A Different World

It drizzled all day today, while the sun shone and blue peaked out of the sky. A typical spring day.     


The Olympic Peninsula used to be an island. It nearly is, even today. That explains the unique wildlife, especially birds. Ray Bradbury wrote a sci-fi short story about a human family that relocated to Mars, and they began to change because of the different environment. Mike calls this a "different planet." Am I changing?

My hair is different. Without Missouri's heat and humidity, it's not so curly. The water's hard, and my hair became very frizzy. Sulfate-free shampoo calmed it down, but it is much straighter. I don't think I'm speaking any differently. I can't tell if I'm losing my southern drawl. And I haven't started saying,"Okey-dokey" or "You betcha"--which, I'm sorry to report, are expressions they really do use.
   
Now that I'm getting over my loss-of-cardinals grief, I'm enjoying bird watching here as much as in Missouri.

Pine siskins are small finch-like birds. They come in large flocks, chattering noisily. They're very tame, and they can become an annoyance.  They come in such numbers that there are too many to fit on the feeder, and so they get in line on the hummingbird feeder, scaring the hummingbirds away. 

Stellar's jays are bigger than blue jays in the east. They frighten away all the smaller birds. A pair of flickers (woodpeckers) the same size as the jays come occasionally.

Bigger than the jays are the band-tailed pigeons, an American bird only found in the west that is 14.5 inches long. The jay jumped backwards the first time one of those pigeons appeared.

I've seen three species of hummingbird, and one is bright orange. It glistens neon red in bright light. (There is only one species east of the Mississippi.)

I can add bald eagle to my list. One flew into our front yard yesterday. It landed down the hill, out of sight. I ran out of the house to get another look. Outside the birds were screaming, so I knew it had to be there. As I was creeping up from behind, it flew away. Man, what a wingspan. Add to big and bigger, gigantic.

The next day I found a dead squirrel on the ground under the feeder. Then Mike noticed a pile of dove feathers on the ground, next to a stone spotted with three small drops of blood. There was a predator, for sure, and I think it was the eagle. I think the eagle swooped down for the squirrel, which may have already been dead--eagles are scavengers--then got scared away when I approached it. After we had left, it came back for the squirrel. While flying away, it saw a flock of doves on the ground, and dropped the squirrel to catch the dove.

I'm coming to think of eagles as flying dinosaurs: raptors. Eagles are magnificent, but they are very fierce, and not as beautiful when you see one as you expect it to be. The head is smaller than is usually portrayed, compared to the size of the body, so it looks more like a small-headed dinosaur. Don't get me wrong; they're still magnificent birds, but they killed one of my gentle doves.