As Quiet As It Could Be

Evening, Port Angeles harbor; no ships; Olympic Mountains, 04/25 (Click for larger image.)

Sunday evening. Out on Ediz Hook (map), the birds were busy being beautiful. There was a flock of brants,

Brants (Click for larger image.)

a couple of pairs of harlequins, a couple of pairs of buffleheads, some grebes too far away to see clearly, and a common loon. "In breeding plumage, both sexes have striking black heads with white collars, white breasts, and black backs with white checkering," says Birdweb, but their photo is undistinguished. Getting a look at this creature in the binoculars was a ZOMG moment, striped necklace and all. Looked just like this, and it bobbed around in my imagination all night.

Mount Baker did its looming trick, so huge on the horizon but when you point a camera at it, immediately all 10,781 feet magically shrink to barely a blip, like R. A. Lafferty's "Narrow Valley". No ships on the Strait. No ships in the harbor anywhere. No wind. When finally APL Ireland came along the Strait, and lingered off the Hook to rendezvous with the pilot boat, you could hear her engines rumbling over the soft waves on the rocks—there were no other sounds.

APL Ireland with pilot boat, Vancouver Island in the background 04/2504/25 (Click for larger image.)

OK OK, there should have been all this while a 'birds' label. Either will or won't go back and tag three years of older posts...