9/13/2015   Yellow Aster Butte  
The first hike of the fall was primarily an attempt to find White-tailed Ptarmigan but though I traipsed through the high country north of Mount Baker for more than six hours, I saw none. Not that there weren't compensatory rewards. The huckleberry bushes were brilliant, the lighting dramatic and the landscape wild and scenic. And the marmots were adorable.
A marine layer moved in overnight and the mountains were obscured by a low stratus overcast which was beginning to break up by the time I reached the trailhead. I missed the turn off the Mount Baker highway and wasted a half hour trying to find it before finally checking the map. The 4 1/2 miles up to the trailhead were really rough. The trail itself was pretty easy, climbing pleasantly through forest for a couple of miles before starting to break out into meadows below Yellow Aster Butte. At 3.5 miles the trail crosses the shoulder of the butte and a side trail climbs steeply up to the right to the summit. It's worth noting that the WTA trail description and the map don't agree as to which summit is the real Yellow Aster Butte. The map names the first summit west of Gold Run Pass as Yellow Aster Butte but that summit is relatively inaccessible. West of that summit is a prominent sharp peak which is the highest point on the ridge. From that peak the ridge runs southwest about a third of a mile to a steep but rounded summit capped with crowberry, mountain heath and alpine huckleberry, the latter brilliant red during our hike. It is that rounded summit which is the destination of the Yellow Aster Butte trail.
It was a good day for accipiters, beginning with the burly Northern Goshawk which had cruised down into the valley as I traversed below the Butte. Then when I gained the ridge Sharp-shinned Hawks starting sailing by at a rate of about one per minute, repeatedly flushing a flock of about 50 American Pipits. One pipit almost got caught. Among the Sharpies were at least a couple of Cooper's Hawks, larger and more stable as they soared overhead.
After surveying the country, I elected to drop down into the basin northwest of the summit where tarns are scattered among ledge-capped knolls and colorful tents were scattered around the tarns. I crossed the basin and climbed steeply up the other side following a boot path north towards Tomyhoi Peak. After passing through a couple of tree bands I veered off to the left towards open ridges where Ptarmigan surely must dwell. Perhaps they do but I didn't see them.
The morning stratus had re-formed as a stratocumulus layer which gradually lifted off the lower summits as I ascended. Yellow Aster Butte itself came into the clear as I sat eating lunch in the lee of a young Mountain Hemlock. A pair of feuding Sharpies shot by and a Redtail soared down over the basin. Chilled after eating, I hiked on up the broad ridge towards Tomyhoi until I came to a steep drop into a narrow pass. I carefully followed a track down into the gap but I was blocked by a short scrambling step on the other side. I could have made it up but I was concerned about getting back down so I turned around.
I hugged the east side of the ridge on the way down, stopped for a nap in a sheltered meadow, descended off trail into the valley below the sharp peak on the ridge of Yellow Aster Butte. As the cloud layer broke up I began at last to warm up in the sunshine. After climbing the steep slopes up to the saddle, on the alert for Ptarmigan, I scrambled up the sharp peak. The trail up the peak was well-worn but a bit intimidating without arms.
The views were great from both the sharp peak and the rounded summit. The clouds had lifted above all the mountains except Shuksan and Baker. The late afternoon sun accentuated the glacier-smoothed topography in the basin below as well as the reds and golds of huckleberries and meadows. I didn't find a Ptarmigan but I did find joy there in the midst of such beauty.
Too soon I dropped into the shadow of the mountains and the colors faded to dusky greens and blues. I thought I was done with photos for the day when I spotted a solitary Band-tailed Pigeon perched on the leader of a young Mountain Hemlock by the trail. It waited patiently while I fumbled with the camera and was still posing when I moved on.
It was a long drive back to Seattle, something like three hours. Lorenzo's Mexican restaurant had just stopped serving for the night when I reached Sedro Worley shortly after 9 PM so I continued on home.

9/20/2015   Pelagic and Shore-birding trip  
Ed and Delia joined me for the September 19 pelagic trip offered by Westport Seabirds.
We had four species of Shearwaters with opportunities to compare Sooty and Short-tailed at close range. We also had a South Polar Skua and all three Jaegers, though I got neither a good look at nor a good photograph of the Long-tailed Jaeger.
Western Gulls trailed us back through the harbor into the marina, where Brown Pelicans roosted on the breakwater and Heerman's Gulls on an abandoned float.
After a brief nap at the motel, we drove out to and out on Grayland Beach where we found a headless Thresher Shark. A woman who had also stopped to look at it told us that the head was present earlier in the day and showed us a picture she had taken. I suppose there is no law against cutting off a dead shark's head but it seemed a transgression of some sort nonetheless. We cruised the beach looking for Snowy Plovers until sunset then reported to the Islander for dinner with George and Marianne and Andy and Eric. They had gone to the beach while we were napping and had found Snowy Plovers on the right side of the access road. We had looked on the left side only.
Early the next morning we drove around to Ocean Shores to bird the Game Range. George and the others had already found the reported Ruff and pointed it out to us. We spent 20 minutes or so studying Golden Plovers and both George and Andy concluded that one was American and the others Pacifics, based on the relative lengths of the tertials and the primaries. I was pleased to witness their deliberations because when I had studied Golden Plovers two weeks earlier at the Game Range and had used the same criteria to distinguish them, but with less confidence. They were not the same birds; mine had been molting adults and these were the brighter and more uniformly patterned juveniles.
Also at the game range was a flock of about 10 Lapland Longspurs. They were quite tame so Eric and I took lots of photos.

9/23/2015   Sunrise  
David and I drove down to Sunrise again in search of Ptarmigan. They were reported a day or two ago out at the Mount Fremont lookout. I think this was the 15th time I've gone up into the mountains in search of White-tailed Ptarmigan this year, and I was skunked once again. We did well for mammals though, with a small Black Bear along the road up from White River to Sunrise, a large brown Black Bear browsing on crowberries west of Frozen Lake, a herd of Mountain Goats above the trail up to Mount Fremont and half a dozen individual Elk along highway 410 back to Greenwater. We also glimpsed another Elk in the dark along the service road just west of the Sunrise parking lot while we were out listening for Boreal Owls.
On the way up to Mount Rainier we stopped at our traditional chanterelle hunting spot. The trails leading into the woods clearly indicate that we aren't the only ones who know about the mushrooms there but it did not appear that anyone else had been up there picking. We found lots of mushrooms in pretty good condition and collected about 6 pounds each in an hour. With that auspicious start, I thought we'd find Ptarmigan for sure.
After looking for, and not finding, a black bear during the whole week of our 50 mile hike at the end of August, I felt extraordinarily lucky to see two today. The first one was only about 10 feet away, close enough that I felt nervous even inside the car. We might not have noticed the second one, but when I asked another hiker who was returning to the parking lot if he had seen any chicken-like birds during his hike, he said no but there's a big bear near Frozen Lake, so we were looking for it. We found it on a ridge not too far above the Wonderland trail about a third of a mile west of Frozen Lake. It appeared to be browsing on crowberries, which are plentiful this year. They are juicy but not very sweet. It occurred to me that it would take an awful lot of them of them to equal the caloric value of just one of the granola bars in my pack. Fortunately that did not occur to the bear.
With such luck I felt certain that I would find a Ptarmigan, and I believed that the most promising spot would be the ridge above Frozen Lake heading out to Mount Fremont. I have never been on that ridge. Since it is off trail, I suspect the Park service frowns upon hikers venturing up there, but it was getting to be late in the afternoon and there were few other hikers around to see us. The mix of crowberries, grasses and forbs along with lots of rocks up on top of the ridge looked to me like perfect Ptarmigan habitat. I sat down to peruse my surroundings but when something white appeared over the crest of the slope below me it was not a Ptarmigan but rather a mountain goat, the first of a herd of more than a dozen which were ascending from the valley below to bed down on the ridge. They either did not notice me or did not care because they passed within about 100 feet of where I was sitting. Most were in family groups of a male, female and one or two kids. The males with their short but sharp horns could do me serious harm if they were so inclined so I watched them carefully but they showed no signs of aggression or fear. Instead they casually browsed their way diagonally up the hillside below me while I took lots of photos. I called out to David, ahead of me on the ridge, but he didn't hear me and never even saw the herd of goats.
The mountain remained in the clouds all afternoon but a border of blue on the glaciers just below the cloud line attested to blue sky above. Sunlight broke through in places shortly before sunset. I imagined a miracle in which a ray of sunshine pierced the clouds to illuminate three White-tailed Ptarmigan perched on a rock on the crest of the ridge above us out at the Fremont lookout. No miracle happened other than the sunbeams glancing across the western flanks of the mountain and the muted pinks and blues of the sunset over Grand Park. The every day kind of miracles.
We ran into Bruce LaBar as we were hiking back up the service road to the parking lot at nightfall. He was headed out to listen for Boreal Owls just as we had planned to do, so after stopping by the car to bundle up we joined him. We hiked about a half-mile down the road by the light of the moon but didn't hear much of anything. Well chilled, we headed back to the parking lot, no longer trying to keep quiet, and then we heard an owl - a sharp descending "skiew" call. It was the classic Boreal Owl "skiew" and I counted it for Washington year bird #317. We heard a few more calls, probably from two different birds, but none of them were very close and we couldn't spot any with our flashlights.
On the way out I tried for a photo of the mountain, clear now, by moonlight. With a long enough exposure, photos by moonlight reveal all the colors we see by day, something David first demonstrated for me some years ago on the side of Mount Hinman. At the first hairpin turn below the sunrise overlook we stopped again. Bruce LaBar had pulled over and called in a couple of Northern Saw-whet Owls. He even seen one of them. We did not, but we heard them make their wailing cry and also a couple of their "skew" calls, which are shorter, higher-pitched and more like a chirp then the Boreal Owl skiews. It was helpful to hear them both on the same night.

