The Critters

A brief summary of the wild animals I've seen here. So far.

A seal (pup?) on Rialto Beach. They pull themselves up to sun on the warm rocks. Signs say not to bother them. No one approached this one too closely, but he didn't seem too worried.



(Those are not people you know in the background.)





Bald Eagles (also at Rialto). Glenn, Nate and I saw them flying overhead, and then land atop one of the standing rocks and watch the ocean like a light house. When Cattus Dommus familia were there, we actually almost got dive-bombed by one wielding a freshly caught (huge) fish. That eagle swooped to the end of the beach (it is actually, theoretically, photographed in the long-sweep beach scene in my previous post, but you can't see it against the white and black trees) and its mate soared overhead for 10 minutes. A few minutes later, a juvenile coasted along above the trees, too.





The white-rumped Roosevelt Elk, of which there are about 5,000 in existence, and they all live in the Olympic National Park. They were named for the President (I assume Teddy, and I'm shocked that I didn't take note of which Roosevelt) who declared the area a National Park. We say this in the Hoh National Rain Forest, about which I'll write more later.

Nate and Glenn have seen a herd of about 80 elk across the street from the airport a couple of days ago. I didn't see them, but I was late that day and not looking left nor right, but racing my little Mini down the lovely winding roads.

I have also seen a deer, as I drove home in the wee hours of this morning.

Tonight, Glenn, the man who stands for hours in the dark as our airport runway pedestrian, stopped his car and watched a cougar, waist-high, cross the road in front of him, about half a mile from the airport. They follow the elk, all the locals tell us. Well, the elk are here.