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

Oysterville continues to beckon

The Oysterville School, built in 1907, served the community for 50 years--until Pacific County consolidated its schools in 1957. Thereafter, the thereafter, the picturesque building has been utilized as a community center. Public education came to Oysterville with the first settlers in 1860. A two-story schoolhouse provided a forum for reluctant students to learn reading, writing and arithmetic from 1874 until it burned down in 1905.

(Photos by D. Grant Haynes) (Click on images to enlarge.)

Washington's Waikiki Beach

Oysterville, Washington made remote, beautiful by Willapa Bay

Propsom, Schulte bring blues to old Long Beach railroad station

Back to the kite festival...

Photo by D. Grant Haynes (Click on image to enlarge.)

The International Kite Festival at Long Beach continues to gather steam and enthusiasts as the weekend approaches. Participants in the various kite flying skill contests are permitted to camp on the beach and many have pitched tents. There will be fireworks and much merriment before the festival is over Sunday afternoon. -- DGH

(See this blogger's Facebook page for today's video.)

No more kite festival--not today!

I set out in earnest this afternoon to walk down to the beach and photograph kites, tourists, corn dog stands, and rows of actively used portable toilets--the usual human stuff.

But along the way, my attention was arrested by something much more interesting and appealing and I never made it to the beach.

I saw the quiet and timid visage of a young mule deer watching me from a brushy field not 100 yards away.

While all the tourists streamed to the beach, I detoured past a small stand of pines and into an open space where I was fortunate to view three mule deer for half an hour or so. I believe I saw a doe with two fawns.

After the deer tired of entertaining me, I drove down Highway 101 toward Ilwaco, Washington, stopping at a local landmark called "Black Lake".

There, I saw gulls taking a break too from the kite festival and the noisy and restless Pacific Ocean. Black Lake is beautiful in its own quiet way.

D. Grant Haynes

Kites everywhere...

Photo by D. Grant Haynes

The annual Long Beach, Washington, kite festival began today, August 15, 2011, in Long Beach. Beach skies were filled with exotic kites most of us could only have dreamt of in our childhoods. The festival will continue all week, concluding on Sunday, August 21.

View to the East of Willapa Hills from Long Beach, Washington

Young gulls vie for handouts

Best viewed on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pXzjJRFkG0

Thousands of blackbirds perform evening ritual at Long Beach

Can be viewed more effectivly directly on YouTube at:

http://youtu.be/ZWxSnHZ7ntY

Gulls, terns at Ocean Park on Long Beach Peninsular

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z35yqi3g3c

Long Beach kite festival coming!

Photos by D. Grant Haynes

Kiting enthusiasts from throughout North America are already gathering in Long Beach for the annual International Kite Festival to be held August 15-21 this year. Kites are a serious business here. There is a kite museum and at least one kite specialty shop. For one who purchased Hi-Flyer paper kites for less than a dollar in F.W. Woolworth's in a 1950's Columbus, Georgia, 21st Century kiting in Washington State is a whole 'nother ball game. Some kites cost upwards of $200 nowadays. That I should live so long! -- D. Grant Haynes

Rainier dominates Cascade skyline

Photo by D. Grant Haynes

This view of Mt. Rainier (elevation 14,411 feet) was taken from White Pass on Highway 12 in Southwestern Washington on August 1, 2011. It is not too often that Rainier is out. Clouds cloak the dormant volcano more often than not. Mt. Rainier is considered to be one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world. Despite her potential for eruptive activity similar to Mt. St. Helens' in 1980, Rainier lends dramatic beauty to Washington State. (See Wikipedia article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rainier for more detail.)