Category Archives: Pacific Northwest

Why Not Have More from BC Ferries?

Since we have left the Pacific Northwest, there won’t be too many encounters with the BC Ferries fleet for a while. I have taken a couple of ferry rides up there in the recent past and got a few shots of the boats as we went along. Some were the passenger ferries, but I also got one of the other operators that only does freight movements. I’ll stick them in anyway, even if they aren’t BC Ferries. I shall now get to see a whole new selection of ferries in the UK so stay tuned for more ferry action before too long.

Trumpeter Swans But Virtually No Snow Geese

The main purpose for our trip to Skagit with mum was to try and find the snow geese. Our previous visit had been thwarted so we were skeptical as to whether we would have any luck this time. Instead of fields of geese, we saw a very large number of swans. They were all over some of the fields, so they were our new target. However, the geese hadn’t totally failed us. In amongst the swans, a small group of geese swooped down to land in the same field. I have no idea why they were alone and not with thousands of their brethren.

The swans did make for a good level of compensation. There were a few that occasionally took off or landed but never in a particularly convenient spot for me photos. However, watching them as they munched through the contents of the fields was a good alternative. It has got me excited about trying to get some more swan shots back in the UK – this time with the mute swans.

A300s Are Now Quite Rare Here

The holidays have been known to introduce some interesting freighters to Seattle as UPS buys in additional capacity. This year was a touch disappointing with only a little bought in help and nothing too unusual. However, it did mean UPS brought more of their own fleet into Boeing Field including A300-600Fs. These are not normally used on services to Seattle so they were a welcome addition. I don’t know what UPS’s plans are for the fleet but the A300 must be getting towards the later stage of its life. I know that UPS and FedEx have been struggling a little recently so maybe the jets will be used longer than I had anticipated but we shall see.

I Accidentally Get Another Shot at the Lock Rehabilitation

The big lock at Ballard is undergoing a a renovation program where the gates are all being replaced. It is being done in stages and an earlier stage had me taking a trip across to see what I could see. That was in a previous post and it was a semi-successful visit. I was back at the locks over the Christmas holidays on a lovely sunny day when we took my mum out for lunch. As we walked across the small lock to the big one, I could immediately see that it had been drained.

The crew was working on the middle gates and the base of the lock was totally dry unlike last time. The low sun angle meant there was quite a bit of shade in the lock itself but it was still nicely illuminated. You could also get a good look at the ports along the base of the lock through which the water flows and, because the secondary gates were in place, you could see the large outflow ports downstream of the lower gates.

The depth of the locks is quite impressive. When you think how the water level is when it is full, you realize just how much water is in there and how deep it is if you are in something lightweight like a kayak! When you consider that the locks are over 100 years old, it makes the engineering involved in building them even more impressive. I will miss spending time here watching the boats traverse the locks – particularly on sunny summer days when the amount of traffic means the big lock gets filled up with the scores of pleasure craft. Fun times.

Honeywell’s Testbed Takes a Diversion Which Really Ends Up Helping

Honeywell has a 757 testbed that I have seen a number of times but it was die back to Paine Field late last year and I was keen to see it again. I headed up there for its arrival and it was getting close to Everett while I was nervously looking at the sky. The weather was a bit crummy and I feared it would come in when the light was awful. Then the jet headed off in a totally different direction.

I don’t know what was going on but they turned off towards Puget Sound and ended up maneuvering in the area to the northwest of the airfield. Meanwhile, the conditions started to improve. Now I started to welcome the time they were spending doing something unknown out over the water. As the sun started to poke out from behind the clouds, I was willing them to wait a little longer. Not too long, of course. It’s the Pacific Northwest and things can change again rapidly.

Finally they turned back towards Everett and it was clear that, this time, they meant it. The light was now really nice and I could see the jet turn in to the approach from a long way out. As they came down the approach, I realized that my initial impatience with them disappearing off into he distance was misplaced and that I was going to get some better shots as a result. Before long, they were on short final and we had some shots. I did then head around to the ramp overlook at the FBO to see if I could get a good shot of the jet which I could!

