Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Baker Beauty

No, I didn’t make it to Mount St. Helens today. Didn’t have set plans, of course, and Misha was actually being super-sweet. She decided to cuddle upon my lap in the 90° heat. Well, when your kitty is over 21 and you know time is short, when she wants to cuddle, you cuddle. So we did. And then Boo was busy on the bathmat, giving herself a bath, when I attempted to take a shower. And then Pipa wanted a walk. And then I went to get the car serviced, and then bought cat litter, and ended up leaving my tablet at the store, but happily some wonderful soul turned it in to customer service, so that was a little bit of all right. By the end of all that, though, I was done, and hadn’t even packed yet, so I decided I’d risk the party. I’m currently in the yard listening to a dude relate how he was interviewed by the FBI as an Unabomer suspect. This is an interesting bunch. The music’s good, too.

Yes, that is correct. I am so devoted to you, my darlings, that I blog for you during a party. That’s love, that is! Also, they’ve just started asking me what the word is for a flock of birds that swoops and divides and comes together again. They think murmuration. Damn it, Jim, I know rocks, not birds! I have no idea. So it’s over to you! There’s a bonus UFD sort of thing.

Anyway. I have prepared for you a UFD we saw at Mount Baker, so you will get a few pretty photos in a volcanic setting.So. I solemnly swear there is a UFD in this photo.

Image is looking up the valley holding Bagley Lake. There is a shoulder of rock to the right, with tall, skinny conifers growing upon it. At the end of the valley is the glacial cirque and Table Mountain. There is a flying bird somewhere in the photo, but it's practically invisible.
UFD I

Here, I’ll crop and enlarge for you.

Image is a crop of the previous. Now the bird is visible flying in front of the trees. It is some sort of raptor with brown wings.
UFD II

Here’s a nice image showing the stream, and the UFD is in this one, too.

Image is the valley, this time zoomed out enough to show the stream. The bird is barely visible as a brown slash against the rocky cirque.
UFD III

Here, let me show you it:

Crop of the above image, showing the bird flapping in front of the cirque. It's still hard to see.
UFD IV

This bird had actually flown so close to our heads that I could’ve got you a magnificent image if I’d had the camera ready. Alas, by the time I’d got it aimed, the bugger was halfway down the valley.

It came in for a landing on the trees. I couldn’t see it, so I kind of just pointed, shot, and hoped. Look what we got!

The bird is landing on the crown of a conifer.
UFD V

Apparently, that tree wasn’t quite perfect, because it moved to another. And here we get a sorta-decent look at it at last.

The bird is perched atop another conifer. It has a plump brown body, with a pale head with a dark streak over the eye and down its neck.
UFD VI

Oh, heck, have one more.

The bird is sitting upright now.
UFD VII

Magnificent little bastich, innit?

I’m not at all sure what it is, but I can tell you it’s very, very fast. And awesome. And I hope Suzanne and I get lucky at Mount St. Helens this weekend. I’m headed down tomorrow for a solo adventure… somewhere, I haven’t decided quite where yet. Maybe I’ll come back with something even more amazeballs.

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Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Baker Beauty
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7 thoughts on “Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Baker Beauty

  1. rq
    1

    Absolutely beautiful. But I’ve proven time and again that I’m not good with raptor-type birds, so I’m just going to say ‘osprey!’ and be content to be wrong.

  2. 4

    Late to the party as usual, but definitely an osprey.

    If you see an eagle and an osprey, the eagle will usually be trying to steal dinner (fish) from the osprey.

  3. 5

    tmscott and Trebuchet: I didn’t know that about eagles and ospreys. I’ll have to watch for antagonism between them in two weeks when I go up to Great Pond in Maine. There are several osprey families there, and at least one bald eagle. I hadn’t noticed any disquiet between them before, so now I’m going to keep an eye out for it. And it’ll probably be obvious and I’ll wonder how I never saw it before.

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