Cherry Blossoms at Oregon's State Capitol State Park

 After waiting for a whole year to pass for the cherry trees at the capitol to bloom once again, I drove over there earlier today to get some pictures. Unfortunately, some of the pictures were ruined by microfibers that had gotten inside my camera when I changed the lens. But as usual, below are the best pictures of the day.

 

Pioneer and Wilderness Parks Photowalk

Earlier today, I went back to Pioneer Park in Stayton to explore more of it's 9+ acres to get a better sense of what was there. Now, the first time I went to this park was last Fall to see the covered bridge near the parking lot; and of course the last time was earlier this year when I got a picture of the resident Mallard Ducks and the bridge. This time, I skipped the bridge because, let's face it, the surroundings do not look that great this time of year. As I was walking, I often took the smaller side paths as they tended to get me closer to wildlife where little white butterflies flitted this way and that. On one of those less traveled side trails, I was taken to the west end of a pond that included swimming Garter Snakes and to my best guess, a Western Pond Turtle. Another little side trail took me to the parking lot for Wilderness Park, where I walked across the footbridge and over to the dam, where water was flowing over in a cool waterfall. As always, my favorite pictures are included below.

St. Louis Ponds Photowalk - March 4th, 2014

The other day, we had some sunny weather, so I went to a Marion County Park that I had not yet been to, known as the St. Louis Ponds. The sky was perfect for the outing and as usual, my favorite photos are posted below. I heard from some of the regulars that were fishing that Beaver were often seen in these ponds, although there was no dam or lodge to be found.

I normally wouldn't take pictures of exotic species unless I wanted to talk about their invasive nature on my other blog, Oregon by Nature, but at the time I took the picture below, I had no idea it was the exotic species from Europe known as the House Sparrow.

 

Oregon Coast - February 27th, 2014

As much as I had fun at the coast, it was a big learning experience that I hope to never repeat again. After eating lunch at Mo's along the Taft Waterfront in Lincoln City, I went outside and just started snapping pictures of wildlife-mainly seagulls-without first checking my camera settings and making sure the lens was perfectly clean. What resulted was many photos that were extremely overexposed, and when I finally got the exposure to a good-but not prefect-setting, there was too much fuzz or salt spry on the lens that any that could be saved had too much spots on them that they were doomed to be trashed - or at least put on my external hard drive to help me remember to check my settings before taking pictures. Once at Depoe Bay, however, most of the stuff on the lens, whatever it was, had blown off, and I got better pictures. Below are some of my favorites from that day. The first two were salvageable photos that were taken at Taft, while the rest are from Depoe Bay.

 

In the next photo, I ended up spotting something in the picture that I have never seen before--a waterfall and fish ladder behind the wharf. The next time I go to Depoe Bay by myself, I will have to drive to the back of the bay to get not only a different perspective, but a closer shot of that fish ladder and waterfall. 

Ankeny Wildlife Refuge Revisited - February 25th, 2014

The Willamette Valley has been getting many sunny days lately, so I have been busy outdoors. On the 25th, I made the trip back to Ankeny NWR to see if I could get better pictures. What you see below are my favorite from that day. The first two include three birds known as a Northern Shoveler.

"Ready to Fly"

 

"Low-Flying Zone"

This next one actually was taken east of Salem the following day, but I am including it as well since there were Red-tailed Hawks at the refuge, and while I did get photos of them, they weren't as good as this one.

"Watching for Prey"