Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
Just a few laps from the finish, race winner Max Papis drives his Team Rahal car on a damp track at the 2001 CART race at Portland. Max was impressive all weekend, in the dry and the wet, and deserved his win from the pole. I love the look of the cars from this era.
A Wilson’s snipe in its element at the edge of the marsh.
It looks a little older and a little worse-for-wear every time I see it, but I always enjoy seeing the friendly face of this old moving van in the Quinault Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. I hope it thinks the same of me. Then the rain poured down and gave the non-moving van a nice shine, rain which feeds the trees and rust which are slowly breaking it down. Such is life in the rain forest.
Downy feathers cling to an American bittern’s beak after a preening session on a rainy winter afternoon. This one was at South Quigley Lake at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, my second favorite place to watch for bitterns on the refuge (and the first if there aren’t tall grasses along the final channel beside Rest Lake, like during the winter this was taken).
In the top picture, rain drops have just started to pelt the side of the old moving van at the Kestner Homestead in Olympic National Park, but years in the rain forest has both figuratively and literally left waves of rust on the decaying truck. But then the rain started coming down in buckets and I retreated to shelter, before coming out for a few more pictures of the now soaked truck before heading back down the trail.
These wood sorrel leaves, wet with rain above a bed of moss, reminded me of butterflies with their wings outspread. I was hiking along the Kestner Homestead Trail in the Quinault Rain Forest after an earlier rain, and when I came back past the rain returned with me, pounding down in buckets. The leaves had folded in, still like butterflies, but the lens I was using wasn’t weather sealed and I hadn’t brought a backup. I was literally in the first few hours of my trip so I decided discretion was the better part of valor and didn’t photograph them with their wings down.
A Wilson’s snipe sings as the rain pours down at South Quigley Lake.
Why so eager to sing little one? Ah, you’re in love.
This bald eagle seems to be looking accusingly at me as the rain pours down at Rest Lake in Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. It was a cool and wet spring morning after a cool and wet (and occasionally snowy) winter. Fair enough, I do love the rain and get a little cranky when it’s been sunny too many days in a row (such as today, as we enter another heat wave in May. May! It’s still spring!).
This is another picture where I took 4K video at the same time and the video gives a different feel to the photo and the moment it freezes in time. You can really see the rain hitting the water (and hear it hitting the car) in the video, as well as the current pushing the water past the eagle’s feet. And perhaps most importantly you can see that the eagle almost never looks in my direction, it was much more concerned about what was happening in the marsh, which is as it should be.
But in the photo, it’s gaze is fixed on me forever.
A Columbian white-tailed fawn enjoys its breakfast while sitting in a meadow on a rainy spring morning at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. I got some 4K video of it too, it’s hard to see the rain in the video with the slower shutter speed but you can certainly hear it pounding down, and you can see the deer’s eating motion as it occasionally stops eating to listen. I’ll post the video once I learn how to edit it.
A Wilson’s snipe takes a rest on a bed of reeds on a rainy spring afternoon.
Boolie 