Finding Nemo - 9/28/14

Or - Up A Lazy River Where the Salmon Run...

We set ourselves to a busy day...and it was, it was a very busy day. We planned on walking along the Cedar River and then visiting Coulon Park.

You see, we had spotted a dead salmon the other day by our park. It was floating along out in the lake but it  looked to us like it was a salmon so we got the idea that they, the salmon, might be making their migration to spawn upstream in the Cedar River.

In addition, it's been a couple days since we had been to Coulon Park and so we thought we'd stop by there, as well, and see what the trees had been up to.

It was, for us, a BIG day.

We got off early to our first stop, Dollar Tree. Hey, gotta get some Diet Coke (DC) and Spice Drops to help make the day a success. Hahahaha, everything's sweeter with Spice Drops and everyone knows the DC offsets the calories you get from the Spice Drops. 

A Win-Win kinda situation, right!?!

We parked over in the Renton Stadium parking lot which is, conveniently, right next to the river. There were some soccer games being played there today which we were totally uninterested in. Ignoring that game, we headed down to the Cedar River Walk. 

Once you pass under the bridge you enter into a large open area like a park by the Renton Senior Activity Center. 

It's a lovely park, as you can see. The thing is, as often as we've been there the Senior Activity Center has NEVER been open. You'd think they'd have a couple old coots out there every once in a while, but nooooo. None I've seen (and don't suggest I get a mirror).

This is looking from the Renton Senior Activity Center looking towards the river.

We walked up the North side of the river. On this side, the sidewalk is a foot or two above the level of the river and the brush is cut down. The river is kinda shallow here, too. This will be important later on.

This picture is looking across the river towards the South side which is considerably higher than the level we were on. And on a cloudy lazy Sunday afternoon, there were a goodly number of folks out walking and running along the well-kept paths...including a sizable number of our Valued Homeless who were neither walking nor running.

Here's the Cedar River Walk as we were walking East towards the bridges and the library. Oh, the City of Renton built the City Library so that it spans the Cedar River. They're remodeling it right now and the whole interior is gutted. You can see right through it now. I suppose, given government's noble efficiency, it will be just another 3-4 years and it will be done.

We had our 'Duck' entourage with us as we walked up the river vainly looking for the salmon making their "Run For the Fun".

These ducks have been trained well and always come around whenever someone walks near the water. This young lady followed us for a while.

And, of course, we were on the look-out for some interesting foliage...and we found some. Some fuchsia. 

So far, on our little walk along the river, we hadn't seen but one dead salmon. A seagull was having lunch with him. Well, the gull was eating him would be a fairer way of saying it. So far there hadn't been any spottings of the salmon. 

Then we crossed the bridge still looking, though I'll be honest, I was not expecting to finding any salmon...I was thinking it was too early in the season.

But!!

As we were crossing the bridge Carol spotted these guys on the South side of the river.

What The Heck!!

We soon found out that there were salmon making the migration but they, evidently, preferred to come up the side of the river with vegetation. They were all on the South side of the river. 

Woo-Hoo!! There weren't a lot of them yet but there were some making the trip. We saw, all told, maybe 30 salmon during our walk.

The ones we saw were Sockeye Salmon. This species is a Pacific salmon that is primarily red in hue during spawning. They can be up to 33 inches in length and weight anywhere from 5 to 15 pounds. The Juveniles remain in freshwater until they're ready to migrate to the ocean, sometimes over distances of up to a thousand miles.

The name "sockeye" is an anglicization of suk-kegh, the fishes name in Halkomelem, the language of the indigenous people along the lower reaches of the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada.

The sockeye salmon is sometimes called the red or blueback salmon, due to its color. Sockeye are blue tinged with silver in color while living in the ocean. When they return to their spawning grounds, their bodies become red, like you see in my pictures, and their heads turn green.

Sockeye salmon range as far south as the Columbia River and in northern Hokkaido Island in Japan in the western Pacific. They range as far north as the Bathurst Inlet in the Canadian Arctic in the east and the Anadyr River in Siberia in the west. The farthest inland sockeye salmon travel is to Redfish Lake, Idaho, over 900 miles from the ocean and 6,500 feet in elevation.

Final fun fact for the males, sockeye salmon are semelparous, they live for many years in the ocean before swimming to the freshwater stream of their birth, spawning, and then dying after they spawn.

