Tag Archives: wildlife

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Who is there?

This is not a brilliant photograph, but it is interesting. This is taken from North Beach in 2022 with my cell phone. It was a very grey day and wet and we heard roaring. I imitate both animals and birds, so I roared back and tried to match the call. This is the response. These are sea lions and they can be enormous. The elders and biggest ones stopped and stuck their heads out, wanting to know who is there? Thankfully they did not come ashore, because the males can be 2.4 meters long (7.8 feet) and 390 kg (859 pounds). We did stop roaring, a bit intimidated. We had roared back at them other times. The sea lions are moving north, more information here.

I am trying to find time and energy to keep removing lots of old blogs and photographs to make room for the new. I could pay for more space, but then I have to keep paying for it, so I don’t want to. I have gone back and read my 2009 posts, no pictures, from the Mad As Hell Doctors trip and from writing elsewhere. I write more often with the Ragtag Daily Prompt, but the longer medical posts are intermittent.

Work has been interesting and I feel a bit off balance, because the plan is in flux and morphing. Right now I am in the same clinic Monday through Thursday, but at two different desks. I won’t be in this clinic for the rest of the assignment unless something changes. I don’t know where I will go next. Primary care has lost two providers in the six months I’ve been here, but I don’t know if that is an ongoing rate nor how many there are total.

My first job out of residency had a terrible turnover. I was fifth senior doctor out of fifteen in two years. That is a really really bad sign. By the end of the second year I was fairly sure that I would not be staying and that I could not change the culture. The three women doctors that I had joined had been trying for two years and one had already left! I was gone by the end of the third year.

And back to roaring with the sea lions. Here is Walt Kelly’s take on roaring, his poem Northern Lights.

Oh, roar a roar for Nora, for Nora in the night,
For she has seen aurora borealis burning bright.

A furore for our Nora! And applaud Aurora seen!
Where, throughout the Summer, has our borealis been?

_____________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: grey.

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Gold deer

I go for coffee with B in March, in the early morning. It is clear and the rising sun turns everything gold. We are out on one of the docks with our coffee. Two deer come to the water and walk along it, under the dock and back. They are not here to quench their thirst, because this is the Salish Sea, not fresh water. So what are they doing?

“It’s clear, let’s go down to the water. It is so pretty out. Now, before most of the people are up.”

“Yes, let’s!”

Just like us.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: quench.

My parents taught me the song. It dates back to the 1500s.

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Traffic in Port Townsend

The photograph is taken by Rowan DeLuna and used with her permission. Thank you Rowan!

My son’s response: Very responsible to use the crosswalks.

Our local deer use the crosswalks often. I have seen does teaching fawns at corners. So are the deer teaching the otters too?

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Bonfire metabolism

We are having our first real cold snap, with snow and lots of accidents two evenings ago. We have Anna’s hummingbirds, who can over winter. By yesterday morning, the temperature had dropped to 17 degrees F. Both of my hummingbird feeders were frozen.

I went out to wrap a hot towel around one. The front-of-the-house Anna’s buzzed me, inches from my face, to let me know she is HUNGRY and the food IS NOT AVAILABLE. The hot towel didn’t work, so I took the feeder in for a bit. She didn’t like that at all.

This looks pretty silly, but success!

The tiny feeder is one to hold in my hand. I have three, so I rotated them during the day to keep thawed food. Anna Front still spent energy chasing other hummingbirds away. She doesn’t look too upset, does she?

Anna’s hummingbird guarding her feeder and grooming in a rhododendron

The photos and video were taken through my window from my desk.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bonfire.

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Introducing Fast Spider

This post is to introduce Fast Spider, a Scioness of Local Spiders in my area. Just a web on a car? Well, I would think that too, but it’s been built every day for the last month or more, so apparently Fast Spider likes the wind in her legs. That sounds racy, but there it is. I think that she must hide in a crevice when I turn the engine on. I am enjoying thinking about the sort of lady spider who would build her web daily on …. of course…. a Scion.