The Other Pic I Got

I took about 20 photos of this little weasel (pun intended)...most of them turned out to be pics of where she was just a moment before...Still, I'm delighted to get 2 pictures of such a rare animal!

Rare Sighting

Hey! I see you! This little guy was a special treat, as we've only just started to see him/her on our land near Duvall, Washington.
One of our adult program instuctors noticed this Short-tailed weasel (Mustela erminea) during a class. The hole that it's popping out of is about the size of a quarter. It's at the base of as stump just a few feet from the woodshed outside Malalo, the rustic 8-sided structure where we hold many of our ceremonial events at Wilderness Awareness School. I signed up at the last minute for a 2 day wilderness first aid and CPR class...my certifications had expired, and now that I'm beginning to lead some small groups on my own, I figured I should take care of that...and I like to be up at the land. I took my camera along hoping to see this guy (or gal). And see it I did...getting photos was much harder. They move really fast!

The Short-tailed weasel is a tiny member of the mustelid family, and is a vicious little killer! The instructor saw it take a vole into the burrow, and then return several times with infant voles. For an animal about 8 inches long, that's some feat! I like cute little furry critters with teeth.

Almost Like Cheating

The WAS Tracking Intensive class went to eastern

Washington this past weekend and had such an awsome time. On Saturday we tracked mule deer at Frenchman's Coulee, and then moved on to Bighorn sheep along the Yakima River.

The weather was sketchy, but we went hoping to find tracks...and as we pulled into the parking lot, we were greeted by this little band of 9. There are a couple of young rams with this group of ewes and last year's young.

We watched as they ran down the hillside and across the valley we were going to be hiking into! It seemed almost unfair to watch them and then go find the fresh tracks...almost, but not quite. How many times do you get to trail 5-minute old Bighorn tracks?

Sex in the Neighborhood

There was a pair of amorous raccoons in the Cedar tree by my bedroom window yesterday.

Clara, my cat, directed my attention out the window...I noticed that she was intent on something - her tail was thumping against the window in irritation.

At first, I only saw the one...and she was not happy that I'd intruded. She's hissing at me...this photo was taken in poor light, so I played with my "fun" options on my Easy Share photo software...I kind of like the cartoon effect, and it seems to fit the situation.

It was a first for me, watching a couple of raccoons go at it in a tree. They were about 25 feet up, and on a precarious-looking limb. Sort of reminiscent of satin sheets on a water bed...

I'm not even going to speculate on what it says about me that I watched...and took pictures. I'm claiming "naturalist curiosity".

October Tracking Intensive Class

My stupid, contrary, dumb, un-cooperative, and annoying computer rebelled, and I could not open the disk that contained my Tracking Intensive photos...I kept getting the message that "the administrator has blocked access to the CD/ROM ". I'm the administrator for my computer! Stupid computer!

We had a wonderful, sunny, and productive weekend at the Potholes and along the Columbia River near Vantage. It's so strange to cross the Cascades and suddenly be in high desert with sagebrush and sand. I love the contrast to our side of the mountains. And being able to see for miles is fun! This picture is near the river just outside of Vantage, with the high basalt rock walls opposite. Truly, I took both pictures from the same spot, just turning my body to get the shots.

Dave's group found a terrific sandy beach along the river with raccoon, coyote, beaver, and Canada goose tracks in the damp sand! We made plaster casts, and I found it really tough to decide what to cast. The coyote tracks sometimes paralleled the raccoon or beaver tracks. It would have been possible to get both critters in a large cast. I chose a nice set of beaver tracks, as my Dad made his winter money by trapping when I was a kid.

I'll be putting more Tracking Intensive pics up on my WebShots page, so go check them out!

Big Fish

For those of you who thought I don't know that a Bullfrog is an amphibian and not a reptile, give yourselves 30 points for noticing...Writers need editors, and mine was asleep at the keyboard.

My vacation adventures continued and I feel really lucky to have seen a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodius) catch a fish that was almost too big for it to swallow! I often see the big bird at McCormick Park and have taken many, many pictures of it. Some of them have even been good. I've watched it hunting and have missed the chance to get a pic of it diving after fish.

On Thursday afternoon, I was there with the camera when I noticed the critter was stalking it's prey. As I shot pics, it sank deeper into the water and slowly stretched out it's neck...and I missed the shot of the dive.

It came up with a fish - a big fish - and moved to shore. From the far bank, I took picture after picture as it tried to figure out how to eat the fish...I could see the fish flopping and watched the bird try to maneuver it into position...The bird paced the shoreline, shook the fish, used it's feet to try to turn it...The fish continued to flop.

