A Sunday Walk - Seattle in November

Sunday was a gray, low-cloud, damp day. So what better to do than go for a stroll through Woodland Park and around Green Lake! The walk yielded interesting sights and smells - full of subtle colors, textures, and contrasts.
FLORA
Fungi

Autumn trees
A few of the trees on the walk around Green Lake

tulip poplar

willow

tamarack

close-up of deciduous tamarack leaves (color has turned from green and needles starting to drop)

Wood chips

A mountain crest of chipped wood on Derby Hill in Woodland Park - fun to climb and it smelled like pencil shavings. :)

FAUNA
Waterfowl

Grebe on a very calm Green Lake - calm enough for mirror image

Crows

Crows pecking for good noms.

Mountain Bike Racers


Steeplechase mountain bikers were racing in Woodland Park. A muddy track and hairpin turns caused several collisions. This steeplechase portion required nimbleness and strength!

A Crow and More Food Caching

Yesterday, while in the car and sitting at a red light, a crow with a food bit in its beak, dropped down to the sidewalk just ahead of me. It then proceeded to hide the food bit with leaves, carefully placing dry leaves over the item. Suddenly, the crow abandoned the caching efforts, grabbed the food and started to fly away! As the crow took off, another crow appeared, ready to land where the other crow was now leaving. Smart crow! It obviously saw a competitor crow, and took off, knowing that the "secret cache" was no longer secret. :D

Stellar Jays in Seattle

This autumn we have been observing stellar jays (the blue jays of the PNW) here in the city, which has never happened in my lifetime! They usually hang out in the rural areas and coastal and mountain forests. I saw one fellow near the post office on Saturday, where there are a lot of oak trees. There was a bountiful crop of acorns this fall, and so he was quite intent on getting a meal there. He was within 10 feet of me, but as soon as I pulled out my camera, he flitted out of view. It was as if he was aware I was following him! Repeat that 10 times as he move from spot to spot -  I gave up. So no picture this time.

Crows at Lunch

Crows are such intelligent creatures - social, independent, opportunistic, omnivorous - rather like us. I love observing their behavior.

I saw two interesting crow behaviors today, as  I walked to a small deli to pick up a lunchtime sandwich near where I work (on Lake Washington Boulevard NE in Kirkland, Washington). Today is sunny and dry, perfect autumn weather for a lunchtime stroll.

Behavior 1: Caching food.

A crow landed on the autumn-leaf-strewn lawn next to the sidewalk where I was walking. He had something in his beak and it looked like a chicken bone (small, like from the wing, and mostly bare, but with tiny bits of meat on it). Not too amazing so far.

After I had "safely" passed, the crow set the bone on the grass and began to carefully cover it with leaves! And when the crow was finished to its satisfaction, it flew away! After I was sure the crow was out of site, I filmed his cache. The leaves in the center of the photo are where the crow hid the food. I'm not too sure this crow is going to find the goods after the first stiff breeze. ;D That's assuming it can remember where it stashed this tidbit.

Behavior 2: Picking fruit from a tree and eating it

Approaching the deli, I saw many crows in trees (some trees were bare of leaves and others were in full color). One in particular was sitting on a bare branch, with a red ball of something in its claw, eating it. That one flew away before I could grab my camera. 

So I continued to observe this batch of crows and finally spotted crows grabbing small round reddish fruit from a tree in full color and full of fruit, and flying off to eat it. 

 I pulled out my camera and was rewarded with a crow who maneuvered in the tree, pulled off a fruit (you have to look carefully in the video), and promptly flew away to eat it.

The mystery fruit: