Last Christmas I was stumped on what to give Ingrid.  

Earrings???  Nah, been there done that.  

Clothes???  My taste is awful.

A new vacuum???  Grounds for divorce.

So finally I decided upon a vacation trip to Seattle.  Ingrid had never been to the Pacific Northwest and had always want to visit . . . so a perfect Christmas Present was found!!!!

While the vacation has been primarily a typical tourist trip (Space Needle, Wine Tasting, Bainbridge Island, etc.) we managed to do a little birding.

Our favorite bird so far is the two Chestnut-backed Chickadees we observed building a nest in a tree cavity at Discovery Park.

Other lifers were Black Turnstones, where we observed dozens foraging on rocks in West Seattle.

And the a pair of distant Rhinoceros Auklets that were sadly out of photo range.

And scores of birds we had seen before but not since our last trip out west.