Medical Lake, Washington

Thursday evening, May 12th, after supper and some games of chess with our son, we went for a ride in the area to the west of Medical Lake, a small town west of Spokane.  These are some of the pictures we took.  The Osprey was on a nesting pole and was not about to move.  The Yellow-headed Blackbirds did not really come close enough for good pictures and there were few flowers blooming.  We had hoped to see a marshy field of Common Camas in bloom, but they were not open yet.

The following pictures are from May 6th last year and show the Camas in bloom and the Osprey in flight.  I posted some pictures at that time: http://ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2010/08/medical-lake.html, but these are pictures from 2010 that I've not previously posted.  I've included the Camas pictures to show the difference between this year and last.  Eastern Washington, if anything, is further behind than we are here in Western Washington.

Note: the Yellow-headed Blackbird was photographed by my wife.