Wild Things

 Last Saturday was the Wild Things festival in Yachats.  Jim Welch, our SWIFTY founder, came up with the idea last year for a kid friendly celebration of all the wild creatures on our stretch of the Oregon Coast.  A number of environmental organizations participated with demonstrations, native plant sales, whale and bird watching, and education.  Gail and I tended our spotting scope out at the observation platform overlooking the ocean at the mouth of the Yachats River, along with a tide pool naturalist, state park whale representative, and Lincoln County Audubon members with a scope and bird expertise.  Unfortunately, we were limited by thick fog covering the water.  I also displayed a video of local trail camera clips I made back at The Commons.

Below are some snapshots I took, not well composed, but a taste of the action.

Wally manned the SWIFTY table.

The Wild Things original painting was auctioned off for a good cause.

The music group Your Song My Song was the perfect group to get the kids having fun.  Michael Guerriero, the puppet artist, donned the sea stars.

Getting ready for the parade!  Moss grew on everything this year.

Jim, in the center, gave a wrap up speech.  It was cool how some of the kids stopped Jim mid speech to correct him or add information.  

Wrapping up the parade of the first Wild Things Festival.

There is a big effort now to re-establish sea otters on the Oregon Coast.

That evening, Jim invited us to dinner at the Drift.  At our table was Dr. Uli, center, who is the veterinarian at the Raptor Center in Eugene.  She is an Osprey expert who helped re-do our town's Osprey platform.  On the right is Ray, whose home has an actual working light house.  He is also a docent at the Haceta Head Lighthouse and a real historian.  We're not sure who the gentleman on the left is, as it was so noisy we couldn't hear him.  I did a great job of catching all three with their eyes closed!