January 22

Random list of observations:  Overcast.  Warmish (47 degrees.)  Water levels low on the lake when I wander over looking for ducks.  Belted kingfisher in a tree surveying the water surface.  Ducks milling.  Cormorants drying off their wings after diving in the water.  A red-flowering currant sends out a preliminary flower stalk as a feeler; a couple months early.  Along the canal, a flock of golden-crowned sparrows, Zonotrichia atricapilla, hopping around through the dry grass and feeding on whatever it was they found.  A house finch hovering in the blackberry bushes nearby.  Lots of robins, very little vocalization, intent on feeding, jump-jump-cocking of head to listen.  Flocking starlings passing overhead and red-wings in the bushes, both quite vocal.  Juncos chasing each other from branch to branch.  Someone planting trees on the plain, someone removing trees further up the hill.  Life moves on.

Where'd the birds go?

Spot and Co. going nuts at lunch, out in the Fill.  Thought there might be an eagle or a coyote or something, but none that I could see.  Close to 100 crows, cawing back and forth, swirling in the sky, dropping into the grasses, then flying from one grove of trees to the next.  Perhaps it was a crow party.  Starlings, red-wing blackbirds and robins also adding to the mix of voices and gathering.  Very few ducks out and about, anywhere.  A few n. shovelers in the canal, and cormorants  fanning out theirs wings to dry, and three Canadian geese over near the bird party, one lone hummingbird shooting into the sky, but that was about it.  Not sure where everyone went.

Very overcast, but so far, no rain.

The air here smells like white flowers.  Box is beginning to bloom.  Seems a little early, usually associate those with later January, early February.  Bulbs pushing up in the yard at home, early for those too.  We just had a hard freeze...already early spring?

I'll post a couple of pictures later.

Spot, Post Party, Jan 13/L Herlevi 2014

Birds and Tree, Jan 13/L Herlevi 2014

New Year in the Fill

January 2nd, into the moody Washington winter: dark, damp, and chilly.  Lots of birds on the lake, all together hanging out on an island, flotillas of coots nearby, one hawk watching from a bare tree, eventually flew off in a different direction.  Apologies for the image being so small.  The general gloom shows, if not all the birds.

All together/L. Herlevi 2014