Washington State - temperate rainforest

Mountains of Olympic National Park:





Temperate rainforest on the Pacific side of the Olympic peninsula:













White-crowned sparrow:


Wilson's warbler:


Willow Flycatcher:


Calliope hummingbird:


Cedar Waxwings:


Brown-headed cowbirds:


Black-headed Grosbeak:


Bullock's Oriole:


Brown-headed cowbird chick. These birds are nest parasites - they place their eggs into the nests of other, usually smaller, birds, who then raise the large chicks often at the expense of their own. This chick was being fed by a song sparrow, whom it already outgrew.


Song Sparrow:


Cascade Mountains as seen from the commuter plane:






Mount Rainier in the distance:

Washington State: from Olympic National Park to Spokane

Views of the Olympic Park mountains:





Northwestern Pacific beach.


Mountain flowers.


Mule deer at the Olympic peak.






Tree Swallow peaking out of the tree.


Dark-Eyed Junco - a type of sparrow, the only one with a white bill. Out east, we get them too - but they are a different color here.


A Steller's Jay couple.


Bald Eagle being harassed by a seagull.


Osprey with fish.


The bird got perhaps the mostly bluntly descriptive name ever - Yellow-Headed Blackbird.


Black-Headed Grosbeak is a common seed-eater in the West.


Song Sparrow in the marshes.


Brown Cowbird - about to begin its mating dance.


Rare rufous morph of the common Red-Tailed Hawk. Notice the dead mouse laid out for lunch.


Eastern Kingbird. Even though it is called "Eastern", its range (which starts at the Atlantic seaboard) reaches almost to the Columbia River in Washington. Only the Cascade Mountains stop it from reaching the Pacific coast.


Female Bullock's Oriole adding a splash of color to a rainy forest.


Killdeer - letting me getting closer to it than ever before.


A flycatcher (Western Wood-Peewee) on its favorite perch.


Final bird! This guy was practicing landing maneuvers (with landing gear deployed and everything) in the middle of the desert between the Columbia River and Spokane. He must have made a dozen fake approaches, getting pretty low to the ground, but never actually landing.

Rome and the Vatican