BNSF has a large maintenance yard in Seattle in the Interbay area. My bike ride took me past the yard and then up and over the tracks. On my return leg, I stopped to have a look at the facility. There is a space where a round house used to be which you can see on Google Maps. A couple of trains were on the lines and there were a bunch of locos elsewhere in the yard.
We have plenty of hummingbirds visiting our back yard. They may look different depending on the angle the light hits their feathers but up until recently I had thought that they were all the same species – the Anna’s hummingbird. Then we got a visitor that seemed different. First, instead of having a grey look to the feathers, it was a lot more brown. The other difference was the sound of the wingbeats. Instead of the whirring noise we were used to, this one had a higher pitched sound almost like a click as the wings were hitting each other. It sounded quite distinctive. I trip to my big book of birds suggests that these may be Rufous hummingbirds. For the birders amongst you, I hope you will advise if I am mistaken.
During a vacation trip to Anacortes, prior to moving to Washington, I posted some pictures of a large vessel out on the dockside being worked on. I was quite taken with seeing it so high out of the water. That post is here if you are interested. We were passing through Anacortes again recently and I decided to go back to the same shipyard to see if something else was there. Sure enough, another large vessel was sitting in the yard undergoing work.
Seeing a ship this large out of the water is impressive to me. I got a few photos. It was an interesting shaped hull. I think it had propulsor units of some sort based on rotating vanes rather than traditional propellers. They were a bit hard to see but I think that was what was back there. My friendly marine engineers might step in here and help out.
It isn’t always what you are looking at that is appealing. Sometimes, it is just the shape that attracts your attention. In the area around Midway Airport are a number of rail yards. The way in which they fan out from the entry tracks and then close down again at the other end makes for an interesting shape which can only be appreciated from the air. Here is an example of what I mean. It really doesn’t matter what is in the yard. The form is all that I am looking at.
