It has been fun to bird in the Seattle area, but has also made me more appreciative for what I have right out the front door at home in northern Minnesota. At home, an hour before sunrise at 4:10 am the dawn song starts with a passion. It’s actually quite noisy in a very pleasant way. Here in Seattle I have to work hard at finding birds … answering these questions:

• Where is a good park with decent habitat?
• What traffic concerns might there be?

However using eBird, Google Maps, and park PDF maps the problems may be solved. My first stop was an old Navy base which is now a park and low income housing unit. Not only was it fun to find this Barn Owl, but I had a conversation which was good for me, and an eye opener. At 6 am I talked for over 20 minutes with a local resident, who now was off the streets but had been homeless for five years. I learned she was a nice person who had been down her luck (my assessment). She never complained of poor circumstances during our conversation. As I said, an eye opener for me.

My next park I found a Killdeer Convention in progress!

Finally a day later we are out of the big city in the Cascades. It’s nice to be back in rural America. Right at our motel I found these beautiful Violet-Green Swallows. It was dry and sunny on the East side of the mountains … wet and foggy on the West (the waterfall photograph).