Eagle Watching

It seems that there are an extraordinary number of eagles in the area this spring.  They seem to be everywhere and on Saturday the 11th of February, my wife, Edward, and I went out with our cameras looking for eagles to photograph.  It was a decent day and we saw a fair number of them, though not in the areas we expected, and did get a few photos.

We also saw a lot of Trumpeter Swan which winter in the fields here and were able to get some photos of them also.  Managed, too, to get a few shots of a Red-tailed Hawk which was sitting on a fence, and we stopped at various other locations as well to get pictures of whatever took our fancy, old barns, a pond, some views of the area farmlands, etc.

Washington Park

I made two more trips to Washington Park recently.  I had to be in Mount Vernon, Washington, on Tuesday evening, May 24th, and went first for a couple of hours to see if the Fairy Slippers were still blooming and if the Coralroots had opened.  I was not disappointed either by the weather or the flowers.

I found both, a few Fairy Slippers still at their prime and numerous Coralroots at the peak of their blooming.  These leafless, saprophytic orchids always fascinate me, not only for their lack of chlorophyll but for their unpredictability.  One never knows quite where they will spring up and how many there will be.

 

The Chocolate Lilies (Fritillaria affinis) were also in bloom and though relatively common were a delight to see once again.  The Madrone trees were also putting out new growth and flowers, the flowers white and the new growth a soft green and pink, neither of which I had seen before.

One the second trip on May 27, I went with my wife and son and we not only saw the Coralroots and the Chocolate Lilies, but were privileged to watch a number of eagles both immature and adult in the trees and in the air near the south end of the park.  The Fairy Slippers, however, were gone.

For the rest we enjoyed the scenery, the boats, the thunderheads building in the east, and the glorious sunshine of which we have seen far too little this spring.  We took several hours walking the two miles around the park and then headed home for a bit of supper and a quiet evening.