North Bend Magic

North Bend is my magic place. It's too shallow for power boats. Only trolling motors are allowed, and even then, you have to be darned intrepid to want to take anything bigger than a one-man canoe in its snaggy shallows. 

Just the way we like it. I coaxed Bill out for a few hours this sunny September Sunday. We took two cars, because once I get to North Bend I never want to leave.

I think I caught him relaxing. Quiet water will do that to you.

There are great blue herons around every bend.

You can see this bird just above Bill's left elbow. It's great fun to glide quietly and shoot as you go.

Gorgeous wildlife tableaux everywhere you look.

As I glide closer, a couple of geese decide the water feels safer.

I try not to bother the wildlife, try not to force them to change what they're up to. 

I like it when they feel comfortable enough around me to go on sleeping. Birds can sleep and peek at the same time. They let half their brain sleep while the other half runs the peeking eye. I'm pretty sure I can do that too.

One of the cooler things I saw this day was a leucistic crow. It had a couple of white secondaries, symmetrically placed in each wing. This patchy leucism is common enough in crows that David Sibley included it in his tour de force field guide. This is the third such crow I've seen. The first two were flying together past our tower. I figured they must have been siblings, with a mutation like that.

It's very difficult to get a photo of a crow who knows you're trying to get a photo of it. I chased him for several hundred yards.

I got a bunch, but this is the best one. Ah well. 

Just a beautiful place to drift and watch and empty your mind of all else.