Monday's postcard, February 6th

The Heron's Winter Dance

Lower Latah Creek is a favorite hike, with camera, for me. Except at flood stage, it is relatively narrow and the riparian cover creates opportunities to get reasonably close to waterfowl and other wildlife that swim or fly in. (One exception is the Belted Kingfisher, which is a beautiful, year-round visitor to the creek, about the size of a robin. But they’re incredibly alert to the presence of people which, suffice to say, upsets them. It’s very difficult to get close to a Belted Kingfisher). Most of what governs what’s in or on the creek day-to-day is the weather. The best periods are during long freezes where things are calm and the water quality relatively clear. The worst periods, which can last for weeks at a time, are warming periods with rains that melt snow. The water turns a milky chocolate with run-off loess from the Palouse watershed to the southeast. The creek swells, sometimes lifting 5 inch sheets of ice up on to the river bank. This year has not been a good creek year—the water has been high and muddy since the big freeze in December. But the two previous winters were better, and it’s just fun and rewarding to learn how to approach different birds and get decent chances to photograph them. This is one of my favorites, from early February a couple years back. She had noticed my presence, and was turning to make a short flight downstream when I took this photo.

Thanks so much to all of you who signed up for pledges and sent words of encouragement following yesterday’s Daily Rhubarb debut. I so appreciate your support. I could write more, but yesterday’s post was over 2,000 words, and, well, let’s just catch our breath a bit today :) I have a wonderful (and shorter) follow-up piece for the Provenance project coming soon, and plan to introduce the Washington Nukes series later this week. I’m still learning to drive this Substack car, so please be patient with me.

—tjc