I’m going to briefly digress from the bird photography. The Pacific Northwest has a reputation for rain, and perhaps especially for this time of year. And as a matter of fact, it has been raining for about an hour or so as I write this BUT I had the opportunity to get out and do some birding this afternoon. We become accustomed to gray skies with the threat of rain for many days of the year, but we actually average less annual rainfall than the area I used to call home…. Austin, Texas!

So when we’re accustomed to seeing those gray skies for weeks on end (especially this month!), it’s a real treat when you actually get some decent weather. I haven’t been able to perform most of my usual 2.25-mile morning walks in Washington Park for several weeks due to rain, wind, ice and/or snow. I won’t go into the forests in windy conditions due to deadfall. I don’t walk if it is seriously threatening rain or actually raining. And last year I fell on ice and seriously injured my gluteus maximus, putting enough fear into me that I won’t walk if the pavement is wet and the temperature is in the mid-30s or lower.

This morning (1/30/2020) provided a rare window of opportunity for my morning walk. About 7:30am I reached the top of the first hill, an area which I refer to as the Burrow’s (Island) Overlook, where I was greeted by this pre-sunrise view! I can’t stay that this was the best sunrise I’ve ever seen from that area, but it was right up there with the best.

The photos were taken with my relatively new iPhone 11 Pro camera and are absolutely unretouched. This is exactly the way the scene appeared! And this marks the first time I’ve used photos from my camera phone to upload to my blog. It turned out to be a much easier process than I anticipated.