#birdzoid

Ruffed grouse. Or maybe small dinosaur. Or ferrel forest chicken. . Grouse have startled me more often than any other animal. They can be hard to spot and a bunch of times I've walked right up on one hiding behind a bush and it only flies off when I'm within a few feet. Since they're pretty big, it's pretty loud when they take flight. Big flapping ruckus jump scares are their specialty. Also, they often make weird monster-like sounds and especially when I was younger and didn't associate the sound with these silly sasquatch chickens, I'd get nervous hearing them. . I guess that's about all I have to say about grouse. How about this heat!? Hope wherever you live doesn't catch (or hasn't already caught) fire. I personally am like, mid-combustion. Can't sleep, can't work, just sweat and watch birds. . Oh, also, I took these pictures near a cool meadow where two endangered plants grow. It's protected, for good reason, but unfortunately that meant that I couldn't find an accessible spot to take a pretty picture. And the endangered flower I was after didn't seem to be blooming. . . . #grouse #ruffedgrouse #audubonsociety #coolbird #coolbirds #bestbirdshots #birdzoid #birdboy #birdnerd #birding #birders #leavenworth (at Camas Land) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQei3fgASux/?utm_medium=tumblr

Yeah, seagulls are common but so are you and probably you post pictures of yourself sometimes and no one wants to make you feel bad about yourself, well maybe some people do, but forget about them. Well, unless you're a terrible person or something who needs to do some serious introspection about what kind of people you are. But people like that probably don't feel insecure about photos of themselves and would easily dismiss any negative comment. . Anyway, my point here is that assuming these seagulls are decent people, we shouldn't even raise the question about whether their photos are worth sharing. That kind of thing could lead to a lifetime of self doubt and insecurity. And yes, maybe that would help them develop as an artist and intellectual and that crippling doubt and anxiety would wind up being the motivation for all the accomplishments they're most proud of. Maybe they'd even look back on their miserable life and decide they wouldn't change a thing. . Still, happy, confident and generally well adjusted seagulls are also capable of brilliance. Even if we grow through suffering, that doesn't validate the suffering or justify our roles in causing others to suffer. I think we should all just try to help each other be ok and not worry that the world will run out of sources of struggle that breed important thought and art. . We can appreciate these photos and that seagull can become whoever it wants. No seagull should be condemned to be the Camus of seagulls. Probably someone always will be, but we don't have to push them down that miserable lonely path. . Just like the dang photo and move on. Don't screw up these seagulls lives. . Plus, these are probably higher quality photos than your linkedin headshot or whatever. . Ok, gotta go set up LinkedIn accounts for these birds. I'll call one Steven Seagull. . . . #seagull #seagulls #birds #bird #birdzoid #birdfreaks #birdingphotography #birdphoto (at Olympic Peninsula, Washington) https://www.instagram.com/p/CSVmW9RLlGr/?utm_medium=tumblr

Duck! . It's back to being about the regular amount of hot here. . I took the afternoon off work and went for a relatively short 2 mile hike up to a waterfall yesterday. Between getting pretty out of shape the last few months, the heat, and hardly sleeping the past few days, it kind of kicked my butt. . It was nice and cool by the waterfall, but I actually didn't take any pictures. I couldn't find a good composition and I think it would take an ultrawide lens or some pretty dangerous climbing to get the whole waterfall in the frame. I did post a dumb selfie in my story, though. . On other news, I made another $0.99 selling stock photography today! I'm on my way to having earned enough at stock photography to buy a cabbage. I can't really recall how much a cabbage costs, but they're pretty cheap, right? I could buy a few and take weird photos of them and sell those photos as stock photography and then buy even more cabbages, drive up cabbage stocks and then sell them on ebay at a huge profit. #cabbagelife #cabbagetycoon . . . #duck #ducks #birdzoid #merganser #commonmerganser #mergansers (at Wenatchee, Washington) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQ1WAELL5AQ/?utm_medium=tumblr