This stunning creature, a Wavy Chestnut Y (Autographa mappa – Hodges #8912), showed up at my back door yesterday afternoon.

I can’t get over his crazy hairdo. It looks precision cut and styled.

He has a very rich color palette of brown and rust and white, with a shimmer of gold dust.

He belongs to the Owlet family.

This one is quite a bit smaller and much more delicate than the Wavy Chestnut Y, and was a bit anxious. He wasn’t exactly cut out for modeling, not with all the flitting around he was doing.

It is a Morbid Owlet (Chytolita morbidalis – Hodges #8355). He was more than a little worn when I found him. Missing some fur on the back of his head, his wings starting to get ragged and part of a leg missing. Though his less than stellar state didn’t seem to slow him down, I doubt that he is long for this world.

My favorite little critter is this Pale Glyph (Protodeltote albidula – Hodges #9048). She is so tiny that I had a hard time focusing on her with one hand while holding her in the other.

Just look at her unroll her proboscis  and flick it around.

Any day spent outside, learning new things and talking with people that are outside, learning new things and sharing knowledge with each other is a very good day.

Our local Veterans Memorial Museum put on the two-day event. It was a lot of fun, I hope to be able to attend next spring’s events

The Chehalis-Centralia steam train pulls into the war zone, loaded down with soldiers ready to pick a fight.

No, no. These aren’t the soldiers. But they are a fun group of SteamPunk fans who drove down from Seattle and Olympia to join in the North vs. South fun and frivolity. I hear they were a HOOT on the Troop Train ride. What fun!

And the shooting begins …

… the South side was low in numbers, but they made up for it in marksmanship.

They took out the Union drummer boy early on in the fight, it seemed to affect the morale of the troops (and the watching crowds) and take a bit of the fight out of them … probably because they seemed to be having to fight themselves not to laugh and grin as the drummer boy went down with a bad case of the squirming, heavy(ham)handed moans and groans before was awkwardly hauled off the battlefield. (The little drummer boy really wasn’t so little.)

Hey! That looks like a GIRL in them britches! YeeeeeHaaaaaw!

Uh oh, there’s someone else you don’t usually see on a battlefield — a photographer. That’s Brandon, former head photog for The Chronicle, current sometimes stringer and full time videographer up in Seattle.

Forward … MARCH!

Scout Spike is watching the Union side come around the hill and get ready to out-flank the Rebs.

That’s it for the Confederates. Better luck next time, boys … and girl!

On the banks of the Cowlitz River, near the mouth of the Blue Creek stands a small snag with a cozy little cavity.

As I stand a few feet into the river I can hear the call of the Chickadee whenever he flies in to the tall branches just above the snag. He is either crowing about his hunting success or he is just giving us fair warning that he’s coming in for a landing — I don’t know which.

One second he’s there, perched at the edge with a bug of some sort hanging out of his mouth …

… and in the next second he’s gone.

Can you see him? That’s his tail feathers sticking up in the air.

Maybe he’s got a bully for a big brother that keeps stealing his lunch so he has to hide to eat his catch.

He didn’t seem to worried about me bullying him, what a handsome bird!

And yes, this was the day that I fell into the river (I talked about it briefly in my column this week). My son is on the left of the line of fisherman, I was standing to the left of him.

It wasn’t deep and I didn’t go under, but that Cowlitz River flows from the snow melting off of Mt. Rainier, so it ain’t cozy warm!

Still, it was a good day of fishing and friendly conversation with a couple of easy going combat steelhead fisherman.

Stosh and I were talking in the front yard, he was taking a break from pressure washing the porch, and then a soaking wet baby pine sisken flew up into his hands.

“What the … ?” was his initial reaction.

When he flew off to the feeders, I handed Stosh the camera and walked over and picked him up. Easy peasy.

He had seed hulls stuck all over this face, here you see him trying to rub them off.

Stosh makes a pretty good camera man … must take after his mother.

I wish this rain would go away! Maybe tomorrow?

Either way, rain or shine, Stosh and I are hitting the Cowlitz tomorrow at Blue Creek — we figure we’ll just get wet either way.

There doesn’t seem to be a thing wrong with him. He flies just fine, although he’s a little clumsy at the seed bowl.

I bought my granddaughter her first fishing pole last month. It has taken us this long to find the time when she and I were both available and it wasn’t raining for us to head out to the waters.

We went down to the Cowlitz River because even if you don’t catch a fish (and I was actually kinda counting on our failure), you get to see lots of wildlife. We had a huge, white seagull that was keeping an eye on us, hoping to steal a bit of our catch, I’m betting. And we scared a Bald Eagle out of a tree as we were walking down to the river.

Casting was a little tough to get used to. But once she had it down, she really had it down!

And she never knew what her spinner with a treble hook would bring back to her when she reeled in.

Sometimes it was grass, or weeds, or pond scum or even pine cones and a snail.

“Gramma, I … “

” … Gramma, I think I caught a rock!”

This moth is species Pero morrisonaria – Morrison’s Pero – Hodges #6755

He is a member of the Geometer family of moths.

This one looks like he could blend right into a tree trunk and you’d never spot him hiding there.

I’m amazed that so many seemingly “plain” moths have such rich color, shine and a luxurious look.

This moth is really small, but she seems to be gold-tipped and clothed in satin. And get a load ‘a that eye!

He is a member of the Crambid Snout Mouth family.
Crambus girardellus – Girard’s Grass-veneer – Hodges#5365

This moth is my all-time favorite. I often see her (or one of her kin) clinging to my kitchen window. As I wash my dishes I meditate on all the wonders she represents that make up this world and time moves so much more quickly. Before I know it, the sink is clean and I’m feeling quite content.

This moth is a Spilosoma viginica - Yellow Woollybear, a member of the Tiger Moth family.

Isn’t she amazing?!

But we (or HE, actually) had better luck at Blue Creek.

Lucky shot, not the best quality image. He was a fighter!

This one is smaller than the one that got away (of course), but he’ll do!

A nice 24-inch, 7-pound summer run hatchery steelhead.

All I caught was a Great Blue Heron, sneaking in to see if he could get our take.

He certainly isn’t the prettiest example of a heron, kinda scrawny looking.

Makes me almost sorry we didn’t hand over the fish. Almost.

I thought maybe we scared off the heron, but then I looked up again after shooting the last frame of the heron flying away and spotted this killer red-breast perched in the heron’s place.

Ya gotta watch out for those Robins, they’ll ‘neak up on ya.

This little robin was peeking up over the rocks at me, keeping one close eye on my movements as he kept the other eye out for yummy bugs.

A Crow …

A mallard hen duck …

And some fingerlings.