I started my morning of a trip to Whidbey Island at Moran’s Beach. This is a good location for morning arrivals at the airfield but it also provides a nice view out into the water. You can get some wildlife passing through if you are lucky and I was. A bald eagle was hunting in the area. It was hanging out in the trees just north of me and then heading out to the water. There was a fishing boat working not far offshore. It was attracting a ton of attention from the local gull population and they were swarming around the boat. The eagle was also interested, though. It would swoop through periodically, looking for a cheap snack. The gulls were not too impressed by the interloper!
A while back I posted about the visit of a C-32 to Boeing Field in support of the visit of the Vice President. It wasn’t the only aircraft to be there, though. The USAF also had a C-40 that was providing support. The motorcade delivered everyone to the aircraft but the C-32 departed swiftly while the C-40 was in less of a hurry. I imagine that they were sweeping up the stragglers before heading off. Needless to say, I waited around for them to go. They didn’t get quite the same priority as the C-32 but taxied back and took off – presumably heading back to the east coast.
Friday evening after work, the sun was out and, with the time having changed, it wasn’t getting dark too early. I decided to have a stroll down at Juanita Bay Park before going home. Of course, the camera came with me. Things were pretty quiet, and I was taking a few photos but decided it was time to head home. As I turned to walk back, I saw a friend of mine, Lee, walking towards me. I was about to greet him when he started running towards me and called out “otters”!
I turned around a pair of otters were swimming across the bay towards us. They came towards the little island area and climbed out on to the shore. It is a bit difficult to get a shot there, but I managed a few. They moved along the shore and then back into the water. They headed out to the middle of the bay. Clearly, they were planning on hunting so we gave them a little time. A short while later, one appeared on the surface with what looked like a fish.
Often, when the otters have a catch, they go to a buoy to eat it but, this time, they seemed to be heading back our way. I was hoping that they would come up on the beach to eat. Amazingly, that’s exactly what they did. However, it wasn’t a fish that they had caught. It was a duck of some sort. One of them had caught it and it didn’t seem interested in sharing too much. It proceeded to chomp down on its meal.
The sound of a otter’s teeth crunching the skull of a duck was hard to miss as it made it’s way through its meal. The second otter was keen to share but the first one would the carcass up and turn around to try and avoid the interloper. This was repeated several times. In due course, it decided it was done and just left the remains. I suspect some bits just aren’t that tasty. While I did get stills, the eating process was far more interesting as video, so I shot more of that. The feathers everywhere looked quite funny as they got stuck on the otter’s head while it ripped into the body.
Paine Field is getting rather full of spare 777X airframes. They are getting stored in all sorts of locations and a recent spot for them is alongside the main assembly building at the north end of the field. I was using the long lens and so, rather than change lenses, I shot a few images to make a pano. It was a little dull but more of a record shot. A few minutes passed by the the clouds behind me had moved on and the light on the airframes had improved significantly. I reshot the scene before it changed again. Looking at the two shots, it is hard to believe that they were only a few minutes apart. What an impact a change in lighting can bring to a shot.
The snow geese are a famous feature of Skagit County in the winter. They migrate through the area and feed well on the local fields. I wasn’t looking to get shots of the geese while I was up there but the view across the fields was dominated by them. I figured a little video was more appropriate to show just how many of them were there. They were a bit distant but that might actually be the better way to show just how constant their movement was.
I was doing a favor for a friend from the Midwest a little while back that involved visiting someone north of Seattle who owned a jet that the friend was interested in researching. The documentation was the main reason for the visit, but we also took a trip to his hangar to see the jet. While we were there, he showed me another jet that he has. If you go to a random hangar in Washington, are you expecting to find a pristine MiG-23? He had told me he had it so it wasn’t a surprise at that point, but it was in excellent condition. It hasn’t been re-assembled since it arrived, so the wings are off and the engine is out. However, it was freshly overhauled before he took possession, and the engine has zero time since overhaul too.
