Fidalgo Island Crossings

This past week, I caught a couple of glimpses of Mount Baker .  This active volcano in the Cascadia Subduction Zone is Washington's third tallest mountain , the fifth tallest in the Cascade Range and the most glaciated of all the Cascade peaks.  It can be seen from several places in this area.  This first photo was taken from the dike in the tidal wetlands of the Skagit River Delta .  This Fish and Wildlife unit is one of the best birding sites in Skagit County. While I was taking the photo of the mountain, a young Bald Eagle flew right over me.  When I hiked back out, I spotted him perched above the dike trail in a dead tree.  He posed nicely while I took his picture.  When I moved on, he let me walk directly under him without even flinching.  I saw a total of five eagles on this hike, including one at the nest south of the duck blind. The next day, I went out to the Samish River basin and the " West 90 " site, another great birdin...

On New Year's Day I attended the fourth annual First Day Hike at Deception Pass State Park.  This has become an annual event in state parks around the U.S.  In Washington State, I counted 28 First Day Hikes on the State Park calendar .  This year's hike at Deception Pass took us to Ginnett Hill , one of my favorite places in the park. We assembled at the trail head in the Pass Lake parking lot at 10:00 a.m.  Our hosts were Jack Hartt, Park Manager and Carly Rhodes, Park Interpretive Intern.  Our group was at least 60 to 70 strong.  Again this year, the hike had two legs.  The first took us about a mile to the meadow on the north shore of Pass Lake.  Then we doubled backed part way to the Ginnett Hill Trail for the second leg.  This trail took us another mile through a rain forest and up to the old homestead site at the top of Ginnett. The weather was chilly but perfect for the hike.  At the start, the temperature was below ...

The New Weather Station Setup My Davis Vantage Pro2 wireless weather station provides data for the Current Weather  page on this website.  The station console has been connected to my main desktop computer via a WeatherLink USB module.  The WeatherLink software performs the uploads to this site, CWOP , Weather Underground , the WeatherLink Network and to the Northwest Weather Network (as "Anacortes"). The December 9, 2014 windstorm took out our power for about 8 hours.  Even with surge protection, pretty much nothing worked on that computer when the power was restored.  Using Windows Explorer or right-clicking would send it into a "Not Responding" freeze-up.  There were no restore points and it behaved like it had no file indexes.  It could take several minutes to open a folder.  I did manage to start the weather station and get the uploads working again.  After running overnight, it seemed to repair itself somewhat, but it wasn't ...

Yesterday, December 30, 2014, a weather record was broken in the Pacific Northwest.  At 11:00 AM Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle recorded an atmospheric pressure of 1045.5 hPa or 30.87 inHg if you prefer.  This exceeded the previous record of 1043.4 hPa (30.82 inHg) set just three years ago on December 1, 2011.  You can read more details about the event here . Between 9:25 and 10:25 AM my station , located 2 miles/3 km east of Deception Pass, recorded a pressure of 1045.2 hPa (30.86 inHg).  My barometer is about 40 feet (12 meters) above sea level.  The cause was a high sitting over British Columbia.  The result was chilly temperatures, but beautiful sunny skies.  I went hiking in Deception Pass State Park. Image:   Chelsea Clock

December 15, 2014, 7:36AM, Temp 35.2° F, Dew Pt 31.1° F, Hum 85%, Wind Calm, Bar 29.92 inHg Usually, gray skies in the Pacific Northwest mean overcast and rain.  During this sunrise over Skagit Bay, the camera caught a moment of grays in a cloudless sky.  I added a bit of vignetting to make the sunrise pop.  Other than that, the photo appears as shot.  Winter skies here are always the most interesting.

I have been waiting and saving up three years for this.  Canon finally released the new, long-rumored 100-400mm II telephoto lens.  I preordered one from Amazon on November 10th.  After a bit more waiting, it was delivered last Friday December 19th.  Yesterday was the first opportunity I had to try it out.  I went over to Kiket Island in the Kukutali Preserve .  Since this is a lens built for wildlife, I was sure I would find something over there to point it at. The full name of the lens is Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM .  It replaces the venerable 100-400 released in 1998.  No one can accuse Canon of rushing to market with new products. I was hoping my first shot would be the Bald Eagles that often perch on the east end of Kiket.  They weren't there, however, so this is the first shot with the new lens.  It is either a Glaucous-winged or Western/Glaucous-winged hybrid gull swimming in the pocket estuary.  I am ...

You could not tell from the photo that a major windstorm blew through here the night before.  All is calm now in the late afternoon December sun.  The storm did kick up some driftwood and debris that the tides are now washing into northern Skagit Bay. This is the same storm that delivered high winds and more than 3 inches/8 cm of rain to the San Francisco area.  It moved up the coasts of California , Oregon and Washington before crossing Vancouver Island into British Columbia, Canada. South Fidalgo Island was spared the worst.  Peak winds at my station only reached 34 mph (55 kph), significantly less than the 65 mph (105 kph) that was predicted.  We didn't even lose power which is unusual for this neighborhood.