Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Birds - A Stitch and a Road Trip

Design - "St Patrick's Bird"
Designer - Heart in Hand
Fabric - 32 count Summer Khaki linen
Fibers - GAST & WDW - 2 strands over 2 threads
Started - 14 March 2016
Completed - 23 March 2016

This was good fun - I like all the shades of green used for the shamrocks.


On Friday my mom and I took a road trip north to visit the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge. It was established in 1964 to provide winter habitat for the subspecies of dusky Canada Geese.  They nest almost exclusively in Alaska's Copper River delta, and winter in the Willamette Valley. The refuge is large - over 5700 acres.

Winter is the best time to see the largest numbers and varieties of waterfowl, but we still managed to see several 'firsts' for us including the male Green-winged Teal on the right of this photo. 

And isn't this an elegant pair of ducks?
A female and male Northern Pintail.

Here they are again.

This male Hooded Merganser was by far the coolest looking duck. My photo leaves much to be desired.

If you look closely among all the Mallards on the left is the female Hooded Merganser with a fuzzy copper head. 

It was no surprise to see lots of American Coots.

This blurry photo is the best I managed of a pair of Lesser Scaups.

While we were too late in the year to see Tundra Swans, there were Canada Geese everywhere!  In the air...

...on the ground...

...and in the water.

The Northern Shoveler is well-named.  Take a look at that bill.  I'm sure he uses as a shovel to unearth food.

In a pond near the headquarters, we spied a pair of Ring-necked Ducks. 

Here's the female with the bright white ring on her bill...

...the male also has a white band on his bill.

We saw lots of other birds besides waterfowl.  I'll share those on an upcoming post later this week.  

6 comments:

CalamityJr said...

How nice that you can visit that refuge - beautiful birds everywhere! Your shamrock bird is a cutie, too :)

Weronika said...

Looks like you had a wonderful trip. St.Patrick's stitching is very cute.

MaryO said...

Awesome! I'd love to visit this place!

MaryO1230

Le trame della Galaverna said...

Beautiful reportage

Barb said...

What a wonderful collection of birds. Good that you could add a few new sightings to your list. That's a very pretty stitching project.

Carol said...

Oh, that St. Patrick's bird is darling, Beth. I actually pulled this chart and planned on stitching it, but all the preparations for my boss's retirement party just got in the way. Back into the file it goes for next year (hopefully!). The photos of the real birds are great, too--perfect place for you to visit :)