Four of our six Seattle neighborhood Ospreys returned last week from the long haul of their migration. If you haven’t seen the tracking maps showing Osprey travel routes, take a look at this website: Osprey migration maps. For these studies, Ospreys are fitted with light satellite transmitters that fall off after two to three years….
Everything’s Coming Up Snowy
Edited to add: Originally, I posted the location of where we hiked to see the Snowy Owls. It’s fairly common knowledge around Washington, but I suffered post-blogging pangs about revealing the location of a popular species like a Snowy Owl. After chatting with a wildlife photographer I dearly respect, I’ve decided to remove those references….
Wet Eagles and Power Gulls
This is who we came to see in Beautiful British Columbia: And this is what drew our eyes upward … to the gossamer-draped mountains: All morning, the gulls traversed the valley in regiments. First one troop would cross, then another, then a third, their numbers interspersed with sudden flushes of Starlings from the trees (the…
The Snowy Owls of Seattle
12/31/12: I edited this post early this morning to correct for some late-night syntactical issues. “The piercing light of her eyes is a reminder there is light upon the dark path no matter how doubtful it might be …. Owl can navigate the dark realms of the night and still sustain her nourishment; if you…
Bird Verse: Eastern Gods
They are eastern gods — they meditate. (Yes they are.) “The Owls” by Charles Baudelaire (translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay) The owls that roost in the black yew Along one limb in solemn state, And with a red eye look you through, Are eastern gods; they meditate. No feather stirs on them, not one,…
A Sneeuwuil By Any Other Name
Sneeuwuil – Dutch Le Harfang des neiges – French Sniega puce – Latvian Snøugle – Norwegian Wabagano – Cree Shirofukuro – Japanese ~ Many thanks to Paul Asimow’s Snowy Owl pages for the above excerpt. We don’t yet know if it’s an echo year for Snowy Owls (the year after an irruption), but the Bubo…
Osprey: From Pairing to Fledging
There are three Osprey nests within three miles of our place … one is a pile of branches, marine rope and police tape, layered on a new platform over Commodore Park. The platform was built after Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) removed an ages-old nest on an even older communications tower on a railroad bridge….
Here He Comes to Save the Day …
This is part of my loosely-formed Coffee Break methodology. I take my coffee, my camera, and sit in my favorite spots. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes they don’t. Yesterday, this happened: :: First sign of trouble … Caspian Tern colony in Interbay flushes over the Magnolia Bridge … … signaling alerts. :: In the distance, over…
The Crow Patrol
Our apartment sits above Interbay in Seattle — what used to be a thriving salt marsh and tidal flat, replete with shellfish, marine life and waterfowl. It was a foraging ground for Native Americans of the Shilshole tribe, who made their home in present-day Ballard, just north of Interbay. At the turn of the century,…
The Benefits of Anthropomorphism
If you work with or care about animals, the nonhuman ones, eventually, someone will say something like, “shouldn’t you care more about what happens to people?” That question doesn’t faze me anymore. Given our predominantly anthropocentric world view, I’d actually be surprised if people didn’t ask it. I have plenty of answers for why it’s…
