Grey Owl

He's kind of hard to see in this small version. Think how I went about spotting this owl from a moving car. Inconsistent shape stood out. The stance said raptor to me immediately. Only after we were a good twenty yards past did my head say "owl". This is my first time seeing a great grey own during daylight hours. He's a really special bird and quite large, almost 2' tall. The photo was taken in Banff, Alberta.

Optics--binoculars and light enhancement

We use binoculars heavily in our travels for wildlife viewing and other things, like getting photos and closeups of these petroglyphs. The Indian Petroglyphs shown here were moved to the Visitor's Center at the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park in Vantage, WA when the cliff face where they resided was flooded. For a discussion about the differences and uses of binoculars see:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/242810/wildlife_and_travel_buffs_bausch_and.html

Finding Mushrooms in the Cedar River Watershed

I never knew that there were so many mushrooms. I always wondered why people worried about what was edible or not. During an about 2 hour scrounge through the Cedar River Watershed, in Washington, US, we found a collection of about fifty types. We actually had another container with all the larger mushrooms, too. We went as a group and afterwards, we found there was very little duplication, some, but not entirely. The one factoid I remember from the hour lecture was that tree health relies on fungus' in the dirt. There were many more.

Here's the link to the Cedar River watershed webpage for more information about classes such as this one:

http://www.cedarriver.org/

Expect to find hikes, birding, history and more...including rain drums!