Bird and Icicle Spotting with the local Fulbright Chapter

The nature preserve

The remains of a redwood at a rest area on the journey

A couple of weekends ago I got to go for a trip up north to an area called Skagit Bay that is the same latitude as Victoria on Vancouver island. We went to a Nature Conservancy Port Susan Bay Preserve/Skagit Wildlife Area  and Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. This was with the local Fulbright chapter, there were about 14 of us, half visiting scholars and half previous scholars, including one lady who did her Fulbright year in the 50s not long after the commission was set up.

never far from the mountains

The Nature conservancy owns an area of wet land with a dyke that keeps the water off the farmer's fields. They are working to keep the river delta at the right salinity and keep it from drying out. The research reserve allows a place for visiting scientists to investigate the environment including a large eel grass meadow that is important for baby salmon.

on the journey

It was a wildlife tour but to be honest most of the birds were sensibly not around. We did see two bald eagles from a distance (but a bird enthusiast had bought a good telescope so me could see them), and one eagle was sat on a telephone post when we were leaving, by the time I got out of the bus it decided to take off though...

two eagles hanging out

one eagle escaping the Fulbright paparazzi 

 We also saw a field of snow geese and a few swans, they were also a long way away...

The white stripe in the middle of the shot is snow geese

The snow geese up and flying

We walked for a mile along the dyke and saw lots of Dunlin's these were super cute. They move and fly very fast.

 Dulins flying 

 Dunlins busy finding food in the mud

We were all well wrapped up

lots of the standing water was frozen.

The surrounding fields

The surrounding area

more of the surrounding fields

The research center has a teaching area as one of their goals is communicating to the public. They had a small aquarium and this guy, who was rather fun to watch.

January

I just had a long weekend and I still didn't get to write a post. It's not for want of trying but I seem to have writers block on anything more than trivial, and I'm struggling with trivial. Over the last six weeks I have been doing lots of walking and lots of work, and in between time quite a lot of netflix. Which doesn't make for the most scintillating blog!  Worse still I have mental pictures not digital photos - fail!

Part One - a lot of walking

The hill I walk up to get to Church...

I've been walking around the local area in about a six mile radius. Some of this has been on the Burke Gilman Trail which I've mentioned before. Some has been along the streets. This is always a challenge because I have to use Google Street View to find streets with sidewalks! My longest walk on the Burke Gilman has been to Lake Forest Park. That is six and  a half miles there and six and a half miles back. I always go a little insane walking long distances on the Burke Gilman. The track is about 10ft wide, mostly flat, and lined with either trees or houses. You can't go more than a few minutes without meeting a fellow walker, jogger, or cyclist. Traffic stays on the right and they call out 'on your left' as they over take, or simply whiz past if they are coming in the opposite direction. It's always interesting to see the houses or vegetation but after a few miles I always feel like I am on a treadmill.

A typical street intersection with 'round-about'

My other favourite walk at the moment is the five mile trip 'through the houses' to the North Gate Mall (5 miles away). Yes, all my walks do end in either a mall or a tea shop. It's nice to have a destination. The only problem with walking across the city is the hills. You reach the top of one, start going down and then have to climb another one. But the houses are fun to look at, mostly clad and painted different colours, all different shapes and sizes. Most have well kept yards (gardens) and some have special 'rain gardens' to provide a soak away for the rain that comes out of the gutters. With all the lakes around Seattleites seem to be very conscious of water pollution and how they can do their bit to prevent flooding. Finally, I have to say, I've really been enjoying twilight here in Seattle because many houses keep fairy lights (usually white) up well into the spring to provide some brightness for the dark winter days. Hurray for fairy lights!

The mountains can be seen from most of the hill tops

White fairy lights provide some brightness to long winter nights. 

Part Two - Sleeping Beauty and the Sea Hawks
The first Sunday of February was Super Bowl Sunday and the Seattle Sea Hawks had made it to the game against the Denver something or others. So naturally me and my landlady went off to the ballet! This time it was Sleeping Beauty. I'm not so familiar with the music of sleeping beauty compared with the Nutcracker. From the untrained eye the choreography of Sleeping Beauty was harder than the Nutcracker which made it more of a spectacle. There were definitely more leaps from the ladies and the gentlemen and a lot more 'standing on your toes till your feet are broken beyond repair' action from the principle. It's a curious similarity between ballet and american football that professionals in both areas put there long term health at serious risk for the possibility of a few glory years, and people queue up to watch them do this. We think we are so much better than the Roman Empire watching Gladiator matches, then again the gladiators were slaves...

