Fidalgo Island Crossings

This is a photo I took this morning of a rhododendron blooming in the cul-de-sac where I live.  It is the last day of January.  Several plants are doing this around the complex.  Prime rhododendron season is April to July.  There are a couple of reasons to see blooming at atypical times: There are early/winter blooming rhododendron varieties such as 'Christmas Cheer' or 'PJM' They sometimes get mixed signals from weather or daylight which stimulate blooming The weather here this winter has been fairly typical although we have gotten more rain than usual.  Early this month, we had a cold snap where the temperature dropped to 27° F, -3 ° C.  Since then, the temps have remained above freezing and as high as 58° F, 14° C.  Our typical overcast has been broken up by several days with bright sunshine. We had a few rhododendrons that pushed out two or three blooms early last fall.  That was most likely due to confused plants getting the wro...

Between getting one house organized to live in and another one sold, I have not had much time for hiking.  This week, after a rainy weekend, I decided it was time to get out and get a look at early fall in the North Sound.  I headed over to Kiket Island in the Kukutali Preserve .  The Deception Pass State Park Newsletter  (.pdf) indicated some new amenities were being installed, and I wanted to check them out. Off Kiket Island, there is a swim float out in Similk Bay, about 100 meters away.  It can be seen from the causeway leading to the island.  It is usually populated with Cormorants and gulls, but something was different this time.  Zooming out to 400 mm, I spotted this pair.  They were at least twice the size of our little Harbor Seals.  I believe these are either young Steller or California Sea Lions, more likely the latter.  From this distance, I'm not sure it is possible to distinguish which species they are.  Cormor...

Winter here, in the classic sense, begins in December and runs through early to mid January.  This is when temperatures at or below freezing occur.  Since Christmas, we have been experiencing temperatures well below freezing accompanied by sunny, blue skies. That's about to come to an end now with rain forecast for this weekend.  I decided I better get one more hike in before this happens. Early yesterday morning I headed for Bowman Bay in Deception Pass State Park to hike the Bowman-Rosario Trail .  This is always a good choice for beautiful scenery. interesting nature and frequent wildlife encounters.  It also provides a little terrain for a bit of exercise.  It begins at sea level, rises to skirt the cliff edge over Bowman Bay, then returns to sea level at Rosario Bay. I love hiking in the winter.  I am not really a hot weather person.  Dressing for cold weather is easy, but undressing for hot weather can only be taken so far.  For ...

The theme for this year's First Day Hike at Deception Pass State Park was the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail .  This is a 1,200 mile/1,931 km trail system that connects the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park, Montana to Cape Alava on Washington's Pacific coast.  We completed a portion of that trail on yesterday's hike. First Day hikers gathered in the dining hall at the Cornet Bay Retreat Center.  Here, we fueled up with hot drinks and pastries provided by the Deception Pass Park Foundation .  Hikers ranged in age from toddlers to seniors with everything in between. The first leg of the hike took as to the Deception Pass Bridge via the Goose Rock Perimeter Trail, about 1.5 miles/2.4 km.  The trail went from sea level to high on the cliff overlooking Cornet Bay.  It descended back to sea level skirting along Deception Pass.  It ends at the bridge where we took a rest stop.  We had just completed a piece of the Pacific No...

This past week, I took a short hike at Hoypus Point in Deception Pass State Park.  Driving over there, I was astounded by the Pacific Madronas (Arbutus menziesii) along Highway 20.  On the Fidalgo side of the pass, the trees on both sides of the road were ablaze with clusters of berries.  In nearly thirty years living here, I had never seen anything quite like it.  I had to return to get a closer look and some photos. It is normal for some of the trees to sport a few clusters of berries in the fall.  But not like this.  The unusual fruitfulness of the Madronas is undoubtedly the result of the equally spectacular bloom that I posted about last spring. The berry-like fruits are called drupes .  Other examples of drupes are coffee beans, cherries, coconuts and peaches.  The red color in the photos is not the result of editing.  In fact, my camera tends to over saturate reds and I had to subtract a lot it from the photos to get them ...