For here or to go?

I went to visit my tax accountant this afternoon. I'm so glad I've gotten in the habit of taking my camera (almost) everywhere - her office overlooks a lovely park on the Willamette River (pronounced will-AM-et) and, even though it was cold and rainy, I knew I had to go down to the park after our meeting. It was wet and slippery so I was very cautious as I inched my way down the pier with my walker. I had my camera wrapped in a plastic bag.

There was all manner of bird life around. I could hear geese (and saw their impressive scat on the pier) but never did see any. Lots of cormorants, gulls, grebes, crows. After 20 minutes or so, the wind picked up and I got a little nervous out at the end of the pier as it started bouncing up and down and water splashed over the sides. So I inched my way back up. Just as I was reaching land, I noticed this gull one pier over. She flew in with what looked like the motherlode in her mouth. Was it someone's sandwich? or a partial loaf of bread? None of the other gulls seemed interested in her treasure, which is unusual - they usually pester each other to pieces when one of them scores something yummy. When I played back the photos and enlarged them, I realized it was a chunk of Styrofoam. Then I realized she had it stuck on her beak! There wasn't much I could do to help her - I hope she got it off. Gulls are pretty resourceful, so I wasn't too worried about her.

Take a look at this one LARGE. And here are a few more shots of my adventure.