The North Cascades and Methow Valley

Last weekend we decided to take a trip east of here through the North Cascades and into the Methow Valley. We thought we would be enjoying autumn, but it ended up turning into winter! We also thought we would be focusing on birding, but it was the stunning landscapes that ended up stealing the show. Click on these pictures to view them larger, as the small versions don't quite do them justice!

First up was the drive along Highway 20 through North Cascades National Park. Glacial silt makes the color of the river an amazing turquoise!

The rain was falling but the roads were clear, with just a touch of snow at the top of the highest pass.

As we reached the Methow Valley, the sun came out in the late afternoon, and the colors were just amazing every direction you looked.

We hardly saw any birds at all in our first day of travels, but the deer were everywhere, as were the deer hunters. The deer over there as well as our deer on the island are all considered mule deer, but they're very different looking sub-species. The ones on the east side of the Cascades are much larger, more gray than brown, and even their morphology is different - their faces look like those of kangaroos!

On the second day, last Saturday, heavy rain started falling in the morning and turned into heavy snow as the day went on.

Despite the precipitation, the fall colors were spectacular, and really seemed to be at their peak.

Again, we hardly saw any birds, with the best sighting of the day being an American dipper.

By the time we went to bed, about 6-8" of snow had fallen. Overnight it turned to rain again, which compressed things a little bit, but there was still about 4" on the ground when we woke up. We were thankful we had the foresight to park our car at the bottom of the hill our cabin was situated on, or we might not have gotten out at all! It was such a beautiful sight to wake up to, however, though I kept having to remind myself this was October - amazing!

 I kept the camera on me all day and loved how this one turned out, which I took as we were walking down the hill to our car.

We headed into Winthrop for breakfast and afterwards had to take a walk along the Methow River, because the combination of fall colors and freshly fallen snow on an already stunning landscape was just breath-taking.

Back to pick up our things at the cabin, we again parked at the bottom of the hill, and a flock of birds caught our eye. We spent 45 minutes just walking the neighborhood road and finally saw more than a dozen bird species, including these two year birds that were definitely on our "hoped for" list for this trip!

Clark's nutcracker

Pygmy nuthatch

Unfortunately, even though the temperatures were warming, so much snow had fallen in the mountains that the highway we came over on was closed. This meant we had to drive the long way around, which was about twice the distance, but it was a route I had never driven before and the scenery was amazing! We just enjoyed it while driving but there's clearly plenty more new places to explore in Washington that will have to be featured on future blog posts when we get a chance to spend more time there!

August 1-4: Camping on Malcolm Island

Early in the morning on August 1st we woke up to the sound of killer whale blows. Luckily they were just beginning to pass by, and we saw about 40 whales from A and G Clans very spread out and heading west.

The only Northern Residents I had seen before were the A34s and A36s, so all the whales present on this morning were new to me: the A23s, A25s, A30s, I15s, and I31s. For some reason I've always particularly wanted to see I-Pod, perhaps because they were the original before what most people think of when they hear "iPod" today.

I51 in the background, then from left to right I16 with her three year-old grandchild I144 and child I128

Interestingly, only 6 of the Northern Resident pods seem to have been given names like our Southern Residents. They're named through the orca adoption program at the Vancouver Aquarium, but none of the I-Pod whales I saw have names. Additionally, many of the whales up there are of unknown gender, at least until they get a fin sprout to show they're male or have a calf to show they're female. Down here, so many people are watching the whales that the gender of a new calf is usually figured out within a year or two, by people seeing it breach or roll over at the surface to see its underbelly markings, which can also be used to determine gender. I think it's cool that up there we don't yet know the gender of many of the whales!

