Feathered Neighbors

Some bird photos from the last while.

We get three kinds of mergansers here. The hooded are the flashiest. Here are a male and a female.

The Red-breasted Mergansers are less common. They're only here during the winter.

In Saskatchewan, Great Blue Herons were uncommon. It was a special occasion to see and photograph one. Here, we see them all the time but they are still impressive big birds, with a prehistoric feel to them. (This shot was last week's print.) They are very focused when they're hunting.

Black Oystercatchers are striking with their bright orange beak and eyes, and their noisy call.

It's amazing that the Anna's Hummingbirds survive the winter here. Such tiny birds that need to feed constantly. There aren't many flowers in the winter so they survive on all the hummingbird feeders people put out.

One of the pleasures of our home near the water is watching the gulls soar in the wind. Of course, when they're pulling garbage out of the bins they're not so attractive! This juvenile had been given (or taken) this crab from an adult, presumably its parent. It seemed unsure exactly how to handle it, but eventually it just swallowed it whole! With the sharp shell and claws, that must have been an uncomfortable swallow.

Prints of the Week

Spring on the west coast is all about the flowers.

I was going to make this one black and white, but I decided I liked the little bit of color in the center.

One of the first California Poppies of the year. I love their bright color and the curves of their petals.

Print of the Week

I usually photograph nature, but here's something man made for a change. I think this is the Center for Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases (CERID) in Seattle. Pretty fancy building, at least from the outside. It was raining so I took these shots with my phone rather than get out my camera.

And a couple of other angles.

Seattle Chihuly Glass

This last batch of photos from Seattle were taken at the Chihuly Garden and Glass. Unfortunately, a section of the museum was closed, but there was still lots to see. It was quite dark inside, with bright lights on the glass, which made for challenging photography. Enjoy!

One of the sections was ocean related.

There was a passageway where sculptures covered the ceiling.

These boats full of glass were quite striking, one of my favorites.

The glasshouse sculpture was huge - 100 feet long.

An outdoor sculpture with the glasshouse in the background.

I liked the combination of the garden with the glass mixed in. This was a bit similar to a Chihuly exhibit we saw at the Phoenix (Arizona) Botanical Gardens.

Even a selfie in one of the glass balls.

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Seattle Butterfly House

Most people probably think of the Seattle Pacific Science Center as somewhere to take their kids. And it would be great for that. Personally, I like to go to visit the Tropical Butterfly House. It's not as big as the Victoria Butterfly Gardens but it's well looked after and there are lots of butterflies. No doubt it gets busy, but first thing in the morning on a weekday was relatively quiet for us.

This one was posed conveniently just inside the door.

There were quite a few of these Pale owl-butterflies.

And also lots of these Malay Cruisers, although I didn't match up the top and bottom of the wings until later.

This next one is another Malay Cruiser but showing the bottoms of its wings. This was on a pool where there was a mister making "fog". At first there was too much fog to get a good photo, but then I realized I could blow enough fog away to get an interesting shot.

And this one was in a faceoff with a snail. The snail was winning - as it advanced the butterfly was backing up.

There were lots of other kinds, the trick was to find ones that would sit still to be photographed.

These Leopard Lacewings were one of the more colorful ones, on both sides of their wings.

There were also some nice flowers.

The science center courtyard has some water features and sculptures. And some good reflections of the buildings in the water.

I'm sure the kids like the dinosaurs, as do I.

It's interesting to compare the photographs from this visit with the ones from the last time I was here, in 2015.

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