A Spur of the Moment Adventure

Yesterday morning about 4:30, (Saturday, January 23rd) Ron poked his head out the front door and checked the weather. He was expecting socked in clouds and rain......and to his surprise, he saw stars! He came into the bedroom and announced that he wanted to go out to try to get some photographs of the Trumpeter Swans and Snow Geese and asked me if I'd like to get out of my nice warm bed to go with him. I was already awake, and that means that I'm never able to go back to sleep, so I decided to get up and go with him. (Note: Ron is the early bird.........I am a night owl, so getting up at 4:30 is not something that I look forward to!)

We quickly showered and had a fast bowl of cereal, filled up our water bottles and loaded our trusty Toyota Camry with our camera gear. We were out the door around 5:45, and headed up to Skagit Valley about 25 minutes north, to stake out our place to watch for the birds.

Each winter, thousands of Snow Geese and hundreds of Trumpeter Swans migrate south from Alaska and Northern Canada to feed and live in the Skagit Valley during the winter. (By the end of February they start heading back north.) The swans are not the easiest birds to photograph, because they usually feed in large winter wheat fields and are too far away to get really good photos. It's a little easier to photograph the Snow Geese, because there are literally thousands of them, and if you stay in your car, they will come right up to the side of the road so you can usually get a decent photo of them. There are also dozens of Bald Eagles which feed off the snow geese that the hunters miss.

Ron took the three photos of the Snow Geese below on Thursday, January 21st.

Their wings sound like a jet engine taking off when they all take to the sky at the same time. When one bird gets spooked and takes off, the entire flock follows suit. Right now, until the end of January, there is hunting allowed for the Snow Geese. So we had to manuver around the hunters as well, who bring their dogs to retrieve their kill. The Fish & Game Cops are posted all around, making sure that they only hunt the geese and not the swans, which are a protected species.

The flock below is only one of many this same size. Sometimes I wonder if the farmers will have any seeds left after the birds finish wintering here.....they eat ALL day long.

Below: my happy hubby.

On this particular morning of Saturday January 23rd, we were hoping for a great photographic opportunity like we had on Friday morning, January 22nd ...... (see the three photos below)

It was a fantastic sunrise, and we found a small flock of swans. (for these photos, I experimented with a Singh Ray Blue & Gold filter.) I never get tired of photographing Mt. Baker, which can been seen from almost any place in Skagit Valley. (there are two Trumpeter Swans in the above photo, about the level of the top of Mt. Baker....pretty tiny to see, I know)

The morning of Saturday, January 23rd had some great promise.....there were fabulous puffy cotton-like clouds near the mountains, and patches of misty fog that the swans would fly into and land. Everything had an ethereal quality to it and it was beautiful. The swans were too far away to get a good photograph in the dim light.....we would need a lot bigger telephoto lens to do the job up right.

Below, is a sample of what it looked like when it started to get light.....absolutely beautiful!

Below: before sunrise, with the misty fog and the cotton-like clouds on the mountains. There are actually swans feeding in the fog, but you can't see them in this photo.

As the sun came up, the swans were still flying in to land in the wheat fields. They nest on the water at night, and come inland to feed during the day.

We stayed there for almost three hours, and then the light wasn't as good for photography, but we didn't want to go home. We decided to go elsewhere to find the "right" photo. We were starving by then, so we stopped at McDonald's for a breakfast sandwich, then headed up Highway 20: the North Cascades Highway. It is one of the most beautiful drives up the Skagit River on Highway 20. At this time of year, you can only drive up the river about 67 miles because they close the road during the winter because of heavy snow. (this year we haven't had hardly any snow, but they still have the road closed....darn!)

We drove up to Diablo Dam and drove over the dam and got out to take some photos.

Below: Diablo Dam, built in 1929. It is curved and very deep. I love the old light posts that line each side of the road on the top of the dam.

Ron found a vantage point where he could look right down the river (and straight down the side of the dam) which made me get dizzy because of the height.

Below: Ron waving at me, from halfway across the dam.

This is as close as I could come to taking a photo over the side of the dam. It was a very beautiful old structure, and a breathtaking view looking downriver.

It was also a breathtaking view no matter which way you turned to look. The photo below is of Pyramid Peak, with a gathering of cotton-like puffy clouds. A photo just doesn't do it justice.

A close-up shot of Pyramid Peak.

We drove further around Diablo Lake.....this shot is looking west toward the dam. The water looked emerald green in places.

It was 34 degrees while we were at the dam, and my fingers and toes were frozen, but when you're having fun, it's hard to quit to get warm. (hey....it was a hat day when you get up that early and don't take time to curl your hair!)

As we drove back down the Skagit River to Skagit Valley, we decided that we still didn't want to go home, so we grabbed a quick sandwich and headed out to the fields again, hoping to catch the swans as they returned to the water for the night.

Below: a few Snow Geese flying away from the hunter's guns.

But it was the clouds that fascinated me........they were incredible! They ranged in color from bright white, to deep gray with a backdrop of a beautiful blue sky. They changed shape and position every few minutes.....even producing a rainbow, while we waited for the birds.

We waited for an hour and a half on the dike (at Skagit Bay) but the swans didn't come. We found that they like to wait until it's almost pitch black before they fly out to the water......which makes it too late to take a photo. Below, is a photo of the field where we were hoping to see the birds, from the dike. You can see our trusty Camry parked on a small road in the lower left of the photo. The warm color of the setting sun is perfect for shooting photos....but alas....no swans.

We got home that night at 5:30 pm........almost 12 hours from when we left the house that morning. We had certainly not planned to be gone that long, but we completely enjoyed the entire day, and were glad that we just decided at the last minute to load up and take off that morning. Ron and I both love to see what's over the horizon, so we love to explore. But photograpy has made our adventures even more enjoyable, because we both love to do it. One of these days, we'll get the photo of swans that we want! So stay tuned.............who knows when the next adventure will begin!