[birding] Ankeny ant mimic spider and otter (OK how about a long- billed dowitcher too)

[howard bruner]

The waterfowl were spotty but diverse, mostly in Pintail
Marsh.  The dowitcher was alone - probably
a straggler of the group that wintered. 
The cackling geese were flighty and loud - flying low back and forth
and heting up the other waterfowl.   Yellowrumps had abundant things in the air to
practice flycatching.  But the thrill of
the P Marsh was when the otter came out of the water and onto the cut stump
that sits alone towards the kiosk.  Just
a momentary visit and then it disappeared and I could find no sign of it after.  The water was too busted up with a constant
north wind to track the bubble trail.  An
adult double-crested cormorant sported the double white feathery plumes -  blown every which
way in the wind.  Many ruddies and coots
traveling in fairly tight rafts.  A
couple gadwall with plumage so elegant they seemed over dressed.  Multiple nutria swam and clumsily waddled up
the islands  - so different from the
quicksilver movement of the otter.

 

I walked into the bottomland forest on the other side of the
rail trail dike.  The forest floor has
sessile trillium (not quite in bloom), violet, toothwort, camissia, giant
meadowrue, fringecup,  tons of Olemeria
and snowberry, candyflower, selfheal, buttercup, and geranium.  Above the glad carpet a flyout of Geometid or Noctuid moths brought the glade alive. 
I did not have my handy portable butterfly net and could not bring
myself to kill an individual in order to determine ID so my best guess is that they were an
early-season genus such as Egira or Feralia or Mesoleuca (a day flying moth). They were abundant and not alone in the
great reawakening.  Wasps, whitefly, and mosquitoes enjoyed the temperate conditions.  I saw my first ever
ant-mimic spider but have not a clue as to what species it is because my
references tell me the jumping spider with matching attributes does not live in the
PNW.

 

The way out was under a molten silver sky etched with a
hotspot of pure gold.  Chorus frog and wigeon squeak will be the soundtrack of the afterlife if all is right with
this universe.
h


 

 		 	   		  
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