Early Morning Breeze Departure

I’ve seen a couple of Breeze airliners, but they are not operating in our neck of the woods, so they are still a rarity for me. When one of the A220s came to Boeing Field on a charter for a sports team, I was hoping to catch it. They were due out early one morning, so I was able to go before heading to the office. This did mean that conditions were going to be rather restricted with the sun only just above the horizon (assuming clouds weren’t there as well) but this would actually suit me since I didn’t want the jet to be backlit.

Sports charters have a habit of not going even close to the time that they are scheduled so I wondered whether I would be able to get the takeoff before needing to leave. Imagine my surprise and delight when they called up pretty much on schedule. Soon the jet was crossing the runway for taxiway Bravo and then heading to the departure end. As they rolled and rotated, there was just enough light in the sky to make for some rather pleasant colors, and I was really pleased with how the shots came out. The actual light levels were very low, so I shot at high ISOs. The cameras do a remarkable job of this these days but there was still a bit of noise to deal with and the latest noise reduction algorithms in Lightroom dealt with that very effectively.

Lufthansa’s Second Route to Seattle

Lufthansa has long served Seattle from their base in Frankfurt. I have taken advantage of this to photograph their various types over the years we were in Seattle. The airline has a second hub in Munich, and they have been running a service from there recently. I think there may have been a route before the pandemic, but it is back now. It seems to run on days when Frankfurt doesn’t so maybe the winter months allow a coordination of services. Summer might have more overlap. They have been using an A350 on the route as opposed to the A340 for Frankfurt. It also comes in later in the day and departs later accordingly. That makes for better lighting at the end of the day when it heads out like I had on this day.

A Bald Eagle Isn’t Scared of an Owl

If there is one consistent thing with birds it is that, if they have caught something to eat, another bird will do its best to try and pinch it. It doesn’t seem to matter whether they second bird is bigger or smaller. They will try their luck. I have definitely seen the big birds taking on the smaller ones but more often it seems to be the smaller ones trying to annoy the big ones. It is a strange choice because I’ve never seen it be effective. An immature bald eagle had caught something up in Skagit and it was standing contemplating its meal. A short-eared owl decided it wanted the food instead so swooped repeatedly at the eagle. To be fair, the eagle couldn’t have looked less concerned if it tried. It watched the owls come in many times but never flinched. Eventually it took off and carried its snack somewhere else to eat in peace.

Sun Greets the Talon’s Return from California

For a while, I saw a lot of the Boeing T-38 chase jets but, it had been quite a while since I last saw one. Then I saw one had been in use for a couple of flights. I wondered what had been the cause of this but didn’t follow up on it. Then I saw that one was coming back to Boeing Field from California. I don’t know what the test activities were down there but, with it heading back and the weather being pretty decent, I figured I would try and catch its return. Since it was coming up late in the day, I was going to be able to be there.

I wondered whether the good weather would give up before the jet made it back but things held together nicely and the sun was out when it touched down. Since the T-33s went into retirement, the Talons have been the only chase jets to see and they have, as I mentioned, been a bit rare. I don’t know how long they will have. Maybe Boeing will ultimately replace them with T-7s – perhaps the early jets that will not be to a production standard and can take over chase duties. Since I am now gone, I won’t get to see either one so this was a nice catch before I departed.

Frost at the Office One Morning

Writing a post about the office when it isn’t an office I work at anymore seems a little odd. Back to Kirkland for a day, I guess. I was driving to work on a chilly morning and, as I came off the freeway towards the office, it suddenly got misty and there was lots of frost on the surface of all of the trees along the road. When I got to the parking lot, the plants all had a layer of frost that had formed on them from the cold mist. It looked really pretty but trying to capture it with my phone proved a little trickier. It was still dark at that point of course. I figured I would try and a little processing at home helped bring the shots to something more like what I saw at the time.