Tag Archives: Kenmore

Damp Days for Floatplanes Means Prop Vortices!

A couple of Kenmore Air planes departed from Kenmore while I was at Log Boom Park.  The conditions were pretty damp and humid (and were about to be joined by pretty heavy downpours of rain!).  This meant the departing planes had a good chance of pulling some streamers from the prop tips.  Sure enough, when the Otter took off (and it started the takeoff run a little early which helped the shooting angles) the prop was streaming some vapor.  The shape of the cone of the tip vortices as they flow across the fuselage was quite interesting.

A little while later (and just before the downpour began), a turbo Beaver came out.  It, too, pulled some nice vapor from the prop tips as it accelerated across the water.  A bit of a cross wind was apparently coming in (no doubt related to the impending storm) and they got airborne one float at a time.  At this point we retreated to the car – but not in time to avoid the rain entirely!

A Pair of Otters Return to Kenmore

Getting an Otter at Kenmore is not a challenge.  The Kenmore Air fleet returns to their home base each evening so a steady stream of them can be relied on.  What I hadn’t seen before was two showing up almost simultaneously.  I was watching the first on final approach when I saw a second appear in the background.  It provided a slightly more dynamic view of a regular occurrence.

Ospreys Galore

A trip to Log Boom Park in Kenmore is usually because I am after floatplanes.  However, it is a great source of wildlife and some of the ospreys in the vicinity were keen to be photographed.  You get plenty of ospreys and eagles in the area but they are usually fishing a bit further out into Lake Washington and not so close to the shore.  However, a few of them were circling right overhead and even looking at some fishing opportunities in around the jetty.  It would be rude to not try and get some shots of them!

Picking Up More Than You Can Handle?

After work one evening, I headed to Log Boom Park in Kenmore.  I was thinking I might shoot a few floatplanes as they returned at the end of the day but I hadn’t timed it right for that and didn’t see any.  However, the local wildlife was busy including a few bald eagles that were out hunting on the lake.  Some immature eagles were out and about but a couple of adults were also trying their luck.  I saw one of them start to dive down on a target and followed with the camera.

The eagle struck its target and grabbed it out of the water successfully.  However, it hadn’t fully appreciated just how large a fish this was.  It was a beast and the eagle started to try and climb away without success.  This fish was too heavy for it.  That wasn’t going to deter it though.  It had caught dinner and wasn’t intent on letting it go.  Flapping furiously, it tried to gain speed and altitude.  Speed was fine but altitude was a different story.  Instead, it adopted a new tactic.  Dangling the fish beneath it, the tail of the fish was slapping on the surface of the water.  This seemed to provide a little support and the combination proceeded to skim across the surface of the lake.  Only when at the shore was a final surge of effort put in to pull up on to an awning where the eagle landed and laid out its catch.

Great Blue Heron Spotting

I posted a photo of a cormorant sitting on a post in Lake Washington in this post.  More recently, the same post became the resting place for a heron.  I had plenty of time to inch closer to get a better shot of the bird.  The background was rather distracting so I ended up crouching in an strange position in order to get a cleaner background.  The heron seemed content to wait for me to get the shot.

This Didn’t End Well (Another Sinking Feeling)

I posted a shot of a boat that was partially submerged in Renton in this post.  I came across a similar sight in Kenmore recently.  This boat was tied up to the outside of the marina but was clearly in a bad way.  I don’t know what happened but I am going to make a guess.  The water level in the lake is very high at the moment.  There are many wooden piles out in the water that are normally above the surface but they are currently all submerged.  I wonder whether the boat’s owner did not know they were there and punched a hole in the hull?

Silhouettes on the Water

My sunbathing cormorant got his own post here as a result of being easy to photograph in the evening light.  There were plenty of other cormorants around that evening but the rest were around the piles out in the water in into the sun.  That did make for some nice silhouette shots instead so here they are.  You won’t be able to identify individual cormorants, though.

Sunbathing Cormorant

I had finished up a shoot and was driving back towards home but decided to divert to Kenmore.  The evening light was looking good and I thought some floatplanes might be returning to base.  By the time I got to Kenmore, it must have too late as I didn’t see any planes.  However, there was a cormorant sitting on one of the posts near the end of the jetty.  As the sun set, he was stretching out his wings to gather maximum warmth.  How could I resist yet another cormorant shot?

Bunnies Evade the Kids

I had stopped off by Lake Washington to get some late afternoon photos and, as I walked back up to the parking lot, a couple of rabbits were snacking along the path.  Since the camera was still out, I figured I would get some quick shots.  Unfortunately, a family was following me up the trail and the kids spotted the rabbits.  Being young kids, their instinct was to run to the rabbits – it won’t surprise you to know that the rabbits did not hang around to see if their intentions were good.  I did get a couple of shots before they had vanished.