The start of a great adventure..to share with you

Greetings from Central Oregon on my last day of a long driving/hiking photography trip! I'll be returning to bring you updates that are based around a new photographic experience location for every blog entry over the course of many days. I'm excited to share with you the details behind my trip planning and how I did everything and what I discovered! I've roamed far and wide - a quick stop by Toppenish National Wildlife Refuge (see the Black-crowned Night Heron?), many abandoned buildings in North Central Oregon, county courthouses of 4 counties in this area, the Deschutes River and White River Falls area, all three units of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (Clarno, Sheep Rock, and Painted Hills). Then much of the Lava Lands south of Bend...Newberry National Volcanic Monument, and much more! So start watching often for many updates as I share what I've had the joy of discovering...and the plights of 3" deep hail from severe thunderstorms while chasing waterfalls!

It's Rhody time

Ah yes, one of the more impressive displays of nature in the Western portions of Washington should be underway by now - it is Rhody Time! In that, I mean time for the spectacular native Pacific Rhododendron to be blooming in select western forests. You aren't able to just go out and see them anywhere - they are picky in where they like to cozy up and call an area home. The eastern side of the Olympics is pretty much heaven for these spectacular flowering shrubs. The hike on Mount Walker is likely one of the best to choose from if you are interested in finding them! But they are in other areas as well, and even some that might catch you off guard.

I remember how surprised I seemed to be to come across a lovely area 100' by 200' coming down from Goose Rock in Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island and finding them!

Having rhododendrons in your yard is pretty neat - but nothing as neat as seeing the native wild ones in the NW forests near us! Hope you get a chance to see them someday.

Gallery showing June-July 2009 in the Snoqualmie Valley

Hello to many friends and acquaintances in and near the lovely Snoqualmie Valley.

I’m honored to invite you to drop by lovely downtown Fall City at the Fall City Roadhouse & Inn tomorrow June 3rd between 5:00-7:00pm. The wonderful owners of this cozy establishment are kicking off my two-month showing of “Wildlife and Wilderness” with a fun artist reception and viewing of the 30+ framed prints throughout their walls.

http://www.fcroadhouse.com/

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=4200+Preston+Fall+City+Road+SE,+Fall+City,+WA+98024&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=50.424342,79.101563&ie=UTF8&ll=47.56839,-121.887088&spn=0.010583,0.019312&z=16&iwloc=addr

I hope you can come say hello! If not, don’t forget I’ll be there in two weeks on the evening of June 16th for a 7:00pm presentation on the stories behind my latest guidebook project for The Mountaineers Books, “Day Hiking-Central Cascades” that just was released. An hour of images and stories from this latest effort!Thanks again for your time and support!

Revisiting Issaquah - time for another book presentation!

Before I know it Thursday will sneak up on me this week so I had better bring it up now or I'll forget myself! Silly holidays on Mondays - makes me forget what day of the week it is during the rest of the week! But it's true, Thursday I'll be revisiting Issaquah and giving a book presentation about the newly released Day Hiking-Central Cascades guidebook. This one is for the monthly meeting of the Foothills Branch of The Mountaineers, in cooperation with the King County Library at the KCLS Service Center off Newport Way. You can read more information at the website here, or get the info from the "Upcoming Events" listing to the right of this blog for any and all future appearances that I have slated.

If you can't make it, I'll be following up this in just two weeks locally for the Snoqualmie Valley communities in Fall City. Many south Puget Sound area events are slated for June and July as well - hope to see the faces of many excited outdoors people ready to spend a summer hiking our trails!

(photos: View toward Buck Mountain from the Carne Mountain trail; fall visit views at Larch Lake)

Seabeck and back

What a busy month of May it has been - sorry again for so little news from my end! The past full week I've been deep in the heart of fifth grade adventure as the entire group of 5th graders from my son's school just returned from Seabeck, an annual "outdoor education" experience for them. The community of Seabeck was once the main hub and thought to turn out to be what Seattle is today, along the shores of Hood Canal.

I have many things coming up - many presentations, many details about two-month showings of my work locally, and a lot of fun - stay tuned to hear more from me in the coming weeks!

Nice annual visits from the bird world

I've always enjoyed watching how the world of birds changes as we move into the warmer spring months (finally!). First off well back in April the Turkey Vultures came back for their annual summer stay in the area. Then I started seeing the Varied Thrushes slowly start to disappear as they headed back to the forested elevations a bit further away from the lowest valley areas. Suddenly Black-headed Grosbeaks showed up. Then one of the more fascinating large birds made their annual visit and still are hanging around here at our place, the Band-tailed Pigeons.
Unlike the tame pigeons found in city parks, our native Band-tailed Pigeon is a very shy bird and will avoid human contact wherever possible. They can roam alone but most often move in flocks of up to 50 birds! I always am in awe of the sight of 8, 12, or even sometimes 20 individuals booming off from our trees or feeders at the first sign of our presence. Their wings bang together to form a loud chorus of 'clapping' as they launch to the sky. They are very nomadic creatures as they move frequently in search of food. They typically will move over 20 miles daily and once they have found a persistent food source they will hit it hard and stick around. With seeds being one of their preferred foods (along with nuts, berries, and a few insects) this is an obvious story to follow once they have declared our sunflower feeding stations as a good food source. Mid-morning a single bird will come in...then a few more...and more...and suddenly we have 15-18 of them knocking each other off the feeders and the party is underway! Any quick motion on our part and poof: they are gone. But they have been known to empty a 12 lb stockpile of seeds over the course of two feeding visits during a single day!
While this habit of feeding can be hard on the birdseed budget, these birds are a special sight to have present. The purplish-grey upper body and head is almost an unreal color! This color combined with their yellow bill and legs is striking and adults have a thin white band on the back of the neck. And as its name implies, the Band-tailed Pigeon has a black band across its tail feathers. They also have many rather uncommon traits within the bird world. Only a single white egg is laid each year and only in very rare cases will there be two. One trick that I find fascinating about them is that unlike most birds, including other pigeon species, the Band-tailed pigeon is able to drink water without raising its head. It took me many years of observing them before I noted this!
Now, just yesterday we noted a visit by a stunning male Western Tanager, with its bright yellow body and orange head clearly one of the most beautiful song birds that might occasionally pass by on the west side of the Cascades! What will pay a visit next? I’ll keep my eyes open and I hope you do also – share what might be going on out there!
(photo: Band-tailed Pigeon resting on the bent branch of a western red cedar tree)

Step right up to the Issaquah REI tonight

Say, in case you think about doing something like and evening walk or some time in your garden this evening, don't bother. It'll be raining anyhow! Instead, why not come on in to the REI in Issaquah and join myself and my friend Craig Romano as we'll be presenting a talk on the newly released Day Hiking - Central Cascades title that just came out a couple of weeks ago! I'll attempt to put smiles on faces with many images of our adventures, and I'm sure Craig will have many good stories to amuse you with as well. Hope to see some of you there tonight!

If you can't make it, I'm doing another Issaquah presentation in two weeks for the Mountaineers Foothills branch. See details over to the right column of this blog text.

(photos: autumn view across Minotaur Lake; view from Garland Peak toward Buck Mountain and Glacier Peak)