Been spending my time outdoors lately. It's starting to look a bit like spring, but not entirely. Yesterday I traveled several hours southwest to Olympia in the pounding rain to visit my brother at the Evergreen State College. It's so incredibly quiet down there, away from the massive Boeing wastelands of south Everett. We walked a few miles to the McLane Nature Trails, which are magnificent - empty, vast, and free of litter – exploding with the calls of red-winged blackbirds. Granted, we were both caked in mud when we left. We saw Canada geese, mallards, green-winged teals, ring-necked ducks, and a gorgeous pair of wood ducks. Also saw a rough-skinned newt crawling about in the leaf litter - it was quite interesting.
Aside from my Olympia trip, I've been keeping busy at Narbeck Wetland Sanctuary and the Boeing-owned Japanese Gulch, both of which are easy walking distance - only about a mile away from me. Unfortunately, because of the sorry state of the economy, the Narbeck parking lot has become the gathering place for about a dozen construction workers who wait there during the day to be contacted for any possible job that may become available. They litter the place with cigarette butts, bottles and cans, all sorts of wrappers, and a myriad of other garbage. The resident ducks (mallards, wood ducks, teals, buffleheads, and hooded mergansers) are beginning to display mating behavior, and I'm sick over the idea of their home being littered with garbage. So I’ve been heading down there around five in the afternoon and spending my evenings cleaning the place up. It’s rewarding, but I’m frustrated to no end by the assholes who see fit to throw their empty bottles and cans into the actual wetland swamps and ponds, beyond where I’m able to reach them. Especially when there are garbage cans everywhere around the wetlands. South Everett is a giant industrial park; I don’t see why people have to come to the only fucking public nature sanctuary around to dispose of their garbage when the rest of the city is basically a giant garbage can. But, anyway….
Birds! I’ve been seeing the female pileated woodpecker who was just born last summer (I can identify her by the color of her iris and the somewhat peculiar shape of her crest). She’s been with a larger adult male who I have not seen before, so I assume she’s found a mate and is probably gearing up to have babies of her own this coming summer. I’ve also been seeing Anna’s Hummingbirds with large clumps of material in their tiny beaks, which I suspect they are gathering to construct nests with. A few Steller’s Jays have also been feeding one another, which is definitely courtship behavior. The summer and springtime migratory birds are still yet to return, which is only natural since it’s still winter, but I have a feeling they’ll be here any day now.

Wow.. I had a lot to say about politics, but I don’t want to make this entry any longer than it already is.. I’ll get to that another time, then.