Boots to Pearls

What a lovely day off from what I do most of the week: volunteering. In the morning, we went for a ramble down on the Mudflats. The birds were definitely telling us that spring had arrived. The sun shone through the clouds and the wind died down.
As always, the best viewing area for birds is just inside the gates. The native plant nursery has a lot of feeders and the red- wing blackbirds were making themselves at home. They are such beautiful singers. There were such a lot of them as well as the chickadees and siskins.
We trekked down to the water to see the ospreys on their huge nest. Three bald eagles flew overhead and a gull was dropping a shell on the beach rocks. Before he could get the meat out another had swooped in to steal it. Such screeching and wing-flapping! A loon dove for his lunch, disappearing and then reappearing.
Through the forest and we found wrens and towhees, a bunch of crossbills in a tree and a brown creeper slipping in and out from under a ragged piece of bark. A flock of golden-crowned kinglets whispered from a pine tree and a downy woodpecker competed with a flicker to see who could make the most noise. The flicker seemed to be trying to enlarge a hole on a nesting box.
The pond turtles weren't sunning themselves yet but we found mallards, buffleheads and a coot.

Later that evening, a party at T's restaurant: Mangia e Bevi. They were celebrating their first anniversary which is no mean feat in this city where a new eatery can just disappear. The wineries were there to pour tasters of their best stuff and we munched on crostini, delicious lamb chops and a fabulous pasta served in a huge Parmesan wheel which had been mostly scraped out. Some cheese remained to melt in with the pasta...mmm. Lots of people were there to help make the party a success.