It was a bizarre experience, but I’m still alive. I think it was a combination of exhausting myself from walking on a gravel path for too long, and misjudging the heat, and then getting lost on the way home because a bizarre set of road closures took me somewhere I’d never been. By the time I came home I was in pain, overheated, and barely had time to get through the door before I had a total blood pressure crash that led to needing help getting picked up off the floor and getting undressed. I’m fine now, but that was a fun adventure.
Actually, the walk itself was also a fun adventure though. Because I took a walk to the Japanese garden at the lake with the intent of photographing some of the birds that live there. My camera is very old, and my 300mm lens is a bit broken, but it works well enough to take photos of birds from far enough away that I wouldn’t scare them away or piss them off. I’m only sad that I was too slow to get a few shots of the bald eagle harassing the osprey that kept flying overhead. But here’s what I did get photos of.
As soon as I got to the lake, I found some Canada gees and what I thought at first were some goslings. It wasn’t until I got a good look at the pics later that I realised they’re actually a bunch of American wigeons hanging out with them.
I couldn’t tell what these were either (nor did I notice the turtle with them) until I got home. I’m fairly certain they’re a pair of double crested cormorants. It’s a little disappointing that I was shooting right into the sun here, because I lost all the detail on the birds and had to do some horrible things to the photos to get any details out of it in order to identify them.
Here’s a Canada goose, which I photographed on its way to go attack a child (not photographed). When it was done with the child, it turned on a jogger and beat the shit out of him as well (also not photographed). I couldn’t tell what it was up to and why it seemed so determined in its walk, right up until it leapt at the car window the kid was hanging out of. But I decided it would be unkind to photograph that, and was too far away to do anything other than laugh. And then as soon as the kid’s mum got the window rolled up, a jogger went by and the goose turned on him, and again. Photographing it seemed unkind, and I was still too far away to do anything other than laugh.
I don’t know what kind of turtles these are in the lake, but they were everywhere, and I kept spotting them either right as I was walking away, or after the fact later as I was going through my photos. I never once saw a turtle and went down to the water deliberately to photograph it. This one, I was just snapping some photos of the lily pads, and then noticed this guy as I turned away to leave.
Portland has crows like other cities have pigeons. By which I mean we really don’t have a whole lot of pigeons. They are here, and you will spot them, but they get bullied by the crows, and the osprey, and the hawks, and the bald eagles, so you might only see one or two every now and then. It’s the crows that fly around in droves and eat your trash and hang around food truck courts and steal your food. And with all the ducks and geese and herons and things in nesting season, the crows are starting to hang around the lake looking for free snacks in the form of eggs.
I went down to go photograph the grass and only noticed the turtles when I got to the water. There’s so many of them! I’ll stop posting photos of turtles now, because otherwise it would be so many turtles.
Here’s one of the many totem poles in town. This one was made by one of the local tribe’s wood carvers many decades ago. I don’t know a whole lot more about this one, because internet information is scarce, and it’s across a bridge, and I don’t like crossing bridges.
Here’s a pair of mallards. The colour difference of the water at different parts of the lake astonishes me sometimes. I have no idea what makes it do that. Maybe it’s to do with whether I’m shooting into or away from the sun? I don’t know.
I made it to the duck nesting site, where there’s hundreds of ducks this time of year. I took quite a few photos, but I’ll only show you a few here, because otherwise it’ll just be a boring slideshow of the same ducks over and over again. These are, near as I can tell, mallards and American wigeon. Allegedly we also have wood ducks at this lake, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them.
And here’s some Canada gees hanging out with some mallards and American wigeon.
And here’s an American wigeon and a mallard in an area on their own.
And finally, I made it to the Japanese garden on the north end of the lake after a two mile walk, only to find it was closed. Which was annoying, because that’s where the herons live, but also, I didn’t have to cross the bridge, so fine. I walked down to the bridge anyway, and who just happened to be there on the bank of the island, but the great blue heron! The one bird I was especially hoping to find on this entire trip, which made the whole thing worth it in the end.
At this point, I decided I was done walking on uneven gravel paths, and went home. And, well. You know the rest.
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