A vacation tour with five birds in the fishing world

What an "interesting" year 2010 has been and after much lengthy silence I am finally getting my schedule and activities sort of "back to normal". Far too many serious family health issues to handle in one year, not to mention in just the past few months since spring!

Kicking off August was really nice as I enjoyed an annual trip to a family cabin on a lake in far Northeast Washington near the Idaho border, up north of Spokane. Eight full days with family and two dogs was just what I needed. Fishing was great as well, even if I lost the 2010 Annual Fishing Derby between the Bauer Pa vs. Bauer Son 8-3.

At least I caught the longest trout! But we weren’t the only creatures fishing the lake. Indeed, I enjoyed watching and photographing five bird species who were working the lake constantly just like all summers!

The occasional Great Blue Heron shouldn’t surprise anyone. Double-crested Cormorants were a bit of a new one on the lake for me, even after 22 years of visiting it every summer. A pair of Belted Kingfishers were eagerly working the waters of the bay every morning. But the stars of the show annually are the Ospreys nesting on the lake as well as numerous families of Red-necked Grebes! It is a challenge to photograph the ospreys but they are so active you just have to wait for a fly-over or be lucky to have a dead snag on your property they use to perch and hunt from.

The grebes, well they are busy out in the water 24 hours a day. So this year again I kayaked out into the lake as approaching them from the water is very easy on them and allowed me many chances to photograph their behaviors with the ½ grown young! It was very enjoyable…one youth was so vocal all of the time while the adult near it seemed to care less! And guess what…every one of these five bird species humiliated us Bauer Boys in our fishing abilities! It was stunning to be in a kayak and watch what it looked like seeing a red-necked grebe swimming underwater. That was a new sight for me and one I’ll not forget soon!

Aloha, well that was fun

Aloha from my office space needing to be heated and I sitting here no longer wearing shorts and sandals! The silence from me for more than the past week is due to having been away at a family wedding...in Hawaii of all places :) In short, I'll have some fun stories to share of enjoyable days out and about on Maui over the course of my next few entries here! I'll save you from the wedding details - I'm sure my brother-in-law's wedding isn't the type of thing you care much about seeing here!! Now it's time for me to regroup my brain, get caught up this week around here, and then start sharing some of the things I had the pleasure to enjoy on my first ever trip to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. In the mean time, you can pretend you are relaxing on that sailboat in this photo as you sail between Maui and Molokai.... (photo: one of many sunsets from the western most area of Maui at Ka'anapali)

A relaxing break from a busy summer

Wow. That's how I felt this morning. Wow! I've been having a load of fun the past month. A week long trip to the Inland NW for a family vacation. It was great! And I returned home exhausted! It's a lot of work to play so hard and swim, fish, run, fish, play. I love it! Then I got to drive another 600 miles and visit with my own parents this past week. But this morning...the frantic running around must have caught up with me. I'm out in the south Puget Sound and relaxing for a few days. Real relaxation...and it felt SO good this morning! I went for a walk on the beach with my dog while sipping a fresh cup of coffee.

And then a few magical nice moments to photograph, which seems to happen to me every visit out here. That is what a magical place does for the soul...it brings life to a halt and good things come out in front of you. I hope you all have a special activity or place that does this for you as well!
(photos: sunrise on the shoreline waters of Puget Sound; an immature Bald Eagle circling over the photographer at sunrise)

Letting the dog do border collie work

While it was almost impossible to get photos showing how much pleasure my dog had, it was sure a pleasure for me to watch as our border collie-mix pooch realized there were cows nearby! This week visiting my parents she found the delight of attracting the cows behind their property to the fence line, then proceeding to work them as well as any untrained herding dog could!

I think I should go buy 4 cows and a herd of ducks for her..... :)

Masters at fishing

OK, having just returned from a very long and wonderfully relaxing annual vacation to a far off lake shore in the Inland Northwest near the Idaho border, I feel great! And we even caught some fish in our lazy times - lovely 10-12" rainbow trout on multiple days, played with catching the little bluegill by the docks, and even came home with a grand story of "Bruce, the monster 18"+ trout that got away"! As is the case every year, it was enjoyable to watch the "Fishing Masters" of the lake perform their tricks, and these tricks came both from the air as well as from the surface of the waters!

