Firstly, I got a new camera! Expect better photos from here on out. I'm not saying you should expect good photos--it's still me taking them. I'm saying you should expect better photos.
Here's our cat, who is in fact a professional model
Secondly: Learning about birds has me wanting to learn all about other animals. For example: I feel justified in strongly disliking this Fucker [Fig. 1] who steals all the birdseed from the feeders, now that I know he is an Eastern Gray Squirrel--an invasive species in our area--who have been pushing out our indigenous Douglas Squirrels like this Cutie [Fig. 2] who came to visit us yesterday.
Fig. 1: Fucker, an Eastern Gray Squirrel
Fig. 2: Cutie, a Douglas Squirrel
The tongue!!!!
The showdown...
Thirdly, I took this camera birding yesterday, and I was going to go to Belfair State Park to see the other side of the bay that I usually see from Theler Wetlands, but decided on a whim to check out Lake Isabella Park again because I remembered seeing some signs of an owl. I've been reading about owling and when you're doing it during the day you're looking for a roost, which is a spot where an owl essentially just parks and chills out all day long. One of the signs is owl pellets, which are owl puke and in Cub Scouts they make you cut them open and dig around for the bones of the vole or whatever and try to put it back together. The other big sign is "whitewash" on a tree trunk, which is a nice euphemism for "This owl has been shitting on the same part of this tree for months."
Anyway, I thought I'd seen an owl pellet at Lake Isabella, so I went back. Turns out it was a particularly owl-pellet-looking rock and there was no whitewash to be found or any other owl signs. Bummer. And in addition to that, I had this nice camera but I couldn't find barely any birds? All I got was some really bad photos of a Mourning Dove that I'm now going to make you look at:
Fucking hell
I made a list of all the birds I heard but none of them wanted to come out. Okay, so not really none of them. I did see a Spotted Towhee and a Bald Eagle and two American Crows in addition to the aforementioned Mourning Dove. Once upon a time I would have been like "Holy shit a bald eagle" but if you're by a lot of trees and water in Washington you're almost guaranteed to see one if you're looking. When I was in Arizona it seemed like birders I talked to were more excited about them, which kind of got me to remember that not everywhere is like Western Washington. We're special! We have some cool birds ♥
That's really it for today. I think Prior might come birding with me this afternoon so I'm looking forward to that.
love u, Sara