I think this bird is two or three years old. They are not mature til they are five.
I know, I do this every time we go to the beach. But really, is there anything prettier than a beach sunset?
Dune grass
The best cell service was at the top of the dunes
That’s one good looking labrador retriever
Dignified doodle
Last week we got away for a few days of socially distanced camping. Yes, we did non-essential travel out of our county. We were not alone. There was a family from our community in an adjacent campsite! Of course, the campgrounds are full. It seems that everyone is trying to be socially distant and out of doors.
We were at the coast and got to watch shorebirds in their ‘fall’ migration! Yes, fall. They all went to Alaska for breeding season, leaving or passing through Washington in April and May and the males turned around as soon as their job was complete and are now arriving on the Washington coast. Most of the little sandpipers are in a group commonly referred to as peeps. Peeps include Western, Least and Semi-palmated Sandpipers and a few other species. There were also plovers. I saw one Semi-palmated Plover for sure and perhaps some Pacific Golden Plovers in flight. I seldom get to see all of these beautiful shorebirds so I am not very good at identifying them. There were also Willets with their dramatically striped wings. They are easy to identify.
Willet
Willets
Peep
They seem to be going somewhere important
Many peeps
I think some of these birds are Pacific Golden Plovers
Peeps at sunset
Semi-palmated Plover
Getting up at 3 am is worth it once in a while.
It is quite an opportunity to see a comet from my own place. The first two images are from yesterday and the last one is today.
My husband wrote a song called Climb to the Top of the World and I thought of that when we reached this mountaintop on Tuesday.
It was a chilly day and the wind was blowing pretty hard at home and I almost didn’t go. Then I remembered that Luna does much better on hikes when the weather is not the best in my mind. She just doesn’t tolerate the heat well anymore. So off we went with a rain jacket for me and carrying extra water for the dogs. It was 48 at the 6560′ trailhead and I was glad to have a warmer jacket too. The dogs thought it was perfect.
The trail goes steeply through a burned forest and then into high meadows before going straight up through the rocky mountainside. Just before the last big ascent, there is a rock that holds any water from recent precipitation and I don’t know if Luna remembers it or if she can smell it but long before I got there, she was slurping up the remnants of the dirty puddle. I gave her clean water too and used some of that to replenish the puddle.
The views at the 8245′ summit just can’t be beat. Mountains everywhere. The flowers are just beginning. In a week or two, they will be glorious.
paintbrush
pretty yellow composite
lupine
paintbrush
Burned in 2006
whitebark pine
chipmunk
Olive-sided Flycatcher
resting
drinking
shooting stars
old, well-worn trail
cooling off
Clark Mountain?
Just up
on top
Top of the World
Tiffany Lake
I don’t know this one
or this one
I heard a pika
Horned Lark
Lewisia pygmaea, dwarf lewisia
Prairie smoke
alpine larch still wearing its spring green
there was a chipmunk
old nest box no longer on a tree
raven
Roger Lake. Who was Roger?
paintbrush
lupine and saxifrage
saxifrage, but what species?
wild strawberry growing out of a rock and trying to start a new plant
Bog orchids and lupine growing along the road
bog orchid
paintbrush
My Everyday Photos 