A tree within 100 yards of where I stayed was successfully again home for a family of ospreys. So from early morning until dark four ospreys (two young now learning to fish with the parents) were calling, soaring, and diving. What a show!

Along with them working the more shallow waters of the lake were numerous families of red-necked grebes. What a treat to be at a lake which serves as a successful breeding location for such wonderful birds!

All is quiet from the Inland Northwest

Ah, so it's been very silent here in blogsphere lately from me, eh? Hello from the tail end of a long get-away vacation in the Inland Northwest. The lake we've been hanging out at has been refreshing for much fishing, swimming, playing, bird watching - and the bird watching turned fishing with the Red-necked Grebe population that exists there! Ospreys as well - I'll have to follow up with more from them. First, time to get back to the office and catch up soon!

Break from the action....

Hello to everyone - quiet here, isn't it? Well, that always means one thing: I'm busy out enjoying trips to places and not at the computer adding blog entries! I just got back from 4.5 days with my family around the Olympic Peninsula and while I could add a lot of information as well as my next part of my journey to Oregon (Newberry National Volcanic Monument is up next!), I can't. I'm leaving in just 14 hours to go for a five day journey to the North Oregon Coast with my son for much hiking, fishing, biking, fishing, fishing, kite flying, hiking, fishing, biking, s'mores roasting fun!

Back at you on a regular basis in a week - take care and hey, make summer a good one for you right now!

(photo: very small black-tailed fawn nursing with mama in avalanche lilies on Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park)

I left my...sock...in San Francisco

Yes, it's true. While the popular song might state you leave your heart in San Francisco, I ended up leaving behind a sock last week on our vacation trip to that fine city! Ah, but the city too was so enjoyable to be touring around in for the first time ever that I can see why millions of people visit every year. My, how I will return to this fun place again someday as there is just so much to enjoy seeing! Staying near Fisherman's Wharf was a nice first way to do things, especially with kids. There is a ton to do there and while the shops are enjoyed by so many, including us, we also enjoyed touring the historic submarine there, the Maritime Museum would be a 1/2 day by itself, and we never even made it out to Alcatraz yet.

The Aquarium on the Bay was very cool with a tunnel of glass to walk through underwater,

and that same day took us SW of that area to the Pacific Ocean to enjoy the VERY excellent San Francisco Zoo where a five day old giraffe seemed to be the star for this family to enjoy! While other highlights included going up the Coit Tower,

photographing at Alamo Square the row of Victorian homes (aka The Painted Ladies), and of course driving down curving Lombard Street,

my son's highlight was roaming about another ballpark. How fun it was to photograph and see his smile as we toured around AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants!

Well, back to reality and hopeful efforts by nature to bring on some dry warm weather finally around the Pacific Northwest!

Arizona is about more than desert photography

The past few days took me far away from worrying about computer work, photo editing, and for heavens sake, blog updating. I've just returned from a wonderful trip to Arizona, the Valley of the Sun, and more specifically instead of hiking and outdoor photography, we're taking baseball here! Peoria became our home as my son and I enjoyed four days of spring training as we have for a few years now. The magic never seems to end no matter how many years or days you go to the spring ballparks. And now my son seems to have become a master of athlete autograph stalking as he walked away with trophies to cherish a lifetime...signed balls by San Diego Padre pitchers Jake Peavy and Mark Prior, a ball signed by 17 Seattle Mariners (!!), and a true treasure: having been in the right quiet place yesterday morning at the right time and having Ken Griffey Jr. come by and gladly autograph a new baseball all to itself that we had just pulled out "just in case". Heck, he even came home with autographs of the Mariner's top three brass, Chuck Armstrong/Howard Lincoln/Jake Z. on a program from Saturday's Fan Fest 2009.

I've photographed thousands of images in Arizona the past 5-6 years....but the memories of spring training each year will reign as top of the list.

(photos: (top-to-bottom)signed baseballs and program shrine in hotel room; Ken Griffey Jr. signing the Bauer Boy baseball; Ken Griffey Jr. taking batting practice; a happy boy watching early morning practice at spring training 2009)