Whoa!! Wait a minute!! Let's talk this over, OK!?! 

You can see the red bodies and their green heads. Which looked sorta steel gray to us when we were on the river looking (we thought they might be 'steelheads') but now I totally see them as green. 

    Cedar River Selfie!!    

Of course we naturally stopped watching the salmon wiggle their way upriver long enough to grab ourselves a selfie. 

Of course.

Hahahahahahaha...

Then, while were ambling along, we spotted this character.

Carol wanted a picture of it so she could identify what kind of duck(?) it is. This was the only one of this species that we've seen here. The only one.

So I tried to get a picture. The problem was, this little knucklehead would dive under the water...I mean all the way under...and stay there for 4-8 seconds and then pop up...somewhere else.

I kept trying to shoot and it would dive and I would wait patiently and then see him pop up somewhere else. 

It was, honestly, like watching Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory when he was in the plastic ball pool popping up and down yelling "Bazinga!!" time and time again.

I kept trying and finally gave up. Whatever it was, it wasn't staying still long enough for me to get a shot of this critter. These were the best I got.

BTW, this is a female Red-Breasted Marganser.

Nailed it!!

And this fine fellow is a yellow-billed feathered rat.

AKA Seagull.

Will my quest never end!?!

It really is a beautiful park; a real treasure for the city. Here's a view of the park as you're going west along it. They've got some exercise stations set up along the way. See the group in the distance? They're soccer players warming up for their next match...or game...or scrum or whatever it is they call it.

Now if you keep going in this direction, and this is right by the Renton Stadium where we parked, you'll eventually turn right and, keeping the river on your left, pass through the Boeing plant. 

So you have the airfield on the left across the river and the Boeing plant on your right. It is one skinny park down that way as it goes along until the river empties into Lake Washington. In fact, that's what we call it down that way, The Skinny Park.

We were done. We'd came, we'd saw and now we'd be leaving.

Onto Coulon Park to check out the Fall Foliage.

It was still there, and it was getting better.

This is just a small preview of how it is going to look in another week or two. 

POW!!

We'd been out for a couple hours and we were feeling a wee bit hungry when we saw this. And it was in the direction we were walking.

What the heck, the trees will wait another hour or so.

Ivar's, here we come!!

I opted for the Chowder Bowl…

Mmmmmmm, sourdough and clam chowder.

Carol got the Halibut and fries.

(I got one of those pieces and it was very good!!)

Here's the Happy Girl!!

Let's grease!!

While it was a little bit cool, it was still very pleasant so we dined al fresco. Which meant we had an audience. Of ducks.

They all stayed down in the water except for this Brassie Lassie!! We were about done eating and we had strictly abided by the law, as we always do, by not feeding the wildlife. When we were just about finished, this one just jumped up on the pier outside the fence we were sitting by.

What could we do? She was so audacious and bold we had to reward her courage. She got several juicy pieces of sourdough for her efforts. 

First I fed her while Carol kept a look-out for the police and then I stood watch while Carol dropped a couple pieces over. 

Yeah, I know!! We were tempting fate by walking on the wrong side of the law. Haha, but we threw caution to the side and took our walk on the wild side. 

Um, quack?

Looking towards the boat launch area.

Fun Photo Fact:

It was an overcast day and, on overcast days the colors are always saturated. So, in addition to the rule about shooting down, you can also shoot the foliage and get deep and rich colors.

(Editor's Note: You won't see much of the sky in any of these pictures until the afternoon when the clouds cleared. Jes sayin')

After lunch, we walked around the marina. Here's Ivar's with Kidd's behind it.

    Artsy-Fartsy B&W Alert!!

They have these floats set up as sort of a breaker for the shore line. They absorb the waves generated by the boats and water skis and keep the birds on the shore happy. And they also make for an interesting composition.

In B&W.

OK, let's get back to the reason we were there, shall we. The foliage.

One sure thing about being in Coulon Park, everywhere you go, you are followed.

She's coming over to check us out.

    Artsy-Fartsy B&W Alert, Part II    

Hahahahaha, crow's are best presented as Black and White subjects, aren't they? 

These things are my least favorite fowl.  

Autumn colors for the strollers.

OK, this was funny to me. I was waiting for Carol and this woman was looking into Kidd's trying to get in. She'd been around the other side and that door had been locked (evidently it can only be opened from the inside) and so she was there, under the "Open" sign, looking in with the entrance just four or so feet to the right of her.

