More Backyard Songbirds
With the caronavirus lock-down keeping me home, and a red flowering currant bush in full bloom in the back yard, today was a perfect day for photographing songbirds. I moved my suet block feeder next to the flowering currant and set up my Tragopan pop-up photo blind about 10 feet away. In minutes the birds […]
Great Blue Heron – Fir Island
A great blue heron (Ardea herodias) watches for fish or frogs in a muddy irrigation canal in a field on Fir Island.
Pine Siskin
Spotted this little finch eating seeds in a shrub alongside the Nooksack River. Pine siskin live year-round in Washington State, and are seed-eaters closely related to gold finch. This little guy can increase its metabolic rate by 5X in order to survive overnight temperatures as low as -85F. They store extra seeds in a portion […]
Frosty Morning in Snohomish River Estuary
It was a frosty early morning of bird watching on Spencer Island in the Snohomish River Estuary. An extremely high tide (12.0 feet) flooded through breaches in the dikes and into the estuary, providing great fishing habitat for great blue heron and bald eagles. The sun rose in a spectacle of color and began melting […]
Mountain Heather, Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Washington Cascades
“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.” — Edward Abbey
Mountain Ridges, Glacier Bay National Park, Southeast Alaska
“In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.” — Robert Green Ingersoll
Liberty Bell Mountain, Washington Pass, Washington
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” — Thomas Jefferson
Rialto Beach, Olympic National Park, Washington State
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” — Abraham Lincoln
Western Red Cedar, Cascade Mountains, Washington State
“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something – that quality of air, that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
Downey Creek Trail, Cascade Mountains, Washington State
“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” — John Muir
Punchbowl Falls, Eagle Creek Recreation Area, Oregon
“Look at everything as if you were seeing it for the first or last time.” — Betty Smith
Ponytail Falls, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” — Confucius
Snow on Liberty Bell Mountain, Washington Pass, Washington State
“Despite all I have seen and experienced, I still get the same simple thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb toward it.” — Edmund Hillary A classic view of Liberty Bell Mountain from the Washington Pass Overlook on a snowy early […]
Bristlecone Pine Reaching for the Stars
“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.” — Theodore Roosevelt
Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone National Park
“A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence.” — Jim Watkins
Giant kelp air bladders, Salt Creek Recreation Area, Washington
“Nature is pleased with Simplicity.” — Isaac Newton
Coastal Trail, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, California
“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” — John Muir
Lonely Tree, Palouse, Washington
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
Mystic Lake, Mount Rainier National Park
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” — Edith Wharton
Alpine Stream, Cascade Mountains
“Coming near the edge of the snowfield I find running water close to the surface, visible among the rocks. I stop to drink. The water is bitterly, brilliantly cold with particles of glacier silt — utterly delicious.” — Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Shiprock, New Mexico
“Leave it as it is. You cannot improve upon it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.” — Theodore Roosevelt
