Category: Birding
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Spring Break Road Trip to the Redwoods – April 2018
My family has been itching for a road trip (well, some of us…), and this year we were able to get away for Spring Break. The weather is always tricky in April, but we got lucky and were able to time our trip for a brief window of good weather. We split the drive down…
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Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge Trip Report
Swimming snakes! Exploding cattails! Dabbling ducks! Croaking frogs! Sunning seals! This hike had it all. We enjoyed a day of record spring temperatures by walking at Nisqually with my mother-in-law. Spring is just getting started at Nisqually, with Indian plum being one of the few shrubs leafing out. The frogs are loudly croaking now, though…
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SEA Discovery Center and Point No Point – Trip Report 3/9/18
Yesterday I took Annika and two of her friends on a fun outing over to the Kitsap Peninsula. We took the ferry over from Edmonds to Kingston, and from there it was a quick 20-minute drive to Poulsbo. Our destination was a small aquarium, the SEA Discovery Center, right on the water of Liberty Bay.…
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Book Review: Wild Love Story: Vignettes From Forest and Pond by Bob Jepperson
There is an excitement to exploring new places far away, but there is a different kind of joy that comes from getting to know a place in every season over many years. Bob Jepperson has done a lot of exploring, but he’s also spent over a decade wandering the trails of a wild area close…
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Spring Break 2017 – Grand Canyon National Park
For our third day in Arizona in April, we spent the day up at the Grand Canyon. We were staying at a house on the north-south road up to the South Rim area of the canyon. This turned out to be a really good spot for getting up to the Canyon early in order to…
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Tolmie State Park, TR 3/17/17
I recently had the chance to drop my kids off with Grandma in the South Sound, and I had the afternoon free to do a hike by myself. Since I was already down there, I thought I should check out a new trail for the website. I picked Tolmie State Park, northwest of Olympia on…
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Semiahmoo Park – Trip Report, 3/10/17
We recently took an afternoon and drove up to Semiahmoo Spit near Blaine to do some birding and check out a new-to-us trail. Semiahmoo Spit is a long sand spit that protects Drayton Harbor. Historically this area was used by Native Americans for harvesting natural resources, and it became an abundant salmon canning area after…
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Trip Report: Yellowstone National Park
Our family was fortunate to be able to take a big road trip this summer, and we chose Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons for a visit. We were gone for nine days, driving and camping along the way. We stopped at Craters of the Moon on the way back. Wow, what a trip this was!…
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Book Review: Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest by Julie Zickefoose
It’s truly spring here in the Pacific Northwest, and everything is budding and blooming. The birds are noisy in the mornings, the morning chorus announcing the breeding season. Pretty soon, baby birds will be hatching, begging for food, and learning to fly. For the past two years we’ve had bird nests built on our…
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Mental Health Day at the Stimpson Family Nature Reserve
One of things that is hardest for me about parenting is the lack of time alone. Time to process, to think, to let all the other planning and thinking rest for awhile. I’ve learned over the years how important it is for me to get away by myself for some rejuvenation. I generally try to…