Urban Carnivores - What's In Your 'Hood?

The other day Chris and I were doing yard work and looked up to see a coyote trotting down the middle of the street. This was at 11am and in broad daylight.

It disappeared into my neighbor's massively overgrown lot after giving us the stare down.

But our coyote sighting pales in comparison to what showed up in my parent's neighbor's yard this morning:

RIVER OTTERS!! Four, including two babies!  [Can you feel my excitement?!.]

Growing up I had a whole school of fancy koi (fish) that lived in our pond. Some of them were 15+ years old, had names, and I trained them to come up to the surface by ringing a little bell. (I was a bored teenager, clearly). One day, all my prized fish were gone, with only a few fish heads laying scattered on the rocks. Piscinicide!

My mom maintained for years that it could only have been the work of a river otter - dad and I laughed her out of the room every. single. time.

Sorry, Mom, we should have believed you.

Note: to get to Steve's yard, this family of otters had to haul themselves out of Lake Washington, find their way past the solid block of lake-front homes, cross a street, climb a hill, cross the Burke Gilman Bike Trail, zip under a fence, cross a lawn, and then dive into the pond. Don't think that these guys are exclusively water critters - they can hustle across land at a fast gallop.

Our local zoo is currently doing a research project on urban carnivores and they're asking Washington residents to record their sightings of the meat-eating animals that live in our neighborhoods.

Want to see what is in your 'hood? Check out the map.

According to user-submitted data, we had a bobcat on the field where Ben plays baseball, a red fox in Wedgwood, an opossum in Maple Leaf, and coyotes/raccoons....everywhere. The video footage of the bobcat is pretty cool - I think the red fox sighting is slightly suspect. No bears yet within city limits. I'm wondering if the bobcat population has benefited from the explosion of rabbits that our city has experienced this year - we've got bunnies coming out of our ears.

Got anything to add to the map?

xo,
Sonja

Photos. T. Dorrance. Thanks WS, for the push to get blogging again!

Trips: Camping on Vancouver Island

Hello!

It's been a while.


I go through phases with the blog....sometimes I'm johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to posting, other times it's like I've fallen off the face of the earth.

In other words, it's been a bit of a blogging dry spell.

We've been outside taking advantage of this beautiful Spring weather and trying to keep our lives only moderately crazy.

We went camping up in Tofino, British Columbia this weekend. Tofino is located about halfway up Vancouver Island on the western (Pacific) coast. We drove up to Canada and then hopped aboard a ferry over to the island. Upon landing in Nanaimo, it was a three hour drive across the island to the small towns of Tofino and Ucluelet. Vancouver Island is huge; it's the largest island in the Pacific Ocean east of New Zealand.

We stayed at the Green Point Campground at the Pacific Rim National Park and it quickly became one of my favorite campgrounds due to the secluded spots and proximity to both hiking trails and beaches. Also, Canadians seem to be a bit more respectful of personal space and noise. There wasn't a single night in which fellow campers were playing their music too loudly or causing disturbances.

 Chris and I are still figuring out our perfect camping situation. We'd love to have a location where the kids can run absolutely wild. Ben and Emma, at 5 and 2, are loud rambunctious kids and there are very few places that they are allowed to be completely free. Even at the campground we are constantly setting rules in regards to noise, destruction of vegetation, and Ben's yearning to visit all the other campsites and have a fireside chat with the occupants.

That said, we're still deciding if we're entirely comfortable striking off into the wilderness by ourselves and wild camping. It seems lovely....but also a bit risky, considering that we have two very young children. Perhaps Chris and I have seen too many horror movies about crazies lurking in the woods. You know, ax murders and shady folk intent on defending their illicit pot grow operations. 

What do you think? Would you go camping off the grid with your little ones? Would you do it if you had friends (ie additional adults) with you? If so, any recommendations for spots in Washington State? I'm of two minds on this one. 

Ben is avidly interested in wildlife and we need to start keeping notes so he can record all his critters. He's careful to list the lowly slug right next to the bears and whales. That's my boy. 

The highlight of the weekend for me was the whale watching trip that we took amongst the islands. It ended up just being the captain, our family, and another family that had two boys, ages 4 and 6. All three boys had an absolute hoot running around the boat, nagging the pilot, and playing wildly. I still can't believe that nobody went overboard.

In total, we were lucky to see 4 humpbacks feeding in a shallow cove. Ben was enthralled.

Ack. Sorry for the blurry pictures. Still haven't pulled the trigger on a new camera and my old lens is suffering.

Here was a larger crustacean, farther out in the bay.

Bottoms up!

Emma did her best to hang with the big kids but she was having a rough day, as her nap schedule was thrown into disarray. We definitely struggled this trip to get a good routine set up for Emma. A month ago we took a similar camping trip down to Central Oregon and she seemed to do just fine. But she hasn't been napping well in the car during the long hours on the road and that, combined with the late nights around the campfire, were hard for our littlest babe. So we'll have to work on that for future trips.

After the whales it was time for a visit to the local Stellar sea lion colony.

Playing? Fighting? Who knows.

