Category Archives: what hell kind of animals are we seeing?

A Bald Eagle, a Golden Eagle and a fish

Pauline and I came upon a large Bald Eagle sitting on the side of the road and of course, the only camera we had with us was our iPhones. We started to take a few pictures when a Golden Eagle flew over the Bald Eagle and the Bald Eagle started to take off when we noticed he had a large fish, that was still flopping, in his talons.

He didn’t quite get it secured so he sat back down on top of the fish as the Golden sat in a tree about 10 yards away. We watched for a few minutes and listened to both of them cuss each other out.

We slowly drove down the road and I got as far away as I could with the truck, and for the most part the Bald Eagle was cool with us, but at the last second he took off leaving the still flopping fish behind, so we continued on our way to dump a load of brush off at the burn pit.

We returned about 10 minutes later and the Bald Eagle was once again eating his fish with the Golden watching and complaining. As we got closer the Bald grabbed the fish and flew into a tree, we was able to drive past and walk back to get a better view, but honestly, unless you have 100% perfect conditions, iPhone pics are crap.

After a few minutes of standing close to the Bald’s tree, he had enough and took off with the fish further down the road. The Golden was still in the area and still cussing up a storm.

Not the best pics, but they are the best one’s we have of this event…

Oh, there is also two cat pictures cause why not right?

 

Birds and a bad cat…

Pauline and I went for a short walk yesterday. We was only gone about 2 hours and walked 2.15 miles which isn’t much at all.

We also got a new cat harness. MetPet Walking Jacket I think is what it is called. Pauline will have to chat about that.

He did really good. He was tense, but enjoying the grass and sun and even ate a few small flowers. He purred some, but would stop suddenly and look over the big wide world. He also made sure I was nearby at all times. He took a few steps away, but not too many. We would have stayed out longer, but a 5 or 6 cars suddenly went by all at once and I didn’t want to get him too stressed.

The next step is to resize it for Sakura and find out of we need a Med or Large for her, but it will be purple.

The Weather has been amazing!

Last Monday Today!

Pauline and I went birding Monday, while the weather was still amazing when we saw the forecast was calling for a week plus of rain and wind, we knew we had to get outside while we still could.

It was sunny with a slight wind and low 50’s so we grabbed the camera and binoculars and ended up doing 4 miles in about 3.5 hours. It’s amazing how far you will not go when you stop and stare at birds.

We walked mostly in the forested trails where it was peaceful, but not too birding friendly. The few birds we see move too fast to get a decent look at.

However we did get some good pics of a Bald Eagle as well as 2 new birds for our list, the Red-breasted Merganser and the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. The Kinglet was a bear to get a decent shot of, and the only reason I got these two pics was due to taking about 50 pics of blurred tree’s as it jumped from one spot to another and then another…

We have walked a lot of beach trails since we been here, that it has been a few months since we walked in the woods. Again, so peaceful. Could use more birds. Saw a few deer. A salamander. Heard some tree frogs and a few birds we never saw, even when it sounded like they was 10′ from us.

This week was suppose to be a nasty mess, but so far, we’ve had little rain, some winds, but much more sun then we expected. It still says this week is going to be a bad one weather wise, but at least we got this good weather.

We was going to go to Whidbey Island to meet some people we are going to work with this Summer, I just forgot to set it up, and when I thought about setting something up, I was never near my Mac to send a email, so that will need to be doe next week.

We are expecting neighbors this weekend. We finally was forced to give up our perfect water view and park like everyone else, in your own limited parking pad. We moved Ackbar yesterday and spread about 10 bucket loads of new gravel on both of these pads since they had some major low points with too many ponds. It took us about 3 hours to get it, but even I am impressed how well it turned out. Much better then expected.

Got our new MiFi today. Still having issues. Need to park facing East and not West. Miss facing South. Need another 10′ worth of sewer hose to be able to park with the hose going under the RV to the other side. Not happy about that. But we gotta do what we gotta do.

Feeling lucky to have had such a great view and appreciating it much more now that I no longer have it… Until next Fall.

Just updating

We are set to leave Fort Flagler at the end of April which is just 4 weeks or so away, which seems odd, it still is like we just arrived.

We went to Everett yesterday to visit our friends, and had a great time as always. The weather could have been warmer, but other then that it was great. We took the Pt Towsend ferry and drove to the Southern end  of the island to ferry to Mukilteo. We wanted to see what to expect for the Summer.

On the way home we drove down to the Edmonds/Kingston ferry which was about $0.35 cheaper then the other 2 ferries combined and made the trip home about 15 mins shorter. Not much to matter regarding which we way we go. Of course in a month we will be just 1 ferry away.

Last week was pretty crappy regarding the weather, we had winds over 35+mph so the RV was rocking back and forth. So far this week it looks like it will be decent.

Spring time in the Northwest…

Is Amazing!

The weather is so much nicer. We have had less rain and more sun with more fog then more sun and then more fog with some sun.

Today I saw my first Anna’s Hummingbird! It was bright red like I am use to and not that deep dark red we saw in Arizona. I only got about 1 second look at it, but that was all that was needed to make me happy. We have not put our feeders out yet, but will be soon. We are just concerned about the winds we still get every so often.

We also saw our first Golden Eagle today! And even better, we had time to go back to get the camera! While it was still foggy when we started taking the pictures it cleared up about 45 minutes later we was able to take more pictures with the sun out as he was still in the same tree we left him in. Lazy bird. Not the best pics as I was “just off” regarding focus, but they count.

We also saw the USNS Carl Brashear (T-AKE-7) going out to sea from Indian Island. She had been dockside since we arrived in November. The first time I saw her I thought she was a building. (Crap weather prevented a good look from so far) but I was able to make out the life boats on the side to confirm she was a ship. She had the usual 2 USCG ships waiting to escort her out to the open sea.

One of the Rangers told us we will soon be seeing more and more wildlife showing up soon and the Bald Eagles will soon be tearing branches off the trees to make their nest which is something we have never seen, so I think we will be bringing our camera with us more when we do rounds in the morning.

I am still running 3 miles a day. I took 2 days off due to the whole “blind in one eye” thing when it was just too sunny for me to see properly and without excessive pain but other then that, I have done pretty well. I know my course well enough to know how to pace the hills. The only thing that slows me down now is soggy trails, harsh winds and drivers not paying attention where they are driving.

Yesterday, I was almost hit by 2 ladies who was paying more attention to whatever they saw outside the passenger window then what was in front of them, I saw them from a distance away and was going to run on the side of the road as I normally do. (I run against traffic since I do NOT trust drivers) but she started to drive like they was going to park on the side of the road where I was running toward, so I went right, then she veered right directly towards me, and as I got closer I realized they still have not seen me, and they never did see me, even when I ran past the drivers window about 2′ away.

I was so close to slapping the drivers window.

Honestly, I was looking directly at the driver and she never, ever saw me. It’s not like I am 6’2″ and 225 lbs and wearing bright red or anything.

*sigh.

Anyway, today I ran my best time ever, beating yesterday (which was my record, which was also a new best time record) by 15 seconds. 3 miles on trials, hills, and road in 32 mins and 45 seconds.

Bright sunny days, with brilliant views of Mt Baker, the Cascade Mountains and the crown jewel, Mount Rainier.

I Love the Northwest!

Once again I failed to remember I have pictures on my phone waiting to be downloaded, so some of these pictures are from a month ago, but most of them are from today.

Enjoy!