Full moon setting at Seaview, Washington

Seaview, Washington sunset

Looking for whales and finding cormorants

North Jetty of Columbia River: Where two worlds collide

Getting serious about my still photography

http://strigidae-peninsularbirds.blogspot.com/

(More photographs will be added to the new site. -- DGH)

Sound of surf overwhelming

I do not know why, but occasionally the sound of the surf in my apartment is more pronounced than on most evenings. A look at the tides table for today, September 7, 2011, tells me that high tide comes at 10:16 p.m.--a bit more than an hour from now.

The sound of the surf at this time is transformative. I am drawn to it, though a 55 degree temperature, a fog, and a north wind will probably prevent my being there.

But when the full moon is setting over that magnificent beach on September 12 near dawn, I doubt anything could prevent my being there.

All human activities and misadventures pale into appropriate perspective when the elemental sound and power of an incoming Northern Pacific tide is pounding at one's doorstep. This is good--a welcomed diversion.

D. Grant Haynes

Gulls at Ocean Park, Washington

(Photos by D. Grant Haynes) (Click to enlarge and view.)

I have acquired a high definition video camera capable of producing high quality images as still photographs. But I now know E-Blogger doesn't cotton to HD images. They are displayed as little more than thumbnail photos. One has to click on each image to see the detail. What a bummer! I need to find another venue for posting photos.

Also, I have joined the local Audubon Society chapter, hoping to clarify which species of gulls I am seeing most often. I believe them to be either Herring Gulls or California Gulls in varying degrees of immature plumage, mostly. The gray and white birds are adults, but all the quarrelsome and mottled ones are immatures.

I assume their survival in the nest depended upon their fighting for a share of whatever was brought to them. The young ones squawk and fuss with one another much of the time--especially when food is offered. -- DGH