Posted 21November2007 For some reason I can’t get this post to save to this date.

I just opened this up preparatory to writing something when the sun came out. I am sitting in the southeast facing windows of Cutter’s point and the appearance of the early morning sun from behind the clouds was like being at the center of a bright spotlight. Other people blinked, squinted and held their hands up to shield their eyes from this manifestation. I have heard one report that claimed that the residents of the great northwestern United States buy more sun glasses than any other part of the country. I find this plausible even though the sun at these latitudes is very weak–when it deigns to show itself from behind the clouds and mist. People act like owls suddenly exposed to the light of day, blinking, squinting, and immediately reach for their sunglasses. Personally I almost never use these things even when I lived in Texas.

Actually the weather during this Thanksgiving holiday is expected to be sunny after the morning clouds. Yesterday morning I took more time on my walk to look at birds, and found myself freezing. Normally the cold doesn’t bother me on these walks even though I wear shorts, except perhaps for the top of my left hand. Yesterday I found that my hands were very cold as I held the binoculars and I found myself shivering. I assume that this was because I stayed out longer, and I was spending more time looking for birds instead of moving fast. I saw the usual woodland species (Stellar’s Jay, Golden-Crowned Kinglet, Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, Chestnut back Chickadee, Oregon Junco, Robin, Red-shafted Flicker, Winter Wren, Downy Woodpecker) and saw some interesting hollow trees.

When I was a kid roaming about the Jim Miller woods in Pleasant Grove (now a suburb of Dallas), I would find these large hollow trees or stumps which appeared charred with fire on the inside. I remember a buddy remarking that there must have been a fire that blackened the interior of the hollow. I remember being skeptical at the time, but I had no other possible explanation. The trees around the old hollow tree were unblemished and there was no indication of a fire outside of the hollow interior of the tree. My skepticism was reinforced in later years as I witnessed this phenomena everywhere that I went. In fact, yesterday I observed this great broken hollow tree whose interior appeared to be charred by a hot fire. Since the outside of these trees show no evidence of fire, I have gradually come to the conclusion that fire has not caused the charred effect. The interior of these trees are dry and are thus not subject to the effects of fungus which will quickly cause the decomposition of any fallen wood. I think that the charred effect has come about by the long slow oxidation of the dead wood in the tree hollow. This is in fact a “burning” albeit much slower than fire. (I just found another site mentioning these types of trees).

When I got to the beach, my attention was captured by what looked like the head of a seal moving along the bank. When I examined this strange object with my binoculars, however, I saw that it was a Red Throated Loon in its winter plumage which was paddling swiftly along with its head stuck in the water. I think that I have seen videos of this behavior in which the loon paddles along with its head stuck in the water looking for fish, but I had never observed it. My first thought was how my eyes burn when they get salt water in them, and I wondered how the loon was able to bear this. I suppose that it moves its nictitating membrane over its eye; perhaps this “third eyelid” is clearer than some that I have seen which wouldn’t cut visibility down so much and would allow the eye to be protected. There was also a Great Blue Heron standing in the water’s edge. These large birds are very shy and it took off down the beach after a couple of minutes of eying me suspiciously. I saw the usual unknown gulls and other water fowl far out on the waters of the Sound. I tentatively identified some Horned Grebes and a Pigeon Guillimot and what appeared to be a Cassin’s Auklet. Double-Crested Cormorants were extremely abundant with flocks of them fishing and diving. I saw one raise its head with what appeared to be a large brown leaf which turned out to be a flounder, or flat fish, which it somehow managed to swallow.