I thought it was funny. 

She did figure it out a couple seconds later.

I'm hungry!! C'Mon, open up!!

Fall colors...

Last spring, I had gotten a good picture of the benches underneath these magnolia trees. This one didn't come out too bad. So, now I have Spring and Summer, I figure I can get them again when the leaves change and then when the snow comes. 

Hahahaha, the seasons of the benches.

Autumn colors...

Some of the funny little moss they have there.

OK, my first "Leaf" picture of the year.

I guarantee you it will not be the last one.

Oh, no, it most certainly won't be the last one.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha...

    Coulon Park Selfie!!    

And like before, the train pulled in alongside of us. I figure they have to move up this track far enough to switch onto the Boeing Plant rails because they come up just so far and then back up in the direction they came from.

Here's the Happy and Well-Fed Girl.

A close-up of some kind of a hydrangea. This was the absolute last bunch of blooming hydrangea we saw. All the rest looked like...

...this. Here's some dried up hydrangea framed by some Maple leaves. No, I didn't arrange any of this. I just stumbled onto it.

Fall colors...

I saw this small leaf and zoomed in for this shot. Then I got a medium shot and then I got...

...a wide shot of the whole thing. Looks like an Autumn arrangement, doesn't it?

The colors are becoming more vibrant.

    BAM!!    

    Artsy-Fartsy B&W Alert, Part III    

I honestly forgot about this one. I seriously did. 

Hahahaha, suck it up!!

This one was taken along the river by the Skinny Park.

We were finally finished with Coulon Park so we decided to stop by the Skinny Park for a look-see. As I mentioned before, the River Walk continues on to where the Cedar River empties into Lake Washington. Renton has carved out a sliver of land along side the river so you can continue your walk with the river on one side and the Boeing Plant on the other.

It's kinda odd, but it works. It is a very nice extension of the park.

    Artsy-Fartsy B&W Alert, Part IV

OK, I really forgot about this one!! I swear there are no more B&W shots for you to worry about. 

Hahahahahahaha, it was a day that lent itself to taking B&W photos.

OK, this one is of a couple humongous mushrooms. Each one was about six inches across. I know, weird looking, eh?

We walked out to the Renton Rowing Center where we had gotten our kayaks a couple weeks ago. The Center juts out into the lake and gets you a lot closer to the logs stuck in the low waters that the birds like to sit on.

Like these cormorants.

Huey, Dewy and Louie.

And these three ducks,

April, May and June

(FYI - Huey, Dewey and Louie are Donald Duck's nephews. April, May and June are Daisy Duck's three nieces.)

(I know, fun AND informative!!)

A shot of the Trailer Park Marina from the Renton Rowing Center. 

Classy, like all Trailer Parks.

Some of the feathered rats hanging out.

A look up the river. The water level is definitely higher than it was a month or two ago.

    Cedar River Selfie!!    

Admiring my new Seahawks Hat.

In the Skinny Park, there are several beautiful willows that I think would be a great backdrop or setting for some portraits.

Like this one.

And it can be approached from several different angles for some interesting backgrounds for pictures...

...like this one.

Pretty nice, eh?

Yep!!

After the Skinny Park, we stopped by our park. We were in the area, the sky was clearing and there wasn't much else happening so...

We stopped and I got some more pictures of the cormorants.

There they are, sharing their log with some American Coots.

So I'm out there taking pictures and I look back and there the kid is, again, with her electronic toys.

Hahaha, Nature is busting out all over and she's texting about it to Paul.

Then, for the first time ever, I saw one of the airliners fabricated at the Boeing plant coming down the airstrip for testing of some kind. They ran it down, turned it around, revved up the engines and then went back up the strip. After that, they pulled it off the tarmac.

Still, it was something. I haven't ever seen any of the BIG planes moving on this field. 

Now I want to see one take off.

We were still there when, and this really steams me, ALL of my batteries were dead.

No more camera. 

Seriously, all of them were DEAD.

The luster quickly went off the day and so it was time to turn our weary eyes back towards the Ol' Homestead.

We had a good day and we'd gotten to see a lot. The sockeye are moving upstream and they'll be a lot more of them the next time we go to look. The leaves are picking up their pace and probably by next weekend they'll be blazing in color. 

All is good.

Life is good.

    Hooah!!