North Creek Forest forms green corridor connecting to North Creek wetlands and eventually to Sammamish River “Prize the natural spaces and shorelines most of all, because once they’re gone, with rare exceptions they’re gone forever.” – Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods Imagine a large forested wetland with […]
Woody
185 posts
See if you can find the nest in the top photo. Click it to enlarge image. If you have been birding on the West Coast lately, you have probably seen Anna’s Hummingbirds. This species seems to be adapting well to the human-altered landscape. Birder and author Kenn Kaufman refers to Anna’s as “the […]
Golden-crowned Kinglet – photo by Jeff Larsen Winter birding can be slow at times. Then all at once, a cloud of different bird species appears. Noisy social and alarm calls signal their arrival, at times punctuated by the beat of a woodpecker. If you hold still and be quiet, […]
Sharp-shinned Hawk Remember when K-12 schools had seating charts in alphabetic order? Have you ever wondered what effects these charts had on us — especially for those of us whose last names were at the end of the alphabet? Recently, a marketing study conducted by researchers from Georgetown and Belmont […]
Pileated Woodpecker at Nisqually Refuge. Photo by Jeff Larsen Sometimes I wish all memory of this old, unremarkable cartoon would vanish, but it persists. Ever since grade school, when people meet me, they often pause for a moment as if they were the first creative genius to come up with […]
photo courtesy of Melanie Typaldos In 2005, we received the ultimate Christmas gift. My family and I were in Jaco, Costa Rica, a funky beach, surfing, fishing and tourist town on the Pacific Coast. We were on the last leg of a wonderful Caravan tour of the country that included […]
If you appreciate art, that is reason enough to watch birds. Right now, wintering ducks are on display. Art Exhibit A: The Wood Duck pair in the top photo at Juanita Bay, Washington (taken by Kay Mulhall). Would it be possible to design more beautiful creatures? On the verge of […]
“And the iron boats go as the mariners all know with the gales of November remembered” Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald Gloomy at times, frequently stormy and tinged with magical light, the skies of November are breathtakingly beautiful. The play of low angle light against the backdrop […]
Dark-eyed Junco Often when we hear about bird migrations, we hear about the epic journeys. The Arctic Tern, for example takes a 44,000-mile round trip each year, nearly from pole to pole, crossing the Atlantic Ocean twice. The Ruby-throated Hummingbird incredibly flies 500 miles across the Gulf of Mexico. Swainson’s […]
Newly planted vegetation at traffic circle Many of you have asked for updates on previous blogs, so this blog is for you. Brace yourself, though, because in today’s world of angry, negative media stories and ranting blogs, I only have good news to report. In late October I wrote Hermit […]