Brad Sondahl's blog

Brad's Blog

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July 6

I noticed this flower along Lamb Creek last weekend, and I think it's a Macoun's buttercup...

There are a number of plants with this "umbrel" type blossom, including carrots. This one might be water hemlock...

These wild tiger lilies are always a pleasant surprise... All three of these were along the creek...

This was along the road by a spring by Bayview. (In 2019 I thought it was a western bluebird. In May 2021 I was looking for photos for a poster for our museum and saw this. "Hey, that's a lazuli bunting!")
The flowers there are yarrow, most likely (I'm much more of an aesthete than a botanist or birder).

July 8
I set up my gamecam, which I use too little (fear of having it stolen keeps me from using it more in the local woods) in back of the pottery last week... I got about a hundred photos of our cats walking by, and this one (of two, very similar):

It's set on our back porch, which is visible as a low horizon line, and there are no plants nearby, nor, in spite of the date, fireworks going off...
I don't have a clue what it is,,, But when I went to post it on the blog, I had to change the photo number, since I'd posted the same number the year I got the camera:

That was a coyote's rear end in that photo...

July 10

the f
The native water lily is the one in yellow-- the white one is non-native, but lovely...

These are common wild bushes in nearby moist areas. Douglas Spirea (native), named after David Douglas, pioneer botanist...

This is called sea spray when growing by the ocean, and mountain spray when growing in the mountains (although mountains don't have spray) and locals called it smoke-bush which is accurate both in the white phase and when it turns brown after flowering. We have lots of this in our area...

This is a least sandpiper who was keeping us diverted from a probable nest site today, making it sit more still than normal.. Our robin's nest yielded its second load of fledglings today, and the fields are full of quail chicks also... The goslings are already teenagers, some with adult markings..

July 13

The other day, over 100 yards away, I saw a baby red necked grebe riding on a parent, so I took the photo, but it's not great...

This is pyramid spirea (native)

Fireweed, common in the rocky mountains up to Alaska. Seed pods split open to eject fluffy seeds...

Red tailed hawk behind mill pond, in the area where a lot of small rodents live, like chipmunks, Columbia ground squirrels... I also caught a glimpse of a coyote half a block away in the same area, for the same reason (hunting rodents)..
My mother tells the story that as a baby her father had her with him while plowing a field, parked alongside. And when he came around the field he saw a coyote looking into the baby basket... Coyotes being opportunistic feeders, I'm sure Grandpa was extremely upset by the experience...

I don't think of flowers much in the lowland in July, although this is a typical disturbed field behind the mill pond, full of non native annuals. The yellow is mostly St. John's wort (non native), and the blurry white in front yarrow (native) with hairy mullein in back...

July 15
We had a lovely walk along Kalispell Bay at Priest Lake yesterday, and here are the results:

Possibly harebell (Campanula) native

Pearly Everlasting common along mountain roads, used as a dried flower...

unknown new one

pipsissiwa flower

looking down the lake, which is about 30 miles long...

looking up the lake towards "the narrows" which are roughly halfway up the lake.

wild onion

The huckleberries this year are as large as their civilized cousins--blueberries... Priest Lake gets more rain showers than lower in the panhandle...

July 17
As I walked today I took a couple pictures from the old lumber mill site:

Like the Colossus of Rhodes, what was a mighty vision collapsed into ruin... This pillar held a watertower for the railway...
This is what the mill and mill pond looked like in its heyday:

The train track built to haul the lumber had a large machine shop and roundhouse:

Some cement channels going towards a filled in center are all that remain...

For more Spirit Lake photos, visit the S.L. historical society page I also manage....

The site is potential development property, used for years for motorcyle and ATV trails by the locals...
I just discovered this white aster on the site this afternoon. Blue asters are common late wildflowers. I think this is one of many called fleabane, since they mistakenly believed the flowers killed fleas... (you can see an ant enjoying one in the photo)

July 23
We went kayaking yesterday with friends at the west end of Spirit Lake. It was predicted to be the hottest day of the year so far (actually today is that), but we went early in the morning and it was cool, especially after we were caught in several showers. By the time we finished we were wet and cold, and our hosts turned the heat on in their living area to help us all get warm... In spite of that we had a very nice time...

This is the view up Brickle Creek towards Mt. Spokane. The creek was straightened for floating logs down it in the early 20th century. The high bermed banks hide marsh on the left side, and cattle grazing slough on the right...

This is a photo of the more typical asters we have in the area:

books read

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz. It's probably been 40 years since I read of Moriarty and Holme's "death" at Reichenbach Falls, so the details were sketchy, but this author, authorized by the A.C. Doyle estate, offers plenty of tie-ins to Holmes and his career, and plenty of guesswork as to who's who in this clever novel... I personally was relieved when Sherlock entered the public domain, so anyone can have fun with his character...

Buckskin by Robert Knott One of the most successful proteges of the Hammett style was Robert Parker, who has many accolytes carrying on his own characters, this one in his western style... I doubt Parker would have used supernatural characters, but it's still a page turner...

Dashiell Hammett's Lost Stories More a biography with minor stories embedded in the author's timeline, an interesting look into the creator of terse American P. I. fiction genre.. And both he and my father got close contact with Olivia De Havilland when she toured the Aleutians in 1944, but I never asked my father if he ran into Hammett on Adak...

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2023