In general, keeping track of the whales up there is more complicated/confusing than down here, because there are so many more whales. The Southern Residents are considered one clan (J-Clan) with three pods (Js, Ks, and Ls) who are made up of approximately 6, 4, and 7 matrilines respectively. For the Northern Residents, there are 3 clans (A-Clan, G-Clan, and R-Clan) sorted into 16 pods, but the pods aren't just given single letter names. For example, the original A-Pod proved to really be multiple pods, so there's A1 Pod, A4 Pod, and A5 Pod, each with several matrilines. So the whales we saw can be classified this way:

From A-Clan:

• A1 Pod
• A30 matriline
• A5 Pod 
• A23 and A25 matrilines

From G-Clan:

•  I11 Pod
• The I15s, currently made up of the I16, I27, I4, and I65 matrilines (these 4 whales are the daughters of I15, who is now deceased)
• I31 Pod
• I35 matriline

Did you follow all that?! I barely did, after looking through the ID catalogue many times!

Eight year-old I128 in the foreground with other whales from its family, the I16s

The whales passed us by so early in the morning and in such misty conditions that an hour or two later it already felt like it had all been a dream. We didn't know whether they would come back or not, so we decided to go for a hike through the forest along the shoreline. There were some massive trees!

And some not so massive, but equally photogenic, mushrooms:

Near the end of the trail was a (very steep!) staircase down to the beach.

It was pretty special to be the only ones down there at the time, so we had some fun taking self-portraits.

Every day we were there started out foggy, cleared up by mid-day, and then became windy in the evening. We spent many hours on the beach hoping for whales, with short breaks to go explore the rest of the island.

Looking over towards Vancouver Island

Pulteney Point Lighthouse

On our last full day there, we woke up to the best sunrise yet:

Unfortunately the amazing colors were because the smoke from the wildfires in interior BC was getting closer. We later learned that back home the smoke had already arrived, but thankfully it didn't drift this far north until our last day. On this particular calm morning, we saw many marine mammals on our first beach visit of the day: half a dozen Pacific white-sided dolphins, a Steller sea lion, a few harbor porpoise, and even a sea otter, which is pretty rare up there! Also a humpback whale:

In the evenings, when the wind really picked up, it made for good wave action at the beach, which along with the late-day lighting made it fun to take lots of photos:

A close up wave abstract

Unfortunately, the whales didn't come by within sight for the next several days. (They did pass us twice - once undetected by anyone so presumably far out in the late evening, and once on the other side of the Strait.) We thought the August 1st orcas might be all we would see, but on our last morning in camp we woke up even earlier - at 5:15 AM - to the sound of blows. It was too dark to see anything at first, and even once we could make out the whales, still too dark for photos, so we took the opportunity to drop our hydrophone in the shallow waters off the campground. You should have seen my face light up when the first vocalization came through our speaker! Here's a clip of what we heard:

En Route to Tofino

We took advantage of a 3-day weekend in British Columbia to get out to Tofino over the last couple of days. I've been excited about getting the chance to explore more of Vancouver Island this month, and Tofino was near the top of my list. Not surprisingly, the drive out to the Pacific Coast was full of stunning sights, too. Our first stop of the day was at Cathedral Grove along Highway 4. While the giant trees were impressive, I was again turning my eyes to the minute:

Turns out just about the only photo I took of the trees themselves was this reflection shot!

Next up we stopped near Port Alberni at a little known side trail we read about called Hole in the Wall. We weren't really sure what to expect, but it turned out to be well worth the stop. Not only for the hole in the wall itself, which was apparently blasted through the volcanic shale, but for all the other scenery:

The hole in the wall

Roger Creek runs by the wall of volcanic shale

Abstract black and white of the running creek

Old car abandoned in the woods --> Gets covered with graffiti --> Moss grows on it

Crazy lichen close-up

While it had been mostly overcast throughout the day, as we hit the stretch of highway between Port Alberni and the Pacific Ocean the clouds began to break, which made for some incredibly stunning lighting as we drove along the Kennedy River with snow-capped peaks towering overhead. We had to stop many times to get out the cameras. Here are just a few of my favorites:

Macro Monika

As I've continued to be inspired to explore new types of photography, I've been taking pictures on almost a daily basis, including lots of macro shots. Turns out macro photography is a lot like birding - you can do it anywhere! I just have to turn on my "macro eyes" and suddenly there are subjects everywhere. Especially water droplets - water droplets are awesome! ;) Here are a few of my favorite shots from the last couple of weeks. (If you're interested in seeing more of my recent photographic exploits, check out my new page at 500px!)