butyl Falls to Pumphouse Lake as a “Wild and Scenic Creek.” No...
Posted from Seattle August 12, 2015 The Atacama Desert in SW Peru gets the same total of rainfall every year: none. With no rainfall lately-- (Newsflash: Until today right now at noon!!! A thunderstorm no less! PS.: at 1 pm: It didn't produce rain here on Beacon...
Posted june 28, 2015 from Seattle, WA Not far from Port Townsend is the largest breeding island in the world for Rhinocerous Auklets, a seabird closely related to Puffins. We took a trip Sat evening led by the famous expert Bainbridge Island bird trip leader George Gerdts to...
Posted june 28, 2015 from Seattle, WA Not far from Port Townsend is the largest breeding island in the world for Rhinocerous Auklets, a seabird closely related to Puffins. We took a trip Sat evening led by the famous expert Bainbridge Island bird trip leader George Gerdts to...
See and help save the American Prairie! Posted June 14, 2015 from Seattle WA “I love Paris in the springtime,” goes the old jazz standard, but there’s another place that gets magical around that time and that’s North Dakota! My friend Brian Pendleton, who I teamed up...
Posted April 22, 2015 Earth Day from Seattle, WA Bob and Katie are gone, sadly, but it wasn’t hard for Delia and me to imagine their presence as we showed my brother Denis the “Ranch.” This was his first visit. Springtime isn’t the prettiest time in...
Posted March 29, 2015 from Seattle, WA Delia and I have made some half-hearted trips out of Seattle including today to Point No Point. We found our first Orange-crowned Warbler of the season there, a big squadron of Brant were bravely swimming out in the wind-whipped...
Posted Feb 7, 2015 from Seattle, WA Delia and I went down to the bootheel of New Mexico again over the holidays. We had a dust-storm in Wilcox, Arizona on Christmas day, then a snowstom Christmas night and another snowstorm on New Years Day. I got a...
Posted Nov 92014, from Seattle, WA Delia and I went out to Three Forks Wildlife Management Unit yesterday, that’s near North Bend and Snoqualmie, WA and encountered this little King. This is a male Golden-crowned Kinglet. Probably like most birders, I never thought that much about the...
Posted October 4, 2014 from Seattle, WA We recently went up to Glacier Basin on Mt. Rainier. On the way outside Enumclaw this Coyote was in a field. We stopped and I got out to shoot it, which Coyotes almost always take literally, as this one...
Posted July 19, 2014 from Seattle WA We’re still tying up the loose ends from my beloved parents-in-law's passing, so we just got back from a trip to the land where they lived for 40 years in the New Mexico bootheel. Getting there involves a 7 mile...
Posted July 19, 2014 from Seattle WA We’re still tying up the loose ends from my beloved parents-in-law's passing, so we just got back from a trip to the land where they lived for 40 years in the New Mexico bootheel. Getting there involves a 7 mile...
Posted from Seattle May 24, 2014 Brian Pendleton and I got back last night from our GREAT MIDWEST WARBLER SAFARI. We landed in Chicago on May 16 and birded beginning Saturday May 17 through yesterday May 23 at 3 pm in Indiana. No, make that 5...
Posted April 27, 2014 from Seattle, WA The songbirds are migrating north and our creek is becoming bath central. We live on Beacon Hill, where except for the Cheasty Greenbelt, creeks are all piped away to the Westport Sewage plant. So we installed a 15 foot creek...
Posted Feb 23 2014 from Seattle We said goodby to CD Littlefield and headed down canyon through the old gates to the ranch yesterday morning. We had 15 minutes to spare in Tucson near the airport and stopped at a drain-way/arroyo --that mercifully wasn’t concretized-- to...
Posted from Seattle Feb 2, 2014 We have to make a trip down to the ranch where Delia’s late dearly beloved parents spent their last 38 years. Calling it a ranch may sound pretentious to some, as it is a conservation ranch with no livestock. It’s in...
Posted July 20, 2013 from Seattle, WA The Violet-green Swallow family living in a nestbox on our house has fledged three or more babies. Here is the Mom at the box. Mom had no problem with me taking photographs. I wanted to get a shot of...