What Was I Thinking???

What was I thinking when I signed up for all these bird surveys in May and June? Didn't I remember that these are busy months on the farm with gardening and goat milking, mowing and weeding? And when the weather turns nice, it would be nice to ride my horses. Instead, all I do is survey birds.

Of course, I had no way of knowing that Johnny would be incapacitated for a month, further complicating matters... since he's my prime survey partner. Nor did I know it was going to be cold and drippy for weeks on end.

But Johnny seems all well now, the sun is out, and I have some lovely photos to remind me of the surveys completed. More surveys are in the offing, but for the next few days, I will change gears and do something besides chase birds. Here are some of my favorite scenes from surveys of the past few weeks.


The Rufous Hummingbird on a wild delphinium is from the Agency Creek riparian survey. So is the Hairy Woodpecker taking a grub to feed young'uns in a nest hole.





Our Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) scouting trip found young American Dippers being fed by parents. If you have a very good monitor and very good eyes, you may spot three of those birds in this photo on rocks in lovely (and appropriately named) Boulder Creek.
Easier to spot is this young Dipper on a rock in Warnicke Creek.

That survey begins at the 51 acre Valley of the Giants, home of impressively huge old growth Hemlock and Douglas Fir trees. It's a beautiful place. The log is along the way to our first survey point. I sit and rest here among the big trees.



Today I climbed The Thumb at Road's End to look for Black Oystercatchers and determine if they are nesting. I found one pair, not nesting, and these wildflowers. The sea was wilder than I usually see it and just as beautiful.





It's not such a bad deal, I guess, this bird surveying. At least, not in the looking back at it.