Back to normal….

Well here we are, back to normal.  Time to get back to the business of seeing what we can see on a daily basis…

What wasn’t ‘normal’ today was the weather.  After weeks and weeks with no measurable precipitation, we’ve had some systems moving through, trying to make up for it…

ventured out a little later than normal after one rain and hail storm had moved on….water levels are pretty different from the last post….they’re back where they belong now.

It didn’t look quite so pleasant in the other direction, but you can see the path across the grasslands is now accessible…there was a pile of pretty fresh bear ‘poop’ on it – but that is to be expected this time of the year with the blackberries and soon, the salmon…

here is the first bay – that big log is something new – we didn’t attempt the ‘forbidden’ trail around the end of the bay to the park so don’t know if it is possible to get through there yet or not.  Today everything was just way to wet to experiment.

There is a familiar sight though!  Great Blue Heron in the foreground and if you look carefully, at least 4 Bald Eagles out on the flats behind the heron.  It seems really early to be seeing eagles out there! 

One more picture of the very ‘green’ grasslands!  Sometimes, at this time of the year, this area is brown and dry but not this year.  The white flowers are those of the Pacific Water Parsley which is loving the conditions.

Catching up bird wise since we’ve gotten back I’m seeing the usual Steller’s Jay, there seem to be quite a few Dark-eyed Junco, lots of young (some very young) White-crowned Sparrows and Black-capped Chickadees.  Robins and Cedar Waxwing are enjoying various berries in the area.  A few American Goldfinch are still around, also some Pine Sisken.  Haven’t noticed a lot of anything else but then, today, they were probably still hiding from the rain.