Tucked alongside it in the hangar are the various parts that are removed. I don’t know the status of any of the weaponry, but I am told it has no hindrance to being made airworthy again. He has no interest in doing that and I don’t think he has any plans to dispose of it so it may sit there for a while yet. MiG-23s are impressive jets when airborne and I would love to see this one fly again. The engine is huge and the only time I saw one fly a display at RIAT many years ago, the plume of the afterburner made quite the impression. Maybe one day…
As I was looking out over the water from Fort Casey, there was a lot of haze which was obscuring some of the more distant sights. Through this, I could just make out a container crane. I couldn’t see lots of them so I wasn’t sure it was a major port. Instead, it seemed like it was a lone crane. I’m not sure what it could be but I liked the slightly mysterious nature of it.
As we headed down one of the roads in Skagit County on the lookout for the owls, we came to a field that was full of swans. I’m not sure what was interesting them but there seemed to be a steady stream of them taking off and heading south of where we were. A few of them took off directly towards us. The head on view of them getting airborne was really cool. Of course, as soon as I had the camera ready, they were taking off from other locations and not coming towards me.
I was still getting some shots of them as they gained speed if not much altitude. The great thing was that they were keeping it low and building speed before they gradually climbed away. As they crossed the road, they could still be pretty low. I figured a little patience would work in my favor and, sure enough, it wasn’t too long before some of them were taking off towards me. They clearly weren’t coming directly over me as I guess we were enough of a distraction. However, they were coming head on for a while. I missed quite a few shots unfortunately but you only get to see the ones that worked out!
I was waiting on one of the boardwalks at Juanita Bay when an eagle caught something and took it to eat on the post out in the water. After it finished its food, it headed to one of the logs in the water to clean itself up in the lake water. Having watched this routine a number of times, I figured that it would finish cleaning and then fly towards the trees near where I was standing. I figured that, rather than try to get closer, I should wait where I was and have the eagle come to me.
Sure enough, the behavior was as predicted. The eagle went to log and spent a bit of time cleaning itself up after devouring the catch. The only tricky thing with this position was that there is a very cluttered background. If I was shooting with my older DSLR, I would have been using a single autofocus point which would be very effective as long as I kept it on the subject. The mirrorless cameras are much cleverer but also like to look for subjects and, if something is against a busy background, the camera might not recognize the target. This had been an issue in a similar situation before.
This time, the contrast was sufficient to allow me to track the eagle effectively. It came straight towards me as it headed to the trees to relax and digest its dinner. I managed to get a few good shots of it as it got airborne and came my way. Sadly, the conditions were rather dull and, while I got some shots, they weren’t quite as dramatic as I would have liked. Still, head on with an eagle is always good.
We had a few helicopters show up in the region during the firefighting season. One was at Arlington and that was a Boeing Chinook owned by Billings Flying Service. Based in Billings MT, they provide a variety of aviation services including this helicopter for firefighting duties. It was parked on the ramp at Arlington and had a logo on the airframe to show its home base as well as a text logo on the fuselage near one of the navigation lights that referenced the Police song, Roxanne.
I would love to have seen it fly but the weekend when I was up there, it was just parked and work really gets in the way of having fun with aviation on weekdays. The paint scheme was really cool and it was fitted with an internal water system along with a snorkel for picking up water when needed. I would love to see this in action but that hasn’t happened yet and there is something very unfortunate about getting to see firefighting operations underway since it is a sign that bad things are happening!
I started my morning of a trip to Whidbey Island at Moran’s Beach. This is a good location for morning arrivals at the airfield but it also provides a nice view out into the water. You can get some wildlife passing through if you are lucky and I was. A bald eagle was hunting in the area. It was hanging out in the trees just north of me and then heading out to the water. There was a fishing boat working not far offshore. It was attracting a ton of attention from the local gull population and they were swarming around the boat. The eagle was also interested, though. It would swoop through periodically, looking for a cheap snack. The gulls were not too impressed by the interloper!
