April 4th, 2025
Here's a catchup from March, when there was still snow:
The first evening grosbeaks spotted near our feeder in years...
Where there are feeders in winter, sharp shinned hawks stop by to snack on other birds...
Today
I went to the Trail of the Coeur D'Alenes from Bull Run Lake to past
Medimont (about 10 miles each way, on Ebike). After a recent
injury to my sacroiliac, walking has been painful until the last week,
but bicycling feels okay...
I took my Panasonic FZ80 and P900 Nikon,
both ultrazooms, to see which worked better at distance. These
are from the P900 (Including the ones above, taken through the dining
room window):
First, this is the early bloom of grasss widows up on our ridge a couple evenings ago, last light of the day...
This
was early on, a duck with a red head, which might make it a redheaded
duck except for the dark stripe through the eye. For these photos
I was using the "bird watching" scene setting, which theoretically has
a tight center focus and can do multiple images. Unfortunately of
this bird they were all bad.
The
same setting at no zoom took lovely scenery photos--this of the Coeur
D'Alene river, next to the trail, which is on an abandoned railroad
grade...
Here's another nice scenery photo. But I was discouraged at the distance photos so I switched to the Panasonic FZ-80.
These swans were probably 300 yards away. There were about 20 of them...
Wood duck. 100 yards
The prize of the day--northern shrike. The FZ80 is easily confused by brush for focusing, this was lucky...
I
went from Bull Run Trailhead to about Gray's Meadow... I was
nervous about the No motorized vehicles (forgot to check in advance,
but checked now and Class 1 and 2 Ebikes are allowed)
This
is Rose Lake, part of a chain of lakes linked to the Coeur D'Alene
river. Unfortunately the whole drainage has a toxic legacy of a
century of silver/lead mining upstream...
On
the way back this swan was only about 50 yards off the trail.
Unfortunately swans long necks are for bottom feeding, and many
die in this area from lead ingestion... I don't know why this one
was not with the flock...
When
I was taking pictures of the swans, a biker asked what I was shooting,
then asked, "No bullwinkles?" Later I saw this one, leisurely
eating water plants near shore...
This bit of old Idaho was close to Cave lake, next to a spiffy cabin. This actually has a nice view of the lake...
Here's the second "northern" of the day--northern shoveler
This is the third "northern." Northern Harrier hawk
Coots
were the most numerous everywhere, in back is an American widgeon. I
also saw some pied bill grebes but they submerged like submarines
before I could photograph them.
Another nice view of the Coeur D'Alene River...
It
was a perfect day for the visit, cool, sunny and calm. Bull run
was a good place to start, but if walking, the Medimont is right near
two lakes...
April 6 This
was the view before dawn from my pottery shop yesterday. Venus is a
dot above between the 2 tall trees that appear to be in the street...
Grass widows are entering their glory time...
April 16
Blustery day, great sunset:
