Flowers at Oak Creek

A sampling of the early summer flowers we saw along our walk at Oak Creek in Corvallis yesterday.

Daisies with Vetch

Turk's Cap Lily

Brodiaea (Cluster Lily)

Cow Parsnip

Waterfalls, large and small

Friday was a day for waterfalls at Silver Falls State Park. This spring was a very wet one so the streams and falls were flowing strongly. The first waterfall, below, is a very small one on the way to North Falls.

North Falls was difficult to photograph because of the wind created by the falls shooting spray toward the vantage point near the base.

Lower South Falls is fun. The trail passes behind the waterfall and, as usual, was a very wet spot.

Below is another view of Lower South Falls from far enough along the trail to escape the mist.

South Falls is probably the most visited waterfall at the park, being the largest and most easily accessible. A trail also passes behind the falls here and under a huge cave-like overhang of basalt .

Water is always noisily pounding the pool at the base of the waterfall.

Sunset over the Coast Range

Creative Vitality Index for Oregon

A report on Oregon's "Creative Vitality Index" for 2009 is available from the Oregon Arts Commission website (scored slightly above the national average).

Website update

My Website, RobRRobinson.com, has a new look and many updates. Please stop by and take a look around.

"Free Hat Friday"

For the past decade, I have enjoyed doing Web work with Joy Henkle at White Water Warehouse. Joy and Bob and Renee and all the other great folks at WWW provide thoroughly enjoyable guided rafting and hiking trips on the beautiful Rogue River in SW Oregon.

They have a fun new contest on the White Water Warehouse FaceBook page called "Free Hat Friday." If you win, you receive a free cap like the new one that I'm wearing in the photo above. Give it a try, but check for the contest question early on Friday, because the hats go fast.

(I haven't been able to get to the Rogue with my new cap for a photo at Rainie Falls yet, so I took a little artisitic license with Photoshop to add the background.)

Anna's Hummingbird

This female Anna's Hummingbird was a colorful visitor just outside our kitchen window.
I would love to capture on video the dives that the male Anna's Hummingbird makes to protect its territory. It will fly about 100 feet straight up, then come diving back down, looping up at the end with a noisy, hovering shake of its wings and body. It's quite a performance for such a small bird.