Everything that happens will happen today

Photo by Matt Ellis

June 24 Noah and I went to Seattle to see David Byrne live and it was fantastic. He sure is one of my favorite people. The show was really fantastic with 3 dancers and 3 backup singers who also sometimes danced, plus 3 guys in the band doing percussion, looping, etc. And then to top it all off they brought in the Extra Action Marching Band to play two of the last three songs. You can listen to songs from the tour and his entire latest album on the tour website.

Birding

Coworker Scott and I went on a spontaneous birding walk today because some people had spotted some Lazuli buntings on the Refuge yesterday (also a good excuse to get out of the office.) We did not find the buntings, but it is a really beautiful blustery cloudy-sunny morning. We saw a lot of other exciting things, too:

Two hummingbird nests with some very large babies, should be fledging any day now.

A whole bunch of adult hummingbirds in different spots

Swainson's thrush very close, singing and singing

Downy woodpecker

Robins having a fight and another robin sitting on a nest

A nest of what might be an American goldfinch, we waited but couldn't get a good look at the parent

Yellow warbler

Willow flycatcher catching bugs

Mother mallard with 10 or 11 big babies being freaking adorable swimming and climbing on a log

The usual swallows and sparrows

Bandtailed pigeons

Mother wood duck with two babies in sight, sleeping on a log

From the mouth's of babes

I've begun receiving this years entries for the annual Nisqually Watershed Festival Poster Contest. Local elementary-age kids use any media they want to create a poster that represents water and life in the Nisqually watershed. Let me tell you, I've witnessed several poster contests this year and they are always awesome and hilariously entertaining. Just imagine; you come to work and receive large packages filled with large, sometimes bizarre renderings of the natural world, lots of butterflies and mountains and often featuring very creative slogans.

The first poster in the first bunch I received reads in giant letters:

IF YOU POLLUTE YOU........
MURDER!

(I guess that's why some people hate environmentalists. We turn their children into litter faschists.)

One of the most verbose examples depicts a dolphin with an apparent headwound giving some advice about paradigm shifts (I think the headwound is accidental):

If you hate water or any vegetable,
think creative, like water makes you
live eternal, milk makes you
invinsable, and carrots give you
super vision!

This last one also depicts what is apparently and ice cream store for unicorns.