9/26/2015   ALS is not as bad as I expected (so far)  
A dream last night:
The house is me and the earthquake represents ALS. The earthquake rocks the house, just as ALS has dramatically changed my perspective. In the dream I expected the earthquake to break up the house and shift it off its foundation, but neither seemed to have any effect from my perspective inside the kitchen. In the same way I expected ALS to disrupt and destroy my life, but it has only affected what I can do, not who I am. The tall upper cabinet doors falling off represent my arms becoming useless. In the dream, I deal with that and carry on. ALS is changing my life but not destroying me, at least not yet.

9/27/2015   Sunrise again - Ptarmigan at last  
For a last hike for Darchelle's sister and family, we considered Snoqualamie mountain and Vesper peak but decided on Fremont lookout from Sunrise. It would be an easier hike which would allow Alicia to revisit her 50 mile birthday trek and would enable her mother to join us. I also thought that I might finally see a White-tailed Ptarmigan and we might hear Boreal owls (both reported there two days earlier) and that the parking lot would be a great place to see the lunar eclipse. It was, and we did, and I did.
Start early we didn't but it worked out okay. I persuaded Ed and Delia to join us for their first trip into the mountains this summer. They met us in Enumclaw and we drove up to Sunrise together, arriving around 2PM. The air was very clear with a bit of a chill in it; the sky deep blue, the great dome of Rainier gleaming white with recent snow and the meadows all russet and gold. Ed and Delia found Grey Jays and Mountain Chickadees by the parking lot, both year birds. Darchelle with her mom lagged behind due to her mom's sore knee, but they met us at Frozen Lake and continued on. Ed was uncomfortable with the steep slopes in the last half mile to the lookout, so he and Delia turned back to seek their year birds along the Wonderland trail. Gabe and I, ahead of the others, scrambled up the talus to the knoll a few hundred yards south of the lookout. Alicia met us there a few minutes later. She was all excited; she had seen a ptarmigan, or perhaps a grouse. Improbably, it was a grouse, presumably attracted so far from cover by the abundant crowberry crop.
I set out to traverse the lower slopes in search of a real ptarmigan while he returned to the knoll for the view. Shortly he called out to me, "Ptarmigan!". I raced back up to the top, gasping for breath. Maybe ALS is beginning to affect my lung capacity. Whatever, Gabe had a real ptarmigan, half molted from summer gray to winter white, attempting to dust-bathe in the moist soil on the very top of the knoll. We had both peed within 10 feet of the spot not 10 minutes earlier. We took photos while the bird grovelled and fluttered in the dirt, using its beak to flick brown soil onto its mottled back. The dirt made no more impression than drops of water on a freshly waxed car. Its bath over, the bird trotted over the brow of the hill and alternately rested by boulders and foraged for berries and other alpine goodies. We tagged along and took photos. Everyone got to see it, even Donna.
We stopped along the trail for photos on the way back.
The sun dropped behind the northwest ridge of Rainier and the moon, a thin pale crescent, rose in the shadow of the mountain. As the color faded from the sky, the disc of the eclipsed moon began to appear. I tried for photos. Everyone waited patiently while I fumbled with the camera but ultimately it refused to focus on the damn, I mean dim, moon. We dug out a flashlight for the last five minutes of the hike back to the car. I had counted on moonlight but there was none. The temperature had plummeted after sunset so we crowded into the car and turned on the heat.
Thirty minutes later, refueled and mostly rewarmed, we ventured out after owls. The sky was black, the moon a dusky orange disc slightly paler along the bottom edge. The stars, including a bright Milky Way, cast more light. My hands were useless so Darchelle and Gabe helped me put on coat and gloves and set up the phone and the little speaker. Six of us set off down the service road. We tried to be quiet but it's hard to just stand there without whispering a little and shuffling around a bit. I played the recording a few times but we only imagined we heard a response.
A brilliant crescent had appeared along the lower left edge of the dim orange moon. So beautiful did it appear that I wondered if perhaps in my aesthetic response there might be some element of primitive relief. As the crescent expanded across the face of the moon I recognized the shaded arc for the first time as the shadow of the edge of the earth, visible evidence of the relative sizes of the earth and moon.
Suddenly we heard a "skiew", and then another. A Boreal Owl! It wasn't particularly close, and it did not call again even after I played the tape a few times, but Ed and Delia had their first Boreal Owl. My hands were painfully cold and I was on the verge of shivering uncontrollably so we turned around. Darchelle, Gabe and I walked ahead. Ed, fifty yards behind us, had the flashlight but the moon was brilliant now and we didn't need it. We were nearly back to the car when we heard a very loud and emphatic "skiew". It must have been right next to us. The cold forgotten, we froze and scanned the gaps of dim sky between the tree silhouettes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the owl in flight. Just then Ed called out to us. They had just heard an owl too. The two owls called back and forth a few times but though we scanned the nearby trees with the flashlight, we never saw them.

