Elk

 Last night, a small herd of 6 elk spent at least 2 hours browsing on our property.  The elk here are Roosevelt Elk, the largest of the elk species.  Bulls average between 700 to 1,100 pounds.

 

Summer Photo Potpouri

This is a post of summer photos from walks around the yard, hikes, and trips to the beach.  This has been a mild summer - only one hot day, but practically no rain.  The vegetable garden got off to a late start, and is just now beginning to take off, maybe too late.  The river has almost 4 times the usual flow right now from all the late spring rain.

Every now and then a pileated woodpecker spends time in our alder snags.  They have a prehistoric look.

 

Doing some preening.

We had a successful nest of  violet-green swallows.  All 3 of our swallow nests are now empty, and we sure miss their cheery presence.  They're now off to Central and South America, but they often return to the same nest site the following year.  Hope to see you in 2023!

Rufous hummingbirds have been enjoying our crocosmia and other flowers.

A macro lens shot of lichen on a twig.

A macro shot of the growing tip of a fern.

Douglas squirrels are common here and love to torment Daisy.

We've taken advantage of some minus tides this summer.

Sea anemones left high and dry.

This little crab was about 3/8 of an inch long.

Little agates backlit by the sun.

Cormorants

A violet-green swallow at its nest box.

Tree swallows waiting to be fed.  We are now making our boxes with an entry hole in the middle, and two portholes.  This helps the smaller nestlings get fed if there is a larger nestling dominating the entry hole.  All the babies survived and fledged four days ago.

It looks like the nestling in the middle just got an insect meal.  A pair of tree swallows catch about 6,000 insects a day when they have nestlings.

I watched this cedar waxwing repeatedly catching flying insects.  They eat more than just berries.

While we were at the dump, we heard osprey calls coming from this cell tower.  It must have been over a 100 feet tall.  We stopped back the next day with binoculars and camera.

At the top, right under a flashing beacon, was an osprey and at least one chick.  Look at the size of that nest!

A dogwood tree in bloom below our house.

We explored some sea caves during the minus tides.

Behind Gail is the entrance to the cave in the prior shot.

We look forward to seeing our colorful garter snakes through spring and summer.  Sometimes we see 4-5 at the same time a few feet from our backdoor. 

Wally has been making gourmet sea salt in our greenhouse using this evaporator he built.

That wraps up this episode!