I had the amazing opportunity to visit Washington State with my son and his wife during December of 2019. It is a state of awesome and diverse beauty with ecosystems ranging from mountains, to lakes, ponds and rivers, rain forests, coastal beaches and desert. I hope you will enjoy this gallery of photos showing the beauty of both these scenic areas and the wildlife we encountered there.
LAKE AND MOUNTAIN AREAS
The Coastal Mountains of Washington state are majestic. Often wreathed in low lying clouds and mist, I was rewarded only a few times with glimpses of the highest peaks. Nestled among the mountains one comes across beautiful mountain lake and river scenes. On several occasions I saw Bald Eagles traversing the mountain ridges. I was also delighted to discover a number of waterfowl, some familiar and others entirely new to me.
American Bald Eagles
Male and female Hooded Mergansers
A pair of female Common Mergansers and a male Common Merganser
Male and female Buffleheads and a pair of female Buffleheads
Male and female Ring-Necked Ducks
Male and female Gadwalls
A male Gadwall
RAINFOREST
The Olympic Peninsula area of Washington State receives 140 inches of rain in an average year! This allows for a temperate rain forest to flourish in this part of the state. Unique and unusual vegetation covers the mixed evergreen and deciduous forests including hundreds of mosses, lichens, fungi and ferns. If you are out in these forests, even on days when there is no rain, everything is dripping wet. The ground, the plants, even the birds and animals who thrive here are constantly wet from the mists and moisture in the air. It is green everywhere and lush with an abundance of growing things. Mosses truly cover the huge old trees wherever you look and white lichens grow randomly on the ground underfoot as well as on branches around you. Funny groupings of ferns and moss create configurations reminiscent of Dr. Seuss illustrations.
The Elk herds who move through these rain forests are impressive, large mammals and we ran into them several times. We were surprised to see the ease with which they moved through human neighborhoods, jumping fences and grazing casually in peoples yards. They were equally at home in the Hoh Rain Forest moving easily through thick, wet vegetation. We also encountered a unique little bird known as The Dipper. He is North America's only aquatic freshwater bird. He was so fun to watch dipping into a rain forest stream and swimming underwater to search for bugs. A Hairy Woodpecker also showed us his skill finding grubs in an old decaying stump.
Roosevelt Elk
The Dipper
Hairy Woodpecker
OCEAN AND BEACHES
We had the opportunity to visit two very scenic areas of Washington's coast. The first was Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge consists of a five mile long sandbar reaching out along the ocean with an area on one side which people are allowed to walk along and explore and an area on the other side which is reserved for wildlife. Both sides provided me with opportunities to photograph waterfowl.
Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge
A flock of shorebirds called Dunlins
A non-breeding Horned Grebe
A non-breeding Black-bellied Plover
The second coastal area we visited was Rialto Beach. This beach is renowned for its beautiful tall rock islands and tidal pools. We hiked quite a ways along the beach to reach the tidal pools and were rewarded with sightings of beautiful sea stars, anemones and barnacles. We left as the sun set over the water and enjoyed a beautiful display of color.
Tidal Pool Life
Sunset on Riato Beach
DESERT and INLAND NORTHWEST
On the Eastern side of the Cascade mountains in Washington, the climate is quite dry. In portions of the state this leads to desert like conditions. We drove through this area as well as drier portions of forest land. We visited a park with interesting examples of petrified wood, viewed beautiful snowy forests and saw both wild turkeys and an amazing Barred Owl.
Desert Vista and Tiny Colorful Desert Life
Petrified Wood in Gingo Petrified Forest State Park
Barred Owl
Scenic Northwest Inland Area
Wild Turkeys
