Last Weekend

Hi there, I just realized that the weekend is almost upon us (thank the good Lord above) and I have yet to post photos from last weekend. Get with it Angela!

So I took a hike Saturday morning at Mt. Rainier. And although it was cut short because I wasn't feeling well, I still saw a bunch of wildlife. Unfortunately I had my old camera with me and that was problematic because 1. I sorta forgot how to use it and 2. it wasn't working properly. So that's my excuse for the lack of quality photos!

So I got up at 3:30am this time and headed out. It seems the earlier I get up the more wildlife I see. This time I got to see a bear! My second time seeing a black bear near the Sunrise area but thankfully I was in my car this time. I saw him off to the right side of the road, digging and foraging for food. I scrambled to get the camera from the backseat and got a few shots off before he bolted, but the flash went off so they were horrible (and the flash probably scared him off too). It was fully light out, the darkness in these photos is just due to plain old poor camera work! lol


Yes, this is a bear. I swear. See...

Bear.

I actually had several opportunities to get great shots that morning and if I were a better photographer with a better camera it could have been amazing. I saw one of the world's smallest hummingbirds. I know this because I remember seeing a Richard Attenborough nature special on birds that talked about the hummingbirds at Rainier. It was red and about the size of a large bug. In fact, I've seen much larger bugs. And as it buzzed from flower to flower at lightening speed it sounded just like a large bug. In fact, I remember hearing that sound on previous ocassions and thinking it was a bug. Nope, it's a tiny bird. Very cool. Because of it's coloring I'm guessing it was a Rufous Hummingbird (thanks Google). Of course, a great photographer would have gotten a photo but I guess I'm content to be a lazy, underachieving photographer :)

Moving along, I also kept seeing a much larger bird alongside the road. Some type of grouse? I saw tons of them. It seemed everywhere I looked I saw some kind of wildlife that morning.


Grouse. Apparently a Blue Grouse (thanks again Google)

As soon as I got on the trail I saw a Black Tail Deer, appears to be a young buck.

And he posed for me, how thoughtful of him.

Deer.

The Subalpine Lupine was in full bloom

Flowers.

And that's it. It was a very short hike, I probably only walked a mile total. So you see, you don't even need to be that adventurous to see cool things at Mt. Rainier. You just need to be willing to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn :)

I don't even remember what I did Sunday but there's no photos to share so it must not have been too exciting.

Hopefully I'll have more photos to post after this weekend too. Til then!