10/1/2015   Mount Baker hikes  
David and I drove up the Mount Baker yesterday by way of Blaine, which is not exactly on the way from Seattle but I was hoping to find two rare shorebirds that were reported at Semiamoo spit yesterday. They were not there. We found some consolation at the Boundary Bay Brewery & Bistro in Bellingham where the food was excellent and the beers above average. My salmon was cooked perfectly and the accompanying mashed potatoes and broccolini seasoned well, and David's Yam Enchiladas in mole sauce were delicious. I'll get those next time. After dark we drove up the highway to Mount Baker and camped in a damp site off the Hannegan Pass Road near Swamp Creek. Hemlock trees sheltered us from both dew and moonlight and we slept for 10 hours.
Perhaps that was why we were so tired during the hike up Table Mountain this morning. I felt a little faint the whole time and more so whenever I stopped. It felt as though my chest was constricted and I couldn't get a full breath. Fortunately it is a short hike and not too difficult after the switchbacks up the cliff. The views were stunning right from the start. Mount Shuksan has to be one of the most scenic mountains in the state and Table Mountain offered a variety of foregrounds to complement its rugged cliffs and glaciers. Mount Baker paled by comparison but offered respectable views nonetheless.
The day was clear though somewhat smoky from lingering fires off to the east. Our camp was chilly in the morning. I was comfortable in my bedroll but David wasn't quite warm enough in his sleeping bag. We were expecting the hike to be cold but a significant temperature inversion surprised us with temperatures approaching 70F on top of Table Mountain.
Our afternoon hike, up the Heliotrope Ridge trail to the Coleman glacier overlook and beyond was considerably more difficult than Table Mountain. It was the "beyond" part that was challenging. We ate lunch in the trailhead parking lot then hiked the two and half miles up to the overlook in about an hour. We kept up a good pace and felt good.
The view of the glacier and Mount Baker from the overlook was great but the edge of the ice was 100 feet or more below us at the foot of an impassable gravel cliff. We wanted to get closer than that and we were particularly interested in a cluster of ice pinnacles above us where the glacier rolled down over Heliotrope Ridge. We followed foot tracks as far as we could then hiked up ledges and loose rock and gravel. We traversed around to the left of a cliff step with a waterfall down the center of it. The crux of that traverse was a short section of ledge too steep to walk across. We crossed the ledge on a narrow ramp just a couple of inches wide. At one point I lost my balance and leaning into the ledge, put my hand out to support me. My arm buckled and I tipped forward into the cliff, striking the rock with my forehead. It bled a little but didn't hurt much. Slipping off the ramp and down the ledge would have hurt a lot more.
Above that point the footing was miserable, generally loose gravel and unconsolidated rock on top of glacier-polished slanting ledges. Wherever any amount of dirt and gravel had accumulated, it was saturated with water and turned to mud when we stood on it. We scrambled up to the edge of the ice which was almost black with dirt and gravel and melted out into grotesque figures. The pinnacles up close were less impressive than the ice cliff which loomed above us. A block of ice 100 feet across and 15 feet thick had split off from the main glacier so we explored into the narrow gap between them. A cold wind was blowing down onto us and my hands hurt from the cold but I couldn't force them into my pockets to keep warm. As we started down David helped me put on a coat though his hands were also almost numb from the cold.
The descent was treacherous. I felt that with any step I could slip, topple over and start skidding down over the ledges and loose rock. My arms would be useless to break my fall. I had hoped to find an alternate route down and thereby avoid the narrow ramp but it was the only way. It went okay and after that the rest of the way down to the trail was easy. My hands even warmed up enough to take some pictures albeit not without considerable fumbling with the camera.

