Blue Goose ~ Day 30

June 30, 2104 ~ Shelton, WA to Aberdeen, WA

The Olympic Peninsula! I had never been here before and was astonished by my first glimpse of rugged mountains with snow. I expected more modest mountains. It was a perfect day with warm but not hot temperatures and bright sunshine. I drove north along the Hood Canal, looking at the map frequently to get the bigger picture, and got to Sequim (pronounced Squim) mid morning, but then lingered in a coffee house for a couple of hours. 

Dungeness NWR is a few miles NW of Sequim and is another stunning refuge with dense coastal flora, immense trees, the beach and a 5.5-mile sand spit out to a lighthouse with Mt. Baker is in the distance.

Dungeness NWR - WA

One can walk to the end of the spit but I only went a mile…maybe not even that. It was very calm but the ocean waves still were significant, continually crashing onto the beach but at a slight angle so one could see the same wave move up the beach. The harbor side of the spit was perfectly calm. Huge driftwood, so common on Pacific beaches, showed high tide lines. No one was actually swimming, but kids were frolicking in the shallows. I thought I was lucky with the weather but was told by a woman volunteer that Sequim is called “sunny Squim” and that it is in a “blue hole.” When I was in the coffee shop and driving through town, I realized the town is a mecca for retirees with means like Sanibel in FL or Sedona in AZ. Though retired, they are physically active and involved in their communities. I was surprised, thinking Sequim was a quaint but working fishing outpost. Not so…lots of shopping opportunities, all with cute names, neat and tidy…flowers and condos and bicycle racks painted a deep rich plum. 

The birds were scarce though - a few White-crowned Sparrows, a pair of loons far out on the water, a couple of gulls flying by. But in spring migration, there are thousands of Brants and other shorebirds fueling up on Dungeness before flying north. Brants nest on the far northern edge of Alaska and the Canadian provinces. 

I drove way too much today, essentially the pheripery of the pennsula. Not that there are a choice of roads through the middle, much of which is Olympic National Park / National Forest.  I hadn't realized how big this roughly square peninsula is. Curiously, there is a rain forest here also, the Hoh Rain Forest, which gets 12-14 feet of rain annually. Several Native American tribes still claim small parts of their ancestral lands on the peninsula. I came down the west aide skirting Lake Crescent, going through the towns of Humptulips and Forks and several hours later, arrived at Gray’s Harbor NWR. I never know what to expect of a refuge; they are usually quite different from any notions I had had. The one was next to an airfield. In fact, I had to walk though that to get to the Sandpiper Trail, a loop boardwalk which goes partly through the thick native brush that looks pretty much impenetrable (to me) before opening onto the marsh.

Gray's Harbor NWR - WA

Because of tides, the mudflats and marshes and water are dynamic. During spring migration, 500,000 shore birds stop by - mostly Dunlins, Westen Sandpipers and Red Knots, reason for a local birding festival. Tonight, though I heard birds in the dark leafy cover and saw a few Marsh Wrens and a Bald Eagle, it was quiet, and I was just a bit apprehensive as I didn’t think another soul was anywhere close but then saw a couple returning on the boardwalk and a gentleman at the far end. I was about to turn back but forced myself to do the whole loop and talked to the lone gentleman, who was nice and all, but…… Do most women feel vulnerable in a situation like this? And if so, what a burden. 

Logging is huge here with loaded logging trucks and immense piles of cut and stripped trees waiting processing in the lumberyard. I saw numerous clear-cuts with leftover gigantic stumps in fields of new growth and debris and scraps left behind. Is this still legal? to clear cut? Sometimes, the areas are replanted but often with just one species crowded together. The diversity and beauty of the old growth forests that have survived are breathtaking. 

There is an odd little bird called the marbled murrelet. I learned all about it from the book Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet by Maria Mudd Ruth 

 WWW.AMAZON.COM

Part naturalist detective story, part environmental inquiry, this vibrant narrative celebrates the fascinating world of an endangered seabird that depends on the contested old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest for its survival. "This chunky little seabird stole my heart." So confesses Maria Mudd Ruth, a veteran nature writer perfectly happy to be a generalist before getting swept up in the strange story of the marbled murrelet. This curiosity of nature, who flies like a little brown bullet at up to 100 miles an hour and lives most of its life offshore, is seen around land only during breeding season, when the female lays a single egg highon a mossy tree limb in the ancient coastal forest.

This murrelet has webbed feet and "swims" underwater but flies inland to nest and this book tells the fascinating tale of how scientists finally fingered out this unusual nesting behavior.  I saw a stuffed specimen the next day at Willapa NWR and regretted not taking a photo. They are small, chunky black and white, vaguely duck-like birds with squat rear ends.

I found a Walmart in Aberdeen that was a little “worn” inside,but parked near an RV. When I woke up the next morning, a vehicle next to me was almost exactly like mine. It had a blanket and towel over the front seats so the back was more private. (I have put a blanket up once but only because of bright lights. I feel part of “stealth” traveling…the under-the-radar way of car camping...is to not draw attention to your vehicle. As I left, I noticed the license plates were from Quebec. 

Dungeness NWR - WA