Too late to report the details!  I went for a great ride today, the Kitsap Color Classic.

 Details to follow….

Even though I am working quite a bit of overtime, I am still getting off early enough in the morning that it is still quite dark when I hit the road.  Fortunately I do have a lot of reflective material on me, plus headlights and taillights.

This is the same spot where not two weeks ago I photographed a beautiful sunrise view of Mount Rainier.

I travelled through the city of Tukwila, looking for Ikawa Park. I know how to get there on foot, but I wanted to access it from other than Southcenter Boulevard. Well, I never quite managed to find Ikawa Park, but I did manage to stumble across Tukwila Park, which is the oldest park in the city of Tukwila, having been built in 1934.

If you look carefully, you will see that the City crest has a hazelnut branch with hazelnuts. The word ‘Tukwila’ is a native Duwamish word meaning ‘land of hazelnuts’.

It’s only 6.5 acres, but it still has some impressively large Douglas firs. It’s also got a nice little climbing wall for young Tukwilians–

A strange sculpture/windvane?:

My fungus find for the day:

And the underside:

Eventually I’ll get back during the day so that I can figure out where Ikawa Park is–I want to look at the koi pond there.

I headed down the Interurban and paused to take a photo of this little lake–sometimes there are ducks to be seen there, but nothing today.

I decided to see whether or not the ‘levee stabilization’ was finished on the River Trail.

Doesn’t look like it, even though the sign claims that the trail is to be re-opened tomorrow.

The trees in the middle of the path are a mite worrisome, too.

I took a side trip through Boeing’s, and visited the North Pond. Saw these Canada Geese, and was rewarded for my persistence in exploring by seeing and hearing Cackling Geese. A new life bird for me!

Not a bad day, even if it was raining fairly hard.

Today I had a migraine, and thus stayed home…I watched my bird feeding station, though.

 So far I have attracted the Northern Flicker, Steller’s Jays, Oregon Juncos, House Finches, Black-capped Chickadees.

 Not too bad, but it would be nice to add some more birds.  Perhaps tomorrow.

I was to donate blood this morning, so I rode over to the Processing & Distribution Plant first. It was raining fairly hard at one point, so I took shelter under a bridge, and noticed this seine in the river. The pink salmon fishers are still out trying to catch fish, but I think that this must be from the local native tribes, as the non-native fishers aren’t allowed to use nets.

I also noticed this nice clump of teasels. Why are teasels never noticed until the plants are dry, like this?

The teasels are slightly fuzzy looking, which puzzled me until I realised that this was an effect of shooting the photo in the rain.

For those who are still yearning for some autumn colour:

Virginia Creeper growing on a drywall on the way home.
It is still quite dark when I get off work now, even when I work overtime. This morning I took a photo of the clouds around the Control Tower, but did not realise until I got home that I had what I thought was a beautiful picture of the full moon, but which my husband tells me is simply a UFO (or perhaps just lens flare).

This is shaping up to be a wet winter here in Puget Sound.

I left work today (yes, after working overtime) with the threat of rain in the air.  Clouds were thick with the possibility of dampness attacking me as I raced my way home.

 I got home before the rain started.  Then I realised–it was not going to rain after all.  In fact, the sun started to shine. I was sitting here, watching my feeding station.  I saw a large shadow, and heard a tapping on the side of the house. Then, with a flash of red, a Northern Flicker perched just above my hanging feeder.  I could see the brilliant red of the tail feathers.  It wanted to sit at my feeder, but could not decide if that was the right move.  It moved to the railing of the deck…it was a male, with the red malar stripe.  Gorgeous!

http://www.utahbirds.org/birdsofutah/BirdsL-R/NorthernFlicker.htm

 This link has a very nice set of photos, illustrating what I spent about an hour trying to photograph!

 I am determined to get my own photos of my flicker. 

Edit:  The sun may have been shining when I saw the flicker, but it is raining again now. 

It is pouring rain here, and has been all day and night.  I worked overtime this morning, and had a lovely wet ride home.  The path was littered with the typical “Northwest” slugs.

 ”Northwest” because as it turns out, these slugs are NOT natives!

Remarkably, the European Red Slug (Arion rufus) on the right, and the Tiger slug, or Spotted Leopard slug (Limax maximus)   on the left, are both introduced species of slugs.

The European Red slug, naturally, is from Europe. The Tiger slug is from Asia Minor and Europe. The Tiger slug is a predator–it eats other slugs. It moves approximately four times faster than the European Red slug.

So, which slug IS a native? Yes, the Banana slug, Ariolimax columbianus is a native.

After the comment about my gorgeous orange fungus by the gentleman from Bike Forums, I thought I would go out and do some mushroom hunting at the reservoir.  Just to remind everyone, this is my orange fungus:

It’s a brilliant orange/vermillion colour, no gills. It’s also rather large–the specimen here is about five inches across!  This is the underside–the top is also the same colour, but it’s been nibbled on.  It would appear to have been smooth on the top.  I could not find any trace of a veil.

 At any rate, I headed over to the reservoir, where I startled a deer outside the fence.  The trail follows a fence, and the deer could not escape by jumping over it, so it just ran down the trail for almost a quarter of a mile until it turned into some shrubbery leading to a nearby house.  It performed the spectacular form of motion known as ’stotting’ for almost the entire distance.  Sorry, no photos!  I always feel a bit sorry for the deer when I come across them that way–it seems an unnecessary waste of their energy.  But it can’t be helped.

The first fungus I spotted was this:

I have seen these many times. They are beautiful little brown mushrooms on top, with a thin stalk, and white gills underneath.

I also found a number of these:

I did not get any good photos of the underside of the above mushroom.

Next mushroom was this very sturdy little fungus:

and this is the underneath of the same:

(sorry, not one of my best photos!)
 Last batch of mushrooms was a large (perhaps 20 feet by 20 feet) patch of these:

A closer look:

and the underside:

I think that my brilliant orange fungus is some sort of Boletus.

Anyone care to take any guesses?