Many pics later, and after I started to fear that the bird would choke on it's meal, it finally managed to swallow the fish. What a lucky time to be passing by with a camera!

I am trying to upload some pics, but there are "errors" so I'll try again later.

The 4th Coyote

He was loping up the hillside from Highway 203 to the tall grass at the edge of the road near where I live...As I've often noticed about wild animals, he didn't pay much attention to me - until I took my foot off the gas pedal. I hadn't even started to break, although the stop sign was coming up fast, and I've seen the occasional police car in that very same spot. He went into high gear, ears back, and disappeared. Like smoke.

I was heading to the laundromat early on a Sunday morning to do my weekly chores when I saw him. I remembered Filip's comment that I should sing the Wolf Honoring Song to the next coyote I saw but my Lakota is pretty bad, and my singing is awful so I just spoke the words out loud.

"Around the edge I am walking..." That's where the coyotes stay. Edges. I wonder if that has significance for me? Are my frequent coyote sightings this spring about edges? I've been living on my edges since I came west. And I mostly love it.

Coyotes do well on the edge. I've been doing well, too. Perhaps they are the welcoming committee. I expect I'll be seeing more of them.

Silly Bird...

I found this beautiful Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in the swampy area just behind the police station at McCormick Park in Duvall. I must have taken 50 pictures of it...40 of them so nearly alike - standing still, pearing into the soup for fish- that I could delete most of them and not miss anything interesting.

I got ready to shoot another picture every time the bird tensed. Still, I missed the dive! I did get a good one of shaking off the water, though. I love the "horns" in that one! What an undiginfied look for such a beautiful bird.

The big coyote (Canis latrans) appeared at the edge of the path between Linne Doran and Mosswood Hollow.

He was beautiful, long-legged, and in fine condition with that happy canine grin that means the world is a good place today. I saw him at the same instant that I hit the ignition key, and he melted into the greenery. Ghost dog...

What does it mean when the same wild animal keeps appearing - in midday, and in places you don't expect to see one? In six weeks or so, I've seen 3 coyotes in 3 different places, and each has taken me by surprise. I've seen them before, of course. I've heard them howl - a sound that I love to hear in the evening. I've tracked them in Missouri, Oregon and here in Washington.

There just seems to be something mystical about my sudden ability to find them everywhere...or are they finding me?

The photo above is of the female I saw last month in McCormic Park. The first was along Cherry Valley Road as I went to the land for a staff meeting on a recent Sunday. This last one appeared at the end of the Plants for Food and Medicine course that I helped out at. Both of these appeared to be males. She's the only one I've seen when my camera was at hand...

I wonder if ghost dogs appear in pictures anyway?

Randon Thoughts

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted anything. I confess to going home from work and settling in with a book most days...I've been walking (25 minutes to work from home - 35 back up the hill after.) It's beautiful, with trees in bloom and mild weather. I've seen nest-building birds this week. A robin (Turdus migrtorious - look it up if you don't believe me) in my neighborhood flew off with such a big lengh of yarn that it made me laugh to watch.

I've also noted that the local Blacktail deer (Odocoileus hemionus) are looking pretty shaggy. Loosing your winter coat must itch! I saw one just along the road near Taylor Park one day as I drove home. She was grazing on the new green grass in a yard. People were walking dogs and riding bikes. It makes me happy to see them, and a little afraid that I'll witness an accident.

What I've been reading: "The Serpent's Daughter", the 3rd Jade del Cameron novel by my friend Suzanne Arruda. I love her descriptions of post WWI Africa.

"The Education of Little Tree" by Forest Carter. We sell this book at the Wilderness Awareness School website, and have had some complaints. Recently, nine staff members, Residential Program students (current and past), parents, a forner English teacher, and invited guests read the book and did some research about the author. Yes, it seems that Mr. Carter misrepresented a work of fiction as autobiographical. Yes, he does not appear to have been a nice man - and was in fact a member of the Klu Klux Clan at one point in his life.

And, yes, he wrote a wonderful book. The story, written for young adults, is lovely. None of us detected any underlying message of hate. Regardless of the man's politics, we found no reason to pull it from our shelves. We wondered how it happened that near the end of his life this book came from such an unpleasant person...we found no answers to that question.

I know that I've done and said and thought things in the past that I'm ashamed of now. Perhaps that's what happened to Forest Carter. Something else to wonder at...