We returned home in time to watch Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers perform the half time show for the super bowl game. Then I retreated downstairs and low and behold with no support from me the Sea Hawks won! This is the 48th Superbowl so all things being equal almost every state should have won once, but never the less everyone was justifiably excited. Wednesday there was a parade through Downtown Seattle. I could have popped out from work but decided to let the fans celebrate in peace. The parade was midday but the buses were still super full. A ridiculous number of fans were trying to get on the 8am buses which are usually "can't physically jam another person in" packed anyway. They really needed to consider extra transport, but that would be far too sensible. I get on at the start of the route so at least I get a seat. Sea Hawks colours are navy blue and green, one presumes they have never heard the rhyme 'blue and green must never be seen'. So the city has been a wash with blue and green flags, hats, sweaters, jackets... my favourite of all is the 'Sea Hawk' hat, which given that there is no such creature as a Sea Hawk looks like a composite bird of prey.

Sea Hawk fever has died down now. The Seattle Methodist churches had a friendly competition with the Denver Methodist churches to bring in food for the food banks. They thrashed us in this competition bringing in three or four times as much food as us, then again their are probably less attendants in Seattle where people are notoriously non-religious. So now hopefully I will always know the answer to the pub quiz questions who won the 48th Superbowl and in which year did the Seattle Seahawks win the Superbowl etc. Also who is the twelfth man on an American Football team? - yes, indeed, the fans.

Part Three - SAM

As I've previously mentioned the first Thursday of the month is free museum day in Seattle. It's surprising how many of them I've not been here for in the last six months. This time I went to Seattle Art Museum. Which is only 8 blocks from my work (or half a mile if you don't speak 'block'). They have a total mix of stuff, some modern art installations (cars with rods of florescent lighting bursting out of them), some photography (one women's study of her family that live in one of the poorer and polluted areas in Pennsylvania), some native american headresses, some Japanese kimonos. They also have work by Robert Davidson, a contemporary take on native american artwork; For example he uses similar motifs to more ancient artworks but in primary colours. I always forget how much I love wondering around art museums, especially when they are free.

Well I'll call it quits for now and start uploading pictures of Skagit Bay, more on that later...

Christmas Left Overs

The Journey Home!

January has been a busy month of busy-ness, more on that later. For now a little catch up on my Christmas...
The day I needed to get to the airport it snowed. Although this wasn't actually a problem because it all melted by lunch time. My journey was fairly uneventful and I got back to Heathrow at 7:30am on Saturday which was 11:30pm for my body clock. Safe to say I had an afternoon nap on Saturday!

Pretty isn't it!

My first couple of days were in Bristol. Sunday I got visit my Church in Bristol, a few of my colleagues at/from work, and the dentist! Also my Sister, should probably mention her too! Then I got to spend over 5 hours traveling 70 miles back to my parents in Oxfordshire... I love public transport!

a very wet me waiting at the bus stop...

 

...watching the rain fall down.

Boxing Day and Christmas Day I spent in Oxfordshire then traveled across to Bristol again for our Christmas Day on Boxing Day.

Beautiful Oxfordshire

The river Thames, downhill (!) about half a mile from my parent's house.

Just over the field... along the concreate path

Cormorants hanging out by the river

Obeying the law I went to Church on Christmas day (well I was there
till early Christmas morning) by foot, not wheeled vehicle.

I left Father Christmas so juice and a mince pie I'd made
with my Mummy earlier in the day

I got presents in return :-) 

We went to visit some Reindeers after the hard work of Christmas eve was over...

They seemed very tired!

All in all I had a really lovely two week break back home, for once it felt more like three weeks. I got to see lots of lovely people, and missed seeing some other lovely people. It was wonderful to go home, in some ways it felt like I could finally let my mind rest. Then again it was nice to come back to Seattle and feel at home too... 