10/2/2015   Panic  
A dream last night:
I think this dream is about the difficulty of having someone else, i.e. Darchelle, do for me what I would normally do for myself. Not only does anyone else helping me tend to do things differently than I would, but I cannot even effectively explain what I would like to have done for me. The prospect of being unable to take care of myself fills me with foreboding, as illustrated in the dream by the sinister figures encased in black ice and by the 9/11 image of the skyscraper with a cloud around it. I am helpless to prevent the problems that will arise, as a represented by the car sliding into the ditch. My blocked front door, representing my nonfunctional arms, feels like a straitjacket. My only glimmer of hope is in Darchelle.

10/4/2015   Portland Marathon  
I drove down to Portland with Darchelle to run the marathon. Having only run 13 times in the last three months, I would have been glad to switch from the marathon to the half marathon but Portland doesn't allow that. If I wanted the shirt I'd have to run the whole thing. So we did. I considered running with her dad but wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up with him so I ran with Darchelle instead. She was excited about all the high-quality cast-off clothing littering the start area and the first mile or two of the course. She collected more than a dozen items. I kidded her about Christmas shopping.
During the first half I insisted that we walk frequently and as a result we were still able to run some in the second half, but altogether I don't think we ran more than about 8 miles. We stopped for photos now and then and also at a baby blue piano along the course somewhere around mile 20 where Darchelle sat down and played the theme from Chariots of Fire while the few stragglers behind us trickled by. It was stirring in a humble sort of way.
Her dad ran a great race and broke six hours for the first time, finishing just under 5:56. We finished somewhere around 7:15, our only claim to fame being that we were the first runners to finish after they closed the official finishing line. At least we weren't too sore afterwards, mostly just tired and hungry. She and her family traditionally share a post race meal at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Nothing against their tradition but the food was forgettable.