If you're planning a visit, we especially enjoyed the inland Rainforest Trail and the Lighthouse Loop near Ucluelet. Long Beach (as accessed via Green Point Campground) also had nice tide pools where we spotted fish, anemones, and jellyfish. 

We went to Chesterman Beach to watch the surfers, but decided that a game of soccer was more entertaining (and warmer). Those surfers were hard core; I was freezing just watching them paddling about in the frigid waters.

The tide pools at Long Beach. I nearly dipped my phone in the water trying to get this picture. 

Ben and his dead sea lion. "Whoa Mama, check out all the flies!!!"

And to top it all off, we ran into this guy. Love them bears. 

And that, my dears, was our trip to Tofino. Definitely worth a visit.

xo,
Sonja

Spring Happenings

I love this time of year. Seattle is green, green, green. All the little critters are out and about. Ben has been finding new pets all over the place. The kid is in bug heaven.

"Mama, what are the lady bugs doing?!"

“Hey, you can't walk on him. You’ll squish him! I’ll just move you over, little guy.."

Not yet ripe..

Tiny peaches! This tree was planted when Ben was born and this is the first year that we’ve had fruit. Hopefully the critters will hold off long enough for us to harvest a few.

Ben is living exclusively off snap peas right now.

Mmm, kale salads.

The raspberries took a bit of a beating when I transplanted them this Spring but it looks like they’re regrouping and we’ll still get a harvest.

Poor little lady bug....lost his ‘buddy’, thanks to an enthusiastic toddler.

Happy Gardening!

xo,

Sonja

Weekend Trip: Olympic Peninsula

My Dears, 

A few weekends back we decided to get out of town for a few days and visit the lovely towns of Port Gamble, Sequim, and Port Angeles. 

A quick side note: I once read one of those “You Know You’re From Washington State if You Can...”

-Correctly pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Enumclaw and Issaquah.

Not from around these parts? Here is some help. 

Anyway, the towns at the northern tip of the Peninsula bill themselves as the sunshine-y part of the state, thanks to the olympic rain shadow but our trip was punctuated by fog, drizzle, and generally grey days. Given that it was the same in Seattle, we weren’t too bent out of shape about it. Welcome to the Northwest, Peeps.

On Saturday morning we caught the ferry in Edmonds to Kingston and then wound our way northwest, including a brief jaunt to Port Gamble, before eventually landing in Port Angeles. 

This was a quick trip for us: previously we’d really enjoyed hiking and picnicking at Hurricane Ridge, touring the lavender farms, cutting Christmas Trees, and hiking to the tip of Dungeness Spit. But there was no time for those activities on this trip - besides, several of those are best enjoyed when temps are a bit warmer. 

We spent the night at the Olympic Lodge which was great pit-stop. We’d picked it originally because their outdoor pool is open year-round; we figured the bambino would love a little dip. And although it was packed with kids, it was a tad bit chilly for our little guy. He would have been just fine if he was motoring around under his own steam but it was too cool for tykes going for a casual dip. So much for great ideas. 

We elected to take naps instead (one lucky two year old scored his own queen bed). After dinner we ventured down to the waterfront and toured old Port Angeles, which is really quite lovely. And probably much more lively during the summer months. 

The next morning we were up bright and early for a trip through the Olympic Game Park. 

I’m going to  pause here and fess up that I need to swallow a big ‘ole dose of humble pie here as I was not super thrilled by this place when we toured in 2012. 

{I’m still going to stand by my original assessment in regards to the big cats and carnivores: the cages are tiny and look like they’re pulled straight from 1950’s era zoos [bare dirt, concrete, and wire fencing].}

But the kiddo (and his parents) had an absolute hoot driving through the elk, lama, bison, and zebra ranges. It was SO MUCH FUN. Ben danced around the car handing out bread to inquiring beasts or retreated to the big picture windows in back when said beasts got a little pushy. 

Prepare yourself for some animal photo madness.

We'll start with the peahens:

And their buddies, who also like bread:

And then on to the yaks (which are in an area with llamas and zebras). This turned out to be our favorite part of the game park. 

The yaks are big but they’re less aggressive than the llamas, and slow moving.

They poke their head in the car and inquire: Might we please have some bread?

The fallow deer are quite also polite:

We spent a lot of time with the zebras.

Then it was on to the bears.  Each animal stakes out a spot and waits for passing cars to throw out treats. 

Known as the ‘waving bears’, they’ll give you a wave in return for a hunk of bread. Of course, they manage to look supremely bored while begging for bread (and also grossly obese, although I’m no ursine expert).  

Ever wonder how long a bear tongue is? Answer: extremely long. 

After the bears, take a drive through the carnivore area (tigers, lions, wolves, and mountain lions) although I don’t have any photos because they, unlike the herbivores, are behind chain link fences. Then it’s on to the big pastures with elk, bison, deer, and horses.

The elk are pretty pushy so Ben was content to watch from the back, with the windows rolled all the way up. 

This guy was persistent: he galloped alongside the car for a bit before going back to his pile of hay.

We were warned before entering that the bison are in the middle of rutting season and thus are pretty