I went to the beach today during a sunny lull in the snow. It was brisk but really lovely with a low tide that revealed how the beach was scoured from stormy high tides. Made it to the end of the beach and was hanging out.
Then I heard the crows raising a ruckus, which is always a good sign of some excitement up on the cliff trees. I was right because a big white head stood out like a blazing sun. It was an amazing adult bald eagle. It got better since he was feasting on a fish. Oh Yum!!
Eagle giving crows the Look
He was hanging out on a bleached white madrona tree limb. Perfect place to keep watch on the world while he snacked.
How about we get a little closer to our fabulous bald eagle?
Proud owner of a good Fish
Did you see the fish’s backbone? This eagle has been here a while eating some white fish he caught. If the crows had not been hoping for a stolen bite I would have missed him up there on the steep bank.
Let us zero in on his talons. They are nothing to mess with.
Talons holding tight to Fish Bones & Guts
Check out how he works the remnants of the fish to get the last morsels. At the end you can see how the bones just fall away. Pretty much all done.
One last shot of this symbol of our country enjoying his catch of the day.
What a year it was 2019. I retired from 37 years at GES and have survived my first 6 months of a new life.
It is a good time to re-vamp and re-visit Crows of Arroyos. In November I crossed the nine year mark and today I gave her a new suit of clothes. Hope you like the new format/theme I picked. Plus, thought I would share with you the highlights old and new at Crows of Arroyos.
The raw 2019 statistics are a good starting point:
113 posts
29,074 words
8,090 views
5,191 visitors
630 likes
63 comments
I stuck with my tried and true topics such as:
Crow babies, Crows of the Hood & Beach
Nature’s serendipity moments on my Puget Sound beaches – Ocean View & Cove Park
Waterfalls – revisited Coal Creek in Cougar Mountain Regional Park and hiked 6 miles to see Doughty Falls after our one day rain record right before Christmas.
Some new topics I feasted on:
How to find an Old Coal Mine – Adventured several times to find century old mines hidden in suburbia.
In the midst of a rain storm ran into a gregarious Spotted Sandpiper. A new bird spotting to add to my bird list.
Experimented with daily photo flashes:
Just Black & White – 9 of these where I used the software GIMP to desaturate some photos.
Color Flash – 20 photos of Fall Bright colors including leaves, flowers & toadstools.
Bird Flash – 33 one time snapshots of different birds that crossed my path.
Very Berry – 11 winter berry fun to show there is color even in the darkest days of the year.
Now lets talk about the top posts for 2019. This is what my readers found of interest within my whole portfolio of 837 posts. By the way, my all-time views are 51,564 and 27,581 visitors.
Number Five most viewed site was……Duwamish – Kellogg Island with 187 views
Kellogg Island backwater side
I wrote this post as part of a series I called My Duwamish Adventure. In 2015 I walked as close to the river as I could. I started at a park called Cecil Moses Park where the river changes into the Green River. I made it all the way to the mouth at Jack Block Park. A lot of walking in between.
This article is about a special place on the Duwamish River. It is the only remaining piece of the original river before it was dredged and made the industrial waterway it is today.
If you want to see all of my Duwamish Adventure here is a summary post with many links – Duwamish Adventure Directory
Here is the video I made called “Our Only River”. This was the finale of the series.
Number Four most viewed site was …..Crow Pellet with 321 views.
Crow Pellet – interesting look at what this crow was eating
One of my crow followers landed a few feet from me on an old piling and proceeded to throw up. I was kind of shocked and yet sort of honored that he felt comfortable enough to do his regurgitation in front of me.
The link to this May 2012 post is Crow Throw – up. Be warned not for the faint of heart.
Number Three most viewed site was …..Crow Idioms – Eat Crow and As the Crow Flies with 332 views.
These two idioms are prime examples of how many do not like crows but they do respect them for their intelligence and sleek black beauty.
There is a back story to this post that I did not reveal at the time I wrote it in September of 2016. It was triggered by an episode at work where I got mad and yelled at a couple of people at work. I can say now that they wanted to break rules and I told them under no certain terms that it was a bad idea. They were unremorseful and told their manager I was harassing them. Who in turn told my boss. She sympathized with me but said I had to eat crow and apologize. In the end that was the right thing to do but it was a bitter pill to accept.
Number Two most viewed site was …..It’s Molting Time – Crows, Herons & Madrona Trees with 415 views.
Madrona Trees also molt this time of year. The bark is just like paper laying on the trail.
This post has the most staying power of all-time with 3,916 views. It was conceived in the fall of 2011 and every week someone reads it. I think it is the madrona trees molting that catches the traffic. They are a very special tree that molt at the same time as the birds I follow at the beach. But then again it could be the crows who sure don’t look black and shiny when in molt.
Check this out at Molting or you can just google “molting trees” and it will pop up on the second page. Pretty cool to be a hot google item and it is my all time most visited post.
Drum Roll——>Number One most viewed site was ….. “Ruins of Longacres Racetrack – The Foundations” and it’s sister article “Longacres Racetrack – Vintage Aerials” with a combined 835 views.
Arial View of Longacres Racetrack – left to right – Gazebo, North Grandstand, Original Grandstand, Club house & Jockey HouseMossy stairs at foundations of Longacres Racetrack remains
The Foundations had a huge one day visit when a Facebook group “Seattle Vintage” had a feasting party of 514 views in November this year. Making a total of 633 in 2019
It also has an all time viewing total coming in second to Molting with 1,904 views.
Aerials is no slouch either with 202 views in 2019 and all time of 628.
These two are part of a series I wrote about what I found when I went down to where the old racetrack used to be. Boeing bought the property in the early 1990’s and bulldozed it down shortly thereafter.
Here is the opening on Foundations:
Ruins are often thought of as a tourist site such as the Ruins of Pompeii, the Acropolis or Delphi of Oracle. These are in distant places many of us can never see. They do have one thing in common and that is they were places mankind gathered. The area is imprinted with that activity with not only the remains of the structures but of the vibrations that do not dissipate over time. In some cases they become more powerful and draw us to them.
Needless I say I am still drawn to these ruins and even a week ago was digging around researching my next article.
The aerials were a gift to me from an ex-employee who read my first couple of articles. They are fascinating since they include the I-405 being built in the 1960’s.
Here are the links to the two posts. You can find more by following the links at the end of these post. Maybe it is time to make a directory post of them like I did Duwamish & Green River Adventures. Foundations link & Aerials link
Well that ends my reminiscing on how Crows of Arroyos did in 2019. Hope you saw something new and come back for more. Wish you all a great 2020!! A new decade awaits us.