10/6/2015   Ilwaco birding  
On Sunday afternoon both a Bar-tailed and a Hudsonian Godwit were reported among the Marbled Godwits at the Ilwaco Marina along with two Sharp-tailed sandpipers. The Hudsonian Godwit and the sandpipers would both have been life birds, and I've been looking for both of them for two years now, but I was busy after the marathon and so was unable to make the two hour trip up to Ilwaco. Thinking the birds might still be there, I decided to drive down yesterday afternoon. I called Blair to see if he wanted to go and he was already out on the coast. A few hours later he reported back that the Hudsonian Godwit was apparently a gonewit but that he had seen the Bar-tailed along with a Palm Warbler. Those two year birds were enough to persuade me to make the trip.
Delayed by packing and by a massive traffic jam on I-5, I didn't get to Ilwaco until 6 PM, about a half hour before sunset. At least I made good use of the time by talking on the phone with Mom and John and with Jennifer. The godwit flock was tightly bunched up on a grassy island east of the marina and I was unable to pick out any that looked different from the others. I did, however, find Blair's Palm Warbler right away so that was nice.
I spent the night at the ramshackle but friendly Hacienda motel, the first one I came to after I left the marina. The beds in my upstairs room were comfortable but I could hear the TV in the room next door all night long. I ate supper and caught the fourth quarter of the Seahawks game along with the enthusiastic local fans at the Lost Roo in Long Beach. My Counterbalance Dark Ale and portobello burger were both quite good.
I stayed up late on the phone with Susan but woke up early anyhow. The wind shifted to the southwest and the sun peered over the horizon only briefly before it was obscured by the incoming stratus overcast. I bundled up in a down coat and neck warmer and hiked back out on the willow-fringed embankment overlooking the bay and the small grassy islands where the godwits had been at sunset. All but one were gone. I found them off the east end of the embankment and watched as they got flooded off their roost out there by the rising tide. They flew back to the grassy island where I found them again, foraging energetically at the waters edge and bathing in the breaking wind waves. This time it wasn't difficult to pick out the Bar-tailed by its streaked back and its pale barred tail. Though it was pretty far away for photos, through the scope I had my best views of the species since I first saw it in 1982.
I made it home in time for my massage with Monica.

10/7/2015   Fear  
A dream last night:
It seems pretty clear this is another ALS dream. My recollection of Nelson B is that he was a nice man (as people with ALS are reported to be nice) and that he died. The two junctions in the cable I believe represent the two anniversaries of my self-diagnosis of ALS. In my third year of this disease, neither I nor anyone else can rescue me from my predicament. In a relatively short time my arms will fail completely. That is a frightening prospect.

10/18/2015   Fort Steilacoom Marathon  
First, a dream last night:
The dream depicts various aspects of my experience since I discovered two years ago (in my 60th year) that I had ALS. The Forester represents me, and traveling too fast down the road represents my life passing by too quickly. The angry homeowner is like me when I first learned of my condition and wanted to kill myself. The initial absence of a driver followed by Doug, a friend from childhood, taking over represents me taking charge of my life and living in my truth (as they might say at Soltura). The boys taking the engine probably represents their memory of me after I die.
When I was recounting the dream to Lynn the next day she uncharacteristically interrupted me to suggest that the kid keeping the dirty ones may refer to Darchelle's ongoing tendency to bring up to Susan's pain over losing me and her own role in breaking up my marriage. Lynn's suggestion brought an unexpected upwelling of feeling which included both sadness and pain along with relief or gratitude for what - maybe that she acknowledged the distress (which I hadn't really recognized) that I feel when Darchelle reminds me of Susan.
It also triggered a discussion of why I continue to hold that sense of responsibility for Susan's pain. As we talked about her, Susan appeared to me as a sad little girl in a small round raft adrift at sea looking for someone to rescue her. Why did I embrace the opportunity to be that someone? Why do I not release myself from the obligation to save her from her sadness when I understand that her pain predates me, and that I cannot fix it? Lynn and I explored my sense of having wronged her by leaving, and she wondered if I am punishing myself for that. I feel it more as obligation than guilt, I told her. She asked where in my body do I feel that obligation? It took me only a moment to locate it, centered between the top of my shoulder blades in my cervical spine. Where the nerves are dying of ALS.

Fort Steilacoom has a delightful course, gentle and soft underfoot on paths through broad lawns and hillside meadows, oak groves, orchards and fir forests. The event is friendly and casual but well-organized, and we can register on race morning without paying a high price. It is not an event we wanted to miss.
We finished the marathon in about 7:25 barely a tenth of a mile ahead of last place then drove up to Seattle and walked around Green Lake so that Darchelle could complete 47K on her 47th birthday. She read Facebook birthday greetings to herself on the way home. Ellen, Bonnie, Annette and Monica and her family came over for a birthday party and brought food. We supplied pie and ice cream treats. Ellen read a poem that she had written to Darchelle that morning. We put a votive candle on the pie and sang Happy Birthday. It was a happy birthday.

10/25/2015   Another dream  
Last night I dreamed about a bear:
A month ago David and I saw two bears on our day up at Sunrise at Mount Rainier. That provides the setting but the meaning of the dream is unclear.

