Mountain Snow Illuminated


Mostly cloudy with occasional snow showers (though not many during daylight hours). At least a couple of inches of snow accumulated overnight.


A pair of ravens on a neighbor’s roof behaved in a curious way. One was laying down in the snow not moving at all (almost like it was playing dead). The other was poking at it a bit. They both stood up at attention when I opened the door to take a picture, so I was not able to document it.


I had better looks at the white-cheeked junco in the yard today. Also a banded junco.


One of the bands was covered in snow, so I’m not sure if I can narrow it down to a single bird.

The channel seemed quieter than it has been. Plenty of ducks were hanging out along the shoreline, and a few gulls as well. However, out in the middle of the channel there was not much.


Crows seemed to be eating snow and treating it almost like a dust bath while I was sitting and watching. I recorded some video of them (though my videography skills could use some work).


Around mid-afternoon, clouds were arranged in such a way that the low angle sun lit up the mountains. Not all the mountains at once, but a slowly moving patch of sunlight crossed the mountain faces starting out at Lucky Chance and Cross Mountain and ending up at the Sisters.


I noticed a couple of folks up on Picnic Rock around the time the sun was shining there. I imagine they had a nice view (and suspect at least part of their return hike was in the dark).

Coming back along Harbor Drive I noticed a hummingbird flying near the Franklin Building. It hovered for a moment before flying towards St. Michaels, and I lost sight of it. I’m guessing it was an Anna’s Hummingbird, but I can’t say for sure.

I’ve been putting in some time to get through my observations from this year. As of what I added today, I have passed 4000 observations for the year, and 28,000 (verifiable) observations overall. There’s an outside chance I’ll end up surpassing 5000 observations for the year, but the 30,000 total observations milestone will have to wait for 2022.

My iNaturalist Observations for Today

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