It was cloudy, sprinkling rain. About 60 degrees F. Afternoon.
First, I heard a few American Robins and Song Sparrows. It was probably too cold out for the Hummingbirds to be out. Far away in what looked to be a dead tree sat a family of Great Horned Owls, but without binoculars it was to see them clearly. Then, some other type of bird of prey flew overhead and landed in the tree right next to the walkway. The group came to the conclusion that it was a juvenile red tailed hawk. There was no red on the tail just yet and it was still brown and white/cream speckled. It flew from the more forested area to sit on a branch of a tree with no leaves overlooking a field area. It was obviously not happy with the amount of us and our noise level probably, and it eventually flew off into a tree further away from us, closer to the open field, more than likely looking for food. I then saw a great blue heron land in a grassy area walking around next to some Canadian Geese that at first tried to chase him off, but then just walked away from him when he wasn't scared. Far off in the distance were 2 large bald eagles sitting in trees, probably scoping the area for food as well. There were quite a few different species of waterfowl out swimming around too.
It was around 5:00pm. Sunny. Not a lot of wind. High 60s F.
I walked down past the University of Washington Husky Stadium and sat and watched the water. I looked over to see a cormorant floating down the boat canal and then fly off across the canal to a batch of tall, leafless, cormorant filled trees. Some were swimming around, some were flying, and then there had to be at least 50 out and about. I have never seen so many around one area, let alone see waterfowl try to land in a tree.
Sunny. High 60s F. West UW Campus, party shady area.
There were tulip trees, rose trees, and cherry trees as well as a couple other flowering trees and bushes. All of them were in bloom. There were quite a few song sparrows singing in the area as well. It is in a nice, hidden away spot between 2 buildings (hence the shade)
Nighttime. Weather and temp. does not seem to matter except when it get s in the 30s F.
The Orb Spider is my friend named Keith. He lives on my third story window pane (on the outside) on 47th. He is small enough that I believe he is male. It is hard to get a good look at him to tell exactly what he is. He looks brownish and he has a white diamond on his back. His web is all the way across the windowpane.
The next spider looked more like a sort of crab spider perhaps. There is a very small post area blocking off a small pond from the road on the way to the Union Bay Natural Area, and there were at least 5 separate spiders and more webs on this post. They were all of the same kind. They were brown and cream speckled. Their webs seemed kind of thick and were mostly in corners.
The Striped Spider I saw was in the Union Bay Area walking on the ground in the dry grass. He had a sort of pointy oval body and had a large brown stripe down his back. He blended very well into the grass.
Union Bay Natural Area. Partly cloudy, slightly windy. 50s F.
I heard what I recognized as a Hummingbird sound, more like an Annas. I looked up to see a brightly colored hummingbird flying way up into the air, then swooping fast down and squeaking, then flying back up. He did this for quite sometime then he flew off. About 5 minutes later I saw what I thought was the same hummingbird chasing another one, and they were both singing, and they were just flying around trees. Finally, I lost track of them. It was very neat to see a Hummingbird Courtship.
Sunny. Mid 60s F. Got lost driving, ended up on a logging beach near what looked like some kind of Naval Base area.
The tide was out, and so I went about lifting up rocks. Under small rocks were 20 small crabs, and under big rocks were 20 big crabs. There was a ridiculous amount of crabs, and after they all dug themselves into the sand.
Besides the many crabs, there were little baby shrimp, still see-through, that were on the bottoms of the rocks.
Under one rock was a very small gooeyduck, and by another was a muscle.
It was nice to see that even in what looked like a big stretch of muddy sand speckled with rocks, there was tons of life on that beach besides the couple seagulls flying above.
11:00am. 50s. Cloudy, snow in the mountains, raining slightly.
Driving along I-90 back from Snoqualmie pass to Seattle, there was a female moose standing on a small hill just outside a very forested mountain area. I had never seen a moose before, and it was very surprising to see a moose that close to the road. She looked like she was grazing, but we drove by pretty fast.