11/5/2015   Birding with ALS  
Yesterday I joined the Wednesday morning birding group at Nisqually. It was a difficult morning. I had wanted to leave at seven but did not get up in time. I made coffee as usual but my morning bowel movements were slow in coming. I have to poop before I leave the house because once I'm out I can't count on being able to pull up my pants. Because I can't wipe very well I rinsed off in the shower afterwards, then I couldn't do up either the snap or the buckle on my pants. Without at least one or the other, my pants won't stay up. I worked on the problem for about a half hour, trying other belts and other pants and even a bungee cord but my hands were just too weak to do the job. I looked for my needle nose pliers but have misplaced them. That however gave my hands enough of a rest that I was finally able to snap my pants. By now it was 8:30 but I knew the group would move slowly and I could catch them. Except there was a huge traffic jam on I-5. My phone projected a 45 minute delay. I sat in the car for 20 minutes debating whether or not to go. Finally I went because I knew that if I didn't I would just sit at home angry and depressed.
The traffic jam had cleared and I made good time down to Nisqually. There I faced the next problem - putting on my coat and zipping it up. Without it I wouldn't be able to stay out very long. I managed to get it on, and then by some minor miracle I was able to get the zipper started. It has probably been a month since I've done that successfully. Nonetheless, I was not able to zip it up. I tried wedging my hand in the door and squatting and I tried doubling over to grab the zipper with my teeth. A carload of women had parked next to me and I was starting to feel embarrassed about my antics so I thought to myself "what the hell" and walked up to one of them and asked her to zip up my coat. She did so with a smile and no questions asked.
I slid my head under the strap of my camera to hang it around my neck then used my teeth to pull open the zippers of my spotting scope cover. I stood the tripod up and hooked the top of it between my chin and my bony shoulder. Successfully shouldering the scope, I set off to go birding. At the far side of the parking lot I set the scope up to scan for the Red-shouldered Hawk, my target bird for the day. I didn't find it but when I went to pick up the scope again, I couldn't get it back on my shoulder. I guess my hands were just done but I was just about undone. Angrily I dragged the scope back to the car and set off again without it.
As has been my habit with anger, I tried turning it against myself. Whom else can I blame? I don't believe God exists so there's not much satisfaction in blaming him. But there wasn't much satisfaction in blaming myself either. Hating myself just doesn't feel honest anymore. I may think about suicide but I really don't want to end my life the way I used to.
Heading home a few hours later I tried to be miserable but couldn't really justify it. I had caught up to the group and enjoyed a nice visit with Shep whom I hadn't seen in a while. The weather had been perfect and it was fun to be out again with other birders. I hadn't missed anything important by arriving late. Then at the end of the walk I got a call from Art Wong about a King Eider along Ruston Way in Tacoma just a few minutes of my route home. It was still there when I arrived. Then Blair Bernson showed up, and Ken Brown stopped by walking his poodle. We marveled together at the Eider until dusk then Blair and I shared dinner together at the Lobster Shoppe, swapping birding tales over beer until the rush hour traffic cleared. Despite its challenges, yesterday was a good day.
After therapy I drove down to Nisqually again where I again did not find the Red-shouldered Hawk, then continued on to Olympia where I did find a recently reported Northern Mockingbird, year bird #324, before returning to Seattle for a dentist appointment.

11/9/2015   Birding  
I was more motivated by the prospect of birding in the Vancouver area on Monday than I was by the opportunity to attend the healing service on Sunday. I was looking for a Red-shouldered Hawk at Ridgefield and a Swamp Sparrow at Woodland Bottoms. Unfortunately I was no more successful at birding than I was at healing and we saw neither of them.

11/12-19/2015   South Texas Birding Trip  
Ed and I spent a week in mid-November birding and photographing birds in south Texas. Here is a log of our south Texas trip.

11/21/2015   King Eider again  
Ed and Delia hadn't seen the King Eider so we drove down to Tacoma to look for it. It was in its usual spot along Reston Way near the old ferry, and this time it was quite close to shore in good light, devouring small crabs one after another. I took pictures. There were other birders there too, a young man named Joshua whose posts I have read on tweeters and also Heather Roskelly from the Tacoma Advanced Birding Club. People walking by stopped to join our little crowd and and Ed told them about this rare visitor from the Arctic. Afterwards we considered going over to Brown's point to scope the Sound for Ancient Murrelets but I decided our chances for success were slim so we went home.