August 2010

The last half of August was spent in northern California. We flew in to San Francisco and camped our way up the coast to Portland, Oregon. MANY animals were seen during this trip including cool lizards, chipmunks, squirrels and seals (sunning themselves on the rocks of the Pacific coast, a short walk from our campsite!)

Pictured above are a couple of raccoons who broke into our stash one night. It was a momma with 2 babies - one of which was rolling a tin-foil wrapper from a bottle of wine between his paws. Adorable.

Also seen living happily in the wild were bald eagles, hawks and commorants.

Pictured above is one of the many mule deer we saw. In Mount Shasta (CA), a young mule deer was loudly courting a female (who passively grunted back) all night. I don't think he got lucky. When we were camping on Independence Pass in Colorado a few years ago, we heard elk doing the same thing and (since I had no idea what it was - it sounded like someone torturing an animal) I was so terrified that we grabbed the gear and sped away to a motel. Now that we learned what this VERY LOUD sound is, it was positively delightful to sit by the lake and listen all night. Funny how a little knowledge can turn a situation from absolute terror to absolute beauty.

Other animals spied upon include seagulls, Jellyfish (deceased) and a beautiful gray Fox.

Pictured above is an otter we saw washed up on a secluded beach with HUGE teeth marks on his back. Looks to me like he made a lucky escape from a shark, only to eventually die. Circle of life.

We also saw crows, some sort of long-legged rodent (kangaroo mouse?), Blue and Scrub Jays (a blue jay ate some canteloupe right off my hand!) and this beautiful coyote spotted near the Lava Beds in Tulelake CA.

Also near the Lava Beds, we saw lots of California quail (pictured above), Egret, Heron and a mountain lion (dead, on the side of the road. Go humans, go! There's only 6,000 left!)

I saw this flying squirrel soaring through the trees one afternoon. What a weird animal. We also saw huge dragonflies, tons of shiny banana slugs and spiral-y snails.

This black tailed jack rabbit was right by our campsite. When he saw us, he jumped straight up in the air! And then stood there, letting us look at him for a good 3 minutes, and hopped away. Adorable. And frankly, he looked tasty, too. California is a bread basket. We saw tons of sea anemone, garter snakes and mussels, too.

My absolute FAVORITE bird out west, though, is definitely the raven. Hilarious, loud and ubiquitous - I just love them. I could watch them for hours, and they were absolutely everywhere.