Book Reading List - 2016

• The Invention of Nature - Alexander von Humboldt's New World - Author: Andrea Wulf
• TED - The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking - Author: Chris Anderson
• Alexander Hamilton - Author: Ron Chernow 
• Long Story Short - The Only Storytelling Guide You'll Ever Need - Author: Margot Leitman
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - An Indian History of the American West - Author: Dee Brown
• The Hour of Land - A Personal Topography of America's National Parks - Author: Terry Tempest Williams
• A Dog’s Purpose: A Novel for Humans - Author: W. Bruce Cameron
• The Live and Times of Thunderbolt Kid – A Memoir - Author: Bill Bryson
• The Immortal Irishman - The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero - Author: Timothy Egan
• History’s Greatest Voyages of Exploration - Author: Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
• The Wisdom of Insecurity - A Message for an Age of Anxiety - Author: Alan Watts
• Shakespeare The World as Stage - Author: Bill Bryson
• The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume I, Fort Sumter to Perryville - Author: Shelby Foote
• ISIS - Inside the Army of Terror - Author: Michael Weiss, Hassan Hassan
• Empire of the Summer Moon - Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History - Author: S.C. Gwynne
• What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions - Author: Randall Munroe
• The Road to Little Dribbling - Adventures of an American in Britain - Author: Bill Bryson

Solstice To-Do-List - Haiku

Solstice to-do-list

Howl at the strawberry moon

Heliolatry

Birds - Barred Owl

Had a close encounter of the best kind with a Barred Owl (Strix varia) on a walk at Vancouver Lake Regional Park. I often wonder how many times I've walked by birds like this without a clue due to their excellent camouflage.

Barred Owls are fairly common in woodlands throughout eastern and northwestern US and Canada. In recent decades Barred Owl have expanded their range in northwestern US where it now competes with endangered Spotted Owl. 

Ridgefield NWR, SW Washington

Took advantage of probably the second sunny day this year and visited Ridgefield NWR (National Wildlife Refuge). The trumpeter swan were gone since our last visit in early March but there still were quite a few canada geese and cackling geese. northern shoveler were very common.

We also saw a fair number of mallard, bufflehead, ring-neck duck, great egret, great blue heron, pied-billed grebe, red-winged blackbird and a few beautiful cinnamon teal.

Western painted turtles were quite numerous along the banks of the sloughs and perched on top of logs. Other than people, the only mammal we saw was a solitary nutria.

Great Egret

Great Blue Heron

Northern Shoveler

Ring-Necked Duck

Bufflehead

Red-Winged Blackbird