Tag Archives: Wild Life

Birding & Getting Out

Since our life hit the brakes and had to readjust last summer, we’ve haven’t had done any birding or anything to get out….too busy trying to get it back together. Going by our birding list, exactly 6 months since we listed anything. =(

We made a point to get out today and explore a different part area that we are now living in. It was also the 1st time I’ve been in our Jeep Wrangler since we brought the Pontiac…..felt good to be back in the Wrangler. =)

We checked out Camano Island and Cama Beach State Parks. Very happy that we stopped at the visitor’s center at Cama Beach. The staff member there was very helpful on giving us advice on where birders have been going.

We ended up in a wetlands area by a river and got to see our first short-ear owl and northern harrier! They were putting on a show. =) We saw at least 3 owls just flying around and 2-3 norther harriers. We even got to see an immature bald eagle, the head was almost finished changing to white.

It felt totally great to get out and do one of our favorite things. And the weather worked with us……no rain. =)

Hubby is working on the pictures now. I’ll post when done.

Holy Crap! It’s a Sea Otter!!!

Holy Crap! It’s a Sea River Otter!!!

I was just finishing the last blog posting when Pauline saw this Sea River Otter running across the camp towards the water. I was able to snap off a few decent pictures as the Sea River Otter ran across the road onto the parade ground and over a ledge just as a Bald Eagle was swooping down.

That was cool!

Oh, and a pic of Drew… yawn.

*Edited April 21, 2014 @ 2:27pm

A Park Ranger said this was a River Otter as Sea Otters never leave the water…

STILL TOTALLY COOL!!!!

Wile E. Coyote

Today As we was driving to the camp grounds in the 1ton flat bed, I noticed a head sticking out of some fern’s. I stopped and franticly searched for my iPhone which was deep in my pocket being blocked by other stuff and my seat belt, but I was able to snap off 55 pictures with these 6 being worthy enough to post.

Once again, I am not iMpressed with the iPhone camera…

Our Saturday hike…

Pauline and I pretty much hiked the entire park on Saturday. Of course the GPS went from full to dead 2.24 miles into it, but I think we did just over 6 miles total. We was both feeling it later that night.

We saw a garter snake on the trail, I also had it focused in when he bolted into the bush, I found it again and once again almost got a good shot when he bolted completely.

*sigh

Sunday we took both cats outside. We now have new cat harness’s for both, and I feel much more comfortable using these over the old “strap” ones.

Drew is really starting to enjoy being outside. He is still cautious, he makes sure I am still near him after every few steps, but he walks with his tail up and purrs like mad at times. He will come to Pauline or me and put his front paws on our knees with the look of “I’m going to jump up any second, be ready” and will usually walk around us a few times. When I walk with him, he goes a pretty good pace, and he walks with confidence, and he always walks towards the RV…

He has no idea what to do when he gets to the RV, he just knows that this is his box and he should be in it. He doesn’t seem to want to use the metal stairs, last time he jumped over them both, yesterday I picked him up and put him on them and he wasn’t too cool with that, so I find that interesting.

Sakura still hates the big wide world. She lays as low as she can get, and if she is being held, she will dig in with her claws to make sure she is still being held. But she is getting better. She tucks her tail for the most part, but if we sit or lay down on the grass, she uses us as a cover, and will eat the grass some, and at times, her tail will come out. She enjoys the sun and grass and flowers, she just would rather not go outside to have them.

We will continue taking them out when the weather cooperates and when there isn’t much park activity, no need to give them too much over load of humans.

I used my iPhone on these pics, and honestly, I am so not impressed. I think we will start using our Pentax’s again, I have been too disappointed with pics off the iPhone lately. Tired of the front camera being such a low quality, and even in perfect lighting, they look bad.

Today! Just 5 days later…

I really had planned to post these pictures the day we took them, but… you know… Stuff happens…

Pauline and I went to South Whidbey Island State Park to meet with a local volunteer, we got to look over our soon to be home a little better, we have 42′ of space and Ackbar is 35′ long.

Sweet!

Pauline and I are trying to get into the habit of taking a camera out when we do our park work, the iPhone just is not a good enough camera.

I’ll discuss this more in another post…

We came across 2 large Immature Bald Eagles on the beach on April 9, I got fairly close to them before one took off, and was able to get a few more pictures using Pauline’s “hiking camera” (Pentax point and shoot) I thought I had it zoomed in all the way, but when I realized I didn’t, the last of the birds flew off, hence the blurry pics…

Dinner time, more later…