Overcast and calm. Temperatures in the 50s, without rain today.
Road work started today. I got up to the sound of a concrete saw cutting through the pavement. After removing a patch of the roadside, they used a massive vacuum to make a hole. I asked about it and learned they were checking to see where the water table was. Apparently that will help determine how deep they excavate and fill for the new road bed.
A report of dippers nesting behind the falls along Herring Cove trail prompted me to head out there this afternoon.
While there, I experimented with long exposures of the falls using my neutral density filter.
I started by positioning myself on the bridge. Unfortunately, as I kneeled down, my phone came out of my pocket. I reacted just fast enough to see it drop into the stream below. The screen came on briefly, and I hurried around in hopes of rescuing it.
Water tumbling over rocks is not so easy to see through. It didn’t look like the phone was where it first fell. I briefly feared it may have been washed down stream. Fortunately I noticed something black behind a rock and reached down. It was my phone. It warned me there was water in the ports, but functioned as expected.
The dippers visited their nest several times while I was there. Each time, I heard the young calling, but I could not see them. It’s sort of surprising there is any space there for a nest at all.
Before I left, I took a few pictures of an adult working the edge of the pool just below the falls.
I watched it disappear into the falls. As best I could tell the nest is probably just off the side in a little nook, but I couldn’t see it.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
