Double Bluff Beach 08-01-15

We have been working on house/yard projects all year getting ready for our outdoor wedding here.  We were married July 11 and although it was one of the only cloudy drippy days of the summer, it was lovely.  Adventure Dog has been going stir crazy with the only hiking being in our yard, so we decided to go somewhere else today. It has been a hot dry sunny summer so if I wanted get any hike in, it would have to be in the morning.  We headed out around 8am and caught the ferry to Whidbey Island.  I got right onto the 1st ferry that was there. 
I had read about where the tides would be and it would be going out until around noon so it was perfect timing to enjoy a sunny morning on the off leash dog beach!  Cedar was super excited to be out meeting dogs, and marking driftwood. 

 

 I hoped to see an eagle and was not disappointed. 

Mount Rainier and Baker were stunning today.  I couldn't see Baker from the beach, but Rainier gleamed like a giant mirage beyond the water.

Wait a minute... does that photo bombing seagull have something in its beak?

Yep!  Looks like a big clam and he's taking it away from the rest of the seagull crew so he can drop it, break it, and eat it all by himself.

The low tide made for some fun tidepooling, and even Cedar waded a few times without any encouragement from me.  He is not a water dog, but realized that it helped cool him off. 

 

Not sure if the crab or the green stripey rock is the coolest thing in this picture!



Cedar caught wading

Barnacles and things make noises and Cedar was surprised and curious

 

The most amazing thing on this little hike though, was that we were treated to our own personal airshow!  A red biplane showed up and just started doing tricks right over our heads!  I didn't even know planes could do some of the things he or she was doing!  Some tricks were done with smoke and some without.  Adventure Dog was busy on the beach, but I couldn't tear my eyes away until the plane completely left.  I got nearly 10 minutes of barrel rolls, corkscrews, loop the loops, and more.  Thank you Mystery Pilot!  That was freaking phenomenal!!

Adventures in Game Cams

So with all the wildlife I've been glimpsing around our home, I was super eager to find out what animals we might see at night or when we're not around being noisy stinky humans.  So my biggest desire for Christmas was a Game Cam.  I got two of them!  Heaven!  : )  I got to work putting them up here and there and bringing them in to see what I've "caught."
The vast majority of my pictures are set-up/take-down and us walking by.  It is too cold and wet to bring my computer out and just take the chip out to download the pics... maybe in the summer... so for now, I remove both cameras from their spots and then set them up again later that day.

This was surprising, as the camera was set out in the water, but the water froze and Cedar went out to investigate.

See the little Cedar face in this one?

Dave, Adventure Dog and I trying out Steve's boat!

Luckily, I am also capturing wildlife!  So far the night shots are a bit blurry, so I will need to read my manuals regarding what settings I should be using.  Sorry for the poor clarity on a lot of these. 
First I was just getting ducks:

"Peek-a-boo!" says a male wood duck.

We'll get you my pretty, and all other female ducks too!

And after all the ducks and all the 'didn't get anything this time' I was super stoked to get a squirrel.  I got his butt one day and then then his better side the next.

Then, just once, we got what we really really wanted to see... a beaver!  He is going by with a stick, but if you don't know what you're looking for it is a bit hard to tell.  We really would like to know if we have more than one. We want our beaver pond to have happy beavers in it, not lonely ones.

I also got a pic of a raccoon this week!  He is super hard to pick out, so I'm putting in a pic without him 1st, so you can see where there is something in the 2nd that there wasn't in the 1st.

Can you see him?  Just left of the middle vertically and almost right in the middle horizontally.. you can just see his face beyond the leaves (he is more faded than the leaves)

And last, but not least... the coyotes.  I got one where I was expecting beavers (near where the raccoon was), and the other(s) were on the woods trail right behind the house.  Hopefully I'll start catching some of these in better lighting so we can see them better!

This one looks like it's heading for an rift between dimensions.

These last two look like they were taken one after the other, but if you notice the time stamp, it was early in the morning on 2 consecutive nights.

And here is Cedar in the same exact spot the coyote was.  Kind of  eerie!

This has been really fun!  Hopefully with warmer weather and more light, there will be more animal activity!

Latest Adventures at Home Sweet Home

Wow...I haven't posted a blog since July!  Dave and I had been looking and looking for a house, then we found the house, had to fix up the house and it is still a work in progress.  So that has taken up a lot of my time, but there are very very good things about this place!  For starters it has over 7 acres, and around 3 1/2 of those are wooded/beaver pond/stream, so the wildlife is abundant!  More abundant than I imagined!  I am going to post some pictures of the area and animals we have seen to date. 
One morning I showed up early to paint some more, and was sitting outside eating breakfast when I saw movement across the pond.  It was a pair of coyotes looking around the pond to see if there were any ducks or beavers not paying attention.  They were unlucky in their hunt, but I was lucky that I had my camera!

Frogs are everywhere, especially these little green guys.  This one was watching me clean up the yard.

 This frog was in some weeds and blackberries where Dave was weed-eating, so he brought him over to near my flower bed where he would be safer.

When my Mom was visiting, we came back from getting something (probably more paint) and there was a deer in the yard!  Mom was in the yard and I looked out the door and there were 4 deer! One pair was a doe and fawn and another was a spike buck with a limp.  I haven't seen them since, but hopefully they will be back.  We put out a mineral salt lick.

Ducks enjoy the quiet duck-weed-filled pond.  Here a pair of mallards navigate the swampy green pond.  Later they reached up to pick and eat blackberries, something I hadn't seen ducks do before.

 There are a lot of wood ducks here!  Or there were until it froze over.  They are beautiful!

 We also had a hooded merganser visit here for a few days.  He left when things iced over too.

We put out a hummingbird feeder and Anna's hummingbirds have been visiting regularly.

 There are some trails through the woods behind our house, and Adventure Dog loves to run through the leaves and make them crunch.  I think we both wish the trail was longer, but it was so much more than we dreamed we'd have so close in. 

I keep hoping to see the beaver.  The previous owner said he had trapped and/or relocated a couple which to me was awful.  I have learned that beavers live in family groups and mate for life.  Also the beaver dams are super important to the eco system here and I would like those dams maintained.  Not only do the ponds create great habitat but they also slow and maintain water flow and protect our bridge from washing out.  One morning, I saw a big brown head poking up out of the water by one of the dams and thought for a hopeful moment that it was the beaver, but no!  It was a more surprising visitor... an otter!  He looked pretty funny with duckweed all over his head.

 

The same day, coming back from taking pictures of the otter, I saw an immature bald eagle in one of the trees.

There are some edible fungi that grow here too.  I have seen a couple varieties of coral fungus and also shaggy mane mushrooms!  I ate one of the shaggy manes and it was pretty good.  I hadn't had one before.

 This morning, I took a break from work to get the fire stoked up and looked out the window and happened to glimpse this peregrine falcon eating something!  It was a bird of some sort, I'm guessing a pigeon.  He left nothing but feathers and the sunflower seeds that it must have eaten.

Pretty amazing place!  It's hard to want to pack up and go hiking when I see so many great things here.
Next up is a pileated woodpecker, which I've seen several of.  They are amazing birds with those bright red heads and distinctive calls.  On the day I took these, there were two and one was being chased by a little raptor.  It landed in a tree and I got some pictures.  I believe it is a Coopers hawk.

While Cedar and I were standing on the bridge we heard someone scolding us and I looked up to see this handsome kingfisher.  I have seen them here a few times too, but not this close!

Other birds seen here so far include red shafted flickers, blue heron, black-capped and chestnut-backed chickadees and many others I have not yet identified.  As the seasons change, who knows what else we will see!