Christmas Lights in the US and the UK

*feel free just to look at the picture, I couldn't help myself. And yes I clearly do spend too much time thinking about fairy lights*

I'm starting to want to do a PhD in fairy lights, wouldn't that be awesome? on second thoughts maybe it would kind of take the fun out of it! I was going to give this blog the title "A critical comparative analysis of Fairy Light displays based on a 'better' than typical street in the USA and UK" but thought better of it. I have the benefit of coming from a family who enjoy fairy lights and a number of houses in my parent's road, Ilges Lane in Cholsey (Oxfordshire), always decorate. I thought therefore it would be kind of fun to compare their road with an Seattle Street (Candy Cane Lane, aka NE Park Rd).

There are many standards by which one could judge a fairy light display and in writing this short comparison I intend to explore a few questions. First, what makes a light display that look 'good'? This is rather subjective but one can discuss features like; use of architecture, use of garden/yard space, effectiveness in daylight, and finally is there synergy? Which is one of my all time favourite words and concepts, it means "the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts". Secondly, I want to ask the slightly more profound question; why decorate a street for Christmas at all? In line with this thought I'm going to think about who the lights benefit? the home owners, the visitors, or the wider community. Finally I'm going to delve into profound theological Christmas Street tie breaker; Which street would Mary and Joseph take Jesus too? Because I can't write a ridiculously pompous blog about Christmas lights without looking at the tension between celebrating the holiday and remembering what the holiday is about.

What make a light display look good? Unfortunately there isn't a lot you can do about the architecture of your house, unless you own a bull dozer and have several hundreds of thousands of pounds (of money not fairy lights) sitting around. The Candy Cane Lights may have an unfair advantage in this category. They are cute, high gabled, cookie cutter houses that all look a similar shape and size.They are also clad in wood. In contrast upper Ilges Lane (we aren't snobs it is in fact defined by the area at the top of a hill) is a mishmash of red brick tile boxes that are common in the UK.

The 'Cookie Cutter' architecture of Candy Cane Lane

Ilges Lane brick houses

Although some of the Ilges Lane houses do have nice gabbles!

Ilges Lane has a lot more space (yard, garden, weird strips of grass with complex ownership issues) than Candy Cane Lane which is both an advantage, more space for lights or being able to make use of the contrasting darkness, and disadvantage, more lights require to fill the space (no idea where the commas should go in that sentence).

Lots of space in the front gardens along Ilges lane for decorations

Candy Cane Lane signs to Elf's Workshop add to the ambiance.

As previously mentioned the inherent architecture of the Candy Cane Lane houses give them a definite advantage in a daylight most Christmassy competition, unfortunately I don't have any daylight photos. A number of houses also have decorations that work by day, and sign posts (as above). They also have drainpipe candy canes which helped me figure out I went past Candy Cane Lane on the bus every day. I think probably there best daylight feature is the merry-go-around on the round about. In comparison Ilges Lane looks fairly hum-drum on a moody English December day, on a sunny day the lights still twinkle and there are some decorations out (at least on my parents shrubs). Ilges Lane however wins the 'daylight' competition hands down thanks to the eccentricity of my wonderful parents who create a teddy bear scene in 'The Bear Box'. Every year is different, last year the Teddies were caroling but they complained it was too cold so this year Mum gave them a fire and an inside scene. Teddy Bears win every time.

Candy Cane Lane Merry-go-around, a good daylight feature

Ilges Lane 'Bear Box' is a big hit by day or by night!

Finally in this section I want to consider how well the houses work together to enhance each others displays. Candy Cane Lane house are more similar to each other than the Ilges lane houses. It is however also clear that some of the display is actually coordinated, different house have little plaques outside telling you which country they represent. They also use their roundabout (yes they exist in the US although in residential areas many people just ignore them and turn left) for a mini merry-go- round display. Ilges lane don't have an organised them it is every man for himself. I think therefore Candy Cane lane probably has better synergy but I personally think two is always better than one when it comes to lights.

The Candy Cane Lights fit nicely with their neighbours. 

Ilges Lane lights are a little less coordinated, but how coordinated do lights need to be?

Who are we doing this for? I suspect at least part of the answer to this is ourselves. If you don't take a fairly large amount of pleasure in fairy lights you aren't going to spend most of every weekend in October and November pulling the decorations down from the loft or out of the garage, checking all the lights work, replacing bulbs, untangling wires, and that's before you start hanging them in the freezy cold, or rain, and climbing ladders in gale force winds or risking your life on wet roof tiles. Putting up a Christmas light display is definitely a labour of love. Then on a rainy foggy night when you're on the way back from work you forget and turn into the street and there to greet you is several hundred households worth of lux. Suddenly the fact that you left the house at night and came back after the sun had set isn't quite as bad because at least you have the lights. Ilges Lane have a lighting up ceremony every year where each house turns their lights on, it is a nice thing to share with your immediate neighbours. Clearly the Candy Cane Laners also enjoy the lights themselves, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

Candy Cane Lane

Ilges Lane

What about other people? I'm sure Candy Cane Lane has a bigger audience, it is part of Seattle which is a very community responsible place, and obviously a large city. Contrast this with Cholsey which had a population of 3000 (according to the 2011 census), this may have gone up a little as they turned to old mental hospital (is there ever really a PC way to phrase that?) into condos (as the Americans say).   Also because Candy Cane Lane is part of a city people blog about it so you can find out when and where the lights are on. They have Santa visiting occasionally and make it a bit more than a light show. However the Ilges Lane usually begin their show at the start of the December, this year Candy Cane Lane lit up mid December so Candy Cane Lane may be spreading the Christmas light glow to more people but Ilges Lane is doing it for longer!

Ilges Lane

When it comes to people outside the immediate community who visit the street to see the display, I think Candy Cane Lane has the right idea, and found a neat solution to a problem we've had. In our house we've often talked about raising some money for Charity from the many people who visit the lights. We have had vandalism of our lights so a collecting box outside doesn't seem the best bet. In Seattle they collect money for charity at a nearby shop thus keeping is safe from casual thieves.

What Would Mary and Joseph Do? I imagine the idea of hundreds of strings of electric Christmas lights would seem fairly ridiculous to a small poor community oppressed by the Romans, two millennia ago in the middle east. God has a traditional affinity with light. The first commandment was 'let there be light'. He also doesn't have a problem with spectacular visual effect, he appeared as a burning bush for Moses, a pillar of cloud and fire to the Israelite fleeing Eygpt. Jesus' birth was announced to the wise men by a bright star and when the shepherds heard 'the glory of the Lord shone around them' and 'suddenly a great company of heavenly host appear...". Jesus is described as a light (as the rising sun) to shine on those living in darkness (this advent I've been learning Luke chapters 1-3). At the end of days there will be no shadow. In some ways a celebration with lights seems like an appropriate way to celebrate the coming of God's salvation. I guess the danger is that the pretty lights are another layer of glitz and dazzle that stop people thinking about what they are celebrating. Christmas may owe more to the pagan celebration of Solstice than the quiet arrival of a miracle baby two millenia ago but does that mean we should stop celebrating?

Gabriel would enjoy this Candy Cane Lane offering!

A star for the wise men

So which street would Mary and Joseph visit, well to start off with conceptually a pilgrimage from the Middle East to Middle Earth (Oxfordshire is The Shire) would be easier at the time of the birth of Christ, not sure how accessible the 'New' World was in those days. Neither street features a nativity (unless it is Teddy Bear stuffed) which I think Mary would find a little disappointing. The Wise Men would enjoy the tow Stars that shines over Ilges Lane and the Shepherds would appreciate the nearby fields suitable for grazing flocks.

Some nice pasture for the sheep

So the question is who wins? I think Candy Candy lane is more coordinated in their efforts than Ilges Lane and they do have some natural advantages, they also collect money for charity which is good and commendable. Ilges Lane have their lights up for longer but, though I don't know numbers, I suspect they have less visitors. However Candy Cane lane has nothing as intriguing or fun as 'The Bear Box' so like I said Teddy Bears always Win (but I might be biased!).

Candy Cane Lane

Christmas Day, the Reindeer's came back to Ilges Lane but Father Christmas was resting!

So lets end with the Teddies for luck!