a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
There was a little rain today, and it definitely felt like fall, with a high of only 56°F (13°C).
There was mail from an Ebay seller in Tasmania, Australia, in my mailbox today— with a single pair of South African stamps inside.
Issued Jun. 26, 2023
Perf. 13¾ x 14½ |Design: Jason Watts Engraving/RA Printing | No watermark
No. 4205 AUS$ 3.90 |Multi-colored |Bilby (Macrotis lagotis)
Notes:
The bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is a desert-dwelling marsupial about the size of a rabbit. It was once widely distributed through arid and semi-arid Australia, but wild populations are now restricted to spinifex grassland in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and to a small region of southwestern Queensland.
[Sources:stampworld.com, Australia Post Stamp Bulletin No 384]
Issued Sep. 1, 1938
Perf. 15×14 |Photogravure |Wmk. Multiple Springbok heads
Se-tenant pair of Afrikaans & English inscribed stamps
SACC 43c 2d |Blue and violet |Union Buildings, Pretoria
[Source: The South Africa Stamp Colour Catalogue, 1988]
Here’s a northern flicker (Colaptes auratus) on 20th Avenue in Seattle’s Central District, foraging for ants.
These woodpeckers migrate south to warmer climes for winter, so they will not be seen around much longer this season.
The new elevated Waterfront Park here in the city opened yesterday.
The park is on the central waterfront by downtown Seattle and connects Pike Place Market and downtown neighborhoods with the waterfront.
A few public art installations and a concessions area are still to be added, by early 2025.
Summer is officially over.
The fall equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere is at Sun, Sep 22, 2024, 5:43 AM Pacific Time.
I spotted this peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) today, in an open lot near Broadway & Republican Street here on Capitol Hill.
I think this one is a juvenile bird— it still had some downy feathers on its breast and underbelly.
Falcons have extraordinary speed and maneuverability, and hunt birds on the wing. Their prey also include bats, voles, lemmings, squirrels, rats and lizards.
The black-eyed Susans, the pretty asters (picture below), and some sunflowers here in my neighborhood are the last of this summer’s flowers.
It was a very pleasant 70°F (21 °C) today, with a blue sky and sun this afternoon.
Happy Friday The Thirteenth.
Below is a story of a harbor seal that was in the wrong place at the wrong time (but ended up being OK).
STRAIGHT OF JUAN DE FUCA, Wash. — An incredibly rare event was caught on camera Thursday in the Strait of Juan de Fuca: a humpback whale accidentally scooped up a seal while trying to snack on some fish.
Not to worry, though. The seal is unharmed.
According to the Pacific Whale Watch Association (PWWA), humpback whales eat small fish and krill, not seals.
While they have very large mouths, their throats are roughly the size of a grapefruit, so PWWA says they can’t swallow something as large as a seal.
A PWWA member company, Blue Kingdom Whale & Wildlife Tours from Anacortes snapped a photo of the very surprised seal in its jaws and shared it with KIRO 7.
The tour was watching humpback whale BCX1876 “Zillion” feed on a school of small bait fish at the time.
“The harbor seal was likely feeding on the same small fish and found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time,” PWWA said.
Zillion opened her jaw and lowered her head into the water so the seal could swim away.
“We occasionally see humpback whales get small birds stuck in their mouths while feeding, but a seal was a huge surprise,” PWWA said.
– Reported by By Lexi Herda, for KIRO 7 News in Seattle (here’s the link)
Happy Saturday.
I love wild animal cartoons.
WHIDBEY ISLAND STATION, Wash. — Residents of and near Whidbey Island witnessed a weather phenomenon on Tuesday as “wave clouds” lined the horizon.
Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds or fluctus clouds, as the formations are named, are very rare over Washington, according to KING 5 Chief Meteorologist Mike Everett.
The clouds look like literal waves in the sky, a series of rounded crests that are worthy of a double-take.
Often referred to as “wave clouds,” the clouds signal a difference in wind speed and density between two layers.
– Reported by Olivia Sullivan for king5.com
It’s September, which means we will soon learn which new products Apple will introduce. It’s time to upgrade my phone.
Here’s a cute cartoon from the Seattle Times Sunday.
It’s getting late in summer, but I still find pretty flowers here in my neighborhood.
Is the woodpecker (it’s a northern flicker) eating ants? I wondered.
Yes, woodpeckers eat ants and are known to eat more ants than most other birds.
Some woodpeckers, like the pileated woodpecker and northern flicker, can eat hundreds or even thousands of ants at once.
– Natural Audubon Society
We had 18 consecutive days above 80°F (26°C) in the city by Sunday— a record number of consecutive days.
The run ended on Monday, which brought a high of only 68°F (20°C).
There was cloud cover this morning, but it was gone by late morning.
Today was the 12th day in a row with a high 80°+ (27°C+) recorded at Sea-Tac.
(The record is 15 days in a row, and it will be broken).
There has also been no rain in July, and we have a real shot at reaching the end of July with no rain at all.
Normally, July ends with about 0.67″ of recorded rain.
What has been the driest July on record? I wondered.
Here is what the Office of the Washington State Climatologist says about July 1960:
‘All of the climate divisions of the state were exceedingly dry in July 1960 (ranging from 0.01” in the Puget Sound Lowlands to 0.05” in the East Slopes Cascades region).
Some stunningly low amounts of precipitation occurred in spots that normally get a fair amount of rain.
For example, in the coastal region of WA, Forks checked in with only 0.04” and Hoquiam got completely shut out with 0.00”.
The 1981-2010 climate normal for Forks and Hoquiam in July is 2.47 and 1.14”, respectively’.
Stamps (from South Africa) that I had bought in March (on Ebay) from a seller in China, showed up in my mailbox today.
We drove up to Port Townsend from Hansville today— about an hour’s drive.
Happy Friday.
I am on Kitsap Peninsula with my amigos.
Here’s a Douglas squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii) that looked down at us from its perch in a western hemlock (fir tree). These little brown squirrels are different from the Western gray squirrels we have in the city.
Later on it sat on a tree down on the embankment, and we could see it from above (thanks to Bryan for the picture).
I thought Mr Jay (Stellar’s jay, Cyanocitta stelleri) might be looking for earthworms on my lawn, but he caught one of the big black flies sitting on the lower leaves of my camelia bush (third photo).
You’ll be swell! You’ll be great!
Gonna have the whole world on a plate!
Starting here, starting now,
honey, everything’s coming up roses!
– From Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics for Everything’s Coming Up Roses, written for the 1959 Broadway musical Gypsy.
Happy Friday.
It’s Memorial Day weekend here in the US.
It’s been a while, but the little rose bush in my front yard has roses again.
