Barred owls and lingcod

Wow! I had a ton of work to do this weekend and I've been digging through it like a good girl. Except it has been such a beautiful freakin' weekend. I would be much more productive if it would just rain. So I worked outside on the computer and then we decided to take a break and go for a quick hike that involved some steep uphill so we got some exercise. We met up with a friend, Nate, and headed off on the trails right behind his house. One of the best parts about Anacortes is that no matter where you live, you probably have some of the community forest lands in your backyard. Anacortes has really protected its forests (secondary growth forests, but still forests!). We have the Cranberry Lake forest track, but we often visit the Mt.Erie forest lands too. Nate happens to live right behind Mt.Erie and we got to go on some new trails that I had not been on yet. What a gorgeous walk!! But the best part - owl sighting! Yeeehawww! The barred owl must have been right on the trail and we didn't know it until it flew right in front of us. We stopped and shut up and watched where it landed.....still close to us! With binoculars we watched it watch us and eventually it grew bored enough of us that it yawned. Awesome. We kept hearing what must have been chicks calling to it, but we couldn't find the nest. No worries though, this adult was cool enough to see. This was, by far, the best owl sighting I've had in North America.

Barred Owl

Last weekend we went out diving on a charter boat in the San Juan Islands. Of course, the LCD screen on the camera still doesn't work. So we only got a few photos before the memory card filled up (and of course we didn't know the card was full). The two dives we did were pretty neat, big walls of anemones, lots of rockfish, corals, seastars, and the occasional glimpse of a buddy in crappy visibility. =)

Lingcod

And the last cool wildlife sightings to report - a coyote ran through our backyard the other morning AND we had a female black-headed grosbeak on our bird feeders. Very cool. That must mean the sexy red male is nearby. Maybe we will get him next?