Day 19.260: The end of the tour

Tonight, Exile #2 and I went to see Madison Cunnningham’s Ace Tour for the second time and Exile #3 and E5N1 joined us at Live at Madrid’s - a new venue in Portland.

In prime position

The venue filled up a lot after this was taken!

This was the last date on this surprise second leg of the tour - a tour de force put together by these two amazing musicians - Madison herself and Jesse Chandler along with their sound engineer. It was a sublime evening and Portland did them proud despite it being a very rainy night. 

Day 19.259: Nor'easter

There has been much talk about the storm coming in today. Most of it has been to our south, but - as we discovered at Biddeford Pool this afternoon, it is getting the ocean a little riled-up.

Day 19.258: Silicon Valley

One last (I think) photo from my California adventure - the street outside my hotel room with tram and the PayPal HQ. A reminder that although I spent most of my time out in the Monterey Bay countryside, my base was in Silicon Valley. 

Day 19.257: Things with wings

Have you ever seen a dragon fly?

What about a dragonfly?

These are from our Saturday afternoon nature walk:

Black-tipped farmer

Meadowhawk (possibly autumn meadowhawk)

Day 19.256: Bird shaped

I only took a few photos with my camera during our walk on Monday. The light was fading, so it was difficult to make out much detail most of the time. That's not too much of a problem when it comes to recognizing a great blue heron however:

And I had no trouble recognizing this bird just from its silhouette (this is as we saw it):

and here is the same picture with a little camera magic:

Pileated woodpecker

Day 19.255: Evening out

Exile #2, Exile #3 and I went out for a short walk yesterday evening. It was a beautiful evening, but it is starting to feel a little chillier as the sun goes down at this point. Here is the view of the river from the top of the daffodil bank:

And here are two different opinions about the clothing appropriate to the temperature:

Day 19.254: Life bird surprise

Our nature group gathered for a fun but almost bird-free walk at Laurel Hill cemetery on Saturday afternoon. Surprisingly, it resulted in my 13th life-list addition for the week. Here is the unimpressive set of bird photographs:

Eastern phoebe

Gull (likely ring-billed)

Double-crested cormorant 

Chipping sparrow

and then there was this quick fly-by from three ducks. I only took a single photo and at first thought perhaps they were American black ducks but they turned out to be blue-winged teal which, correctly or otherwise, were another addition to my life list. 

Blue-winged teal

A reminder that - even at home - every bird could be a life bird.