Fidalgo Island Crossings

Sometimes writing about a bad experience and disappointment is helpful. In 1977 I saw the first Star Wars movie A New Hope at the Lindale Plaza shopping center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  (I went to graduate school in Iowa and ended up living there for nine years.)  That movie was magical.  When I came out of the theater, the world had changed.  I have not experienced anything quite like that feeling with another movie since. I enjoy good movies and try to watch as many as I can.  I am especially fond of science fiction.  I subscribe to all the movie packages on cable and I have an Amazon Fire TV box.  They give me access to everything I want.  The last movie I saw in a theater was  Forrest Gump  more than 20 years ago.  I enjoyed it immensely. In January, I had to take my car into the dealership for servicing.  They said they would need it for about four hours.  I was dreading the thought of sitting in a waiting r...

Canon EF-S 15-85mm Lens @15mm (24mm image) Last fall, I bought a new camera, a Canon 7D Mark II .  As it turned out, the photo editing software I had been using with the old 7D1 couldn't process the raw files produced by the new camera.  For the moment, then, the new camera ended up stashed away in a cabinet. Canon EF-S 10-18mm Lens @10 mm (16mm image) Now I have new software that will process the 7D2 raw files.  Here are the first couple of test shots I took this week using two different lenses.  Although they were just test shots, they turned out fairly well.  They were also photos of my usual Skywatch scene, so I decided to post them there.  Although it is the same scene, these photos are very different from the one I posted last week . Compared to the old 7D, much less post-processing seems to be needed with the 7D2.  Colors are brighter and lighting is more balanced right out of the camera.  I take a lot of photos in t...

At Skywatch Friday , I know the photos with a lot of red, orange and yellow in them get the most attention.  But the sky that I watch sometimes looks like this. Location:  Skagit Bay at the northern end of Puget Sound, Washington, USA Time:  9:00 a.m. Weather:  Light rain, temperature 48° F, dew point 46° F, humidity 92%, barometer 30.05", wind calm,

Yesterday, it stopped raining long enough for a quick hike across Kiket Island in the Kukutali Preserve .  I haven't seen our neighborhood eagles for a while and wondered if they might be hanging out over there.  By the time I got there, about fifteen minutes later, fog had rolled in.  For the moment, eagle viewing was out of the question.  I decided to go exploring anyway and see what else might be going on.  Left over from last season, I found Common Snowberries (Symphoricarpos albus) right next to the little parking lot. In the woods along the North Trail, I spotted the first Banana Slug (Ariolimax columbianus) of the season.  Apparently it is getting warm enough for them to come out of their winter hiding places At the west end of the island, Oregon Grape (Mahonia aquifolium, Berberis aquifolium) is starting to bloom.  Around here, that means spring is arriving.  The leaves turn bronzy red in the winter.  With warmer t...

February in the Pacific Northwest is typically rainy and overcast.  Once in a while, however, the skies clear giving us a beautiful winter day.  Such was the case on Tuesday this week.  This is Skagit Bay at the northern end of Puget Sound in Washington State.  I took a nice, long hike in the Skagit delta wetlands.

What is it about a trail that is so enticing?  I find myself compelled to follow its course to see where it goes.  What's at the end?  What will I discover along the way?  I was delighted when Deception Pass State Park announced that this year's First Day Hike would be at Hoypus Point at the north end of Whidbey Island.  I had hiked all of the Deception Pass trails now except the ones in this section of the park.  For me, Hoypus was terra incognita .   It was about time for me to get to know this part. There are sixteen named trails in the Hoypus Point network.  So far, I have explored the East and West Hoypus trails, the CCC Crossing and part of the Fireside Trail .  One of the trail names on the map  (.pdf) that caught my eye was Fern Gully .  That's the one I wanted to explore next.  From Cornet Bay Road, this would be my route: West Hoypus Point Trail Fireside Trail west Little Alder Trail Fern Gully Forest ...

We all know the basic difference between deciduous and coniferous trees.  Deciduous trees drop their leaves in the fall and grow new ones in the spring.  Conifers are evergreens that hold their leaves (or needles) year around.  But that's really not the whole story.  In fact, conifers drop needles continuously all year around.  The big Douglas Firs in my yard and the wind like to send needles into the rain collector of my weather station.  These can clog the aperture in the bottom of the collector.  To deal with this, I devised a successful strategy using a kitchen strainer to catch the needles. About a year ago, Davis Instruments revised the design of their collector for the Vantage Pro2 station.  It included a debris screen that fit in the bottom of the bucket.  This looked like a good idea so I ordered one. Unfortunately, as you can see in the photo, the slots in the new debris screen are too large to hold back the fir need...