Nature Notes, Fantasy Edition

This week I have some serious stuff, and some not so serious stuff. We’ve been having our usual Spring weather for Seattle. Changeable. Yesterday I headed to the store to shop for groceries. It was sunny and sixty. By the time I finished, it was pouring rain. I got drenched running for the bus. But that’s Seattle for you.

I’m trying to notice little things. For instance, there is a tree around the

Lily of the Valley

corner that has lily-of-the-valley growing underneath it. I love the stuff, despite the fact that it’s poisonous. This little plot of flowers under the tree is spreading, as lily of the valley is wont to do. The other plant in the picture is some kind of parasite on the trees, too, that grows around here. At least I think it’s a parasite, it grows around the base of the trees. I’ve had no luck identifying it.

Artificial pond.

We took a trip today across Lake Washington to Lake Sammamish State Park. On the way there we encountered some strange wildlife. They were near this pond. The pond is near a parking garage and bus terminal, and serves to filter the oil and other pollutants from the stormwater before it gets back into the groundwater.

Click to enlarge

It’s quite an ingenious system, and one that probably should be used more often than it is.

Salmon on the bridge.

We also saw some salmon. OK, so they were up on a highway brigde. This is a fantasy nature note, you know!

Lake Sammamish is a large lake east of Seattle. It’s in a heavily populated, yet wooded area. On the way there, we saw a deer standing in the highway. At the lake we could hear red-winged blackbirds calling. The ubiqitous mallards were there, of course, and seemed pretty tame as some of the children were feeding them.

Fairies!

There were these other creatures there that I’ve been told are mythological, but which looked pretty real to me. There were a whole bunch of them, and you could identify them by their wings. I’ve decided I need a big pair of wings to put on Miss Scarlett when we go to these shindigs. After all, she really does fly. Did I tell you I decided she was female, because she pirouettes so gracefully? Oh yes, definitely female.  The only male I’ve seen dance like that was Mikhail Baryshnikov.

And the last fantasy creature we saw at the Lake was this flying fish.

Flying fish!

Unfortunately, by the time I got around to trying to get a picture of it, it had been grounded by lack of wind. Too bad. It was really pretty when it was flying.

All good things must come to an end, and so after our picnic, we packed up and headed back to Seattle by bus. It’s nice to know there are places like that to go where they still have real birds along with their fantasy animals.

Don’t forget to go see who else is posting in Nature Notes at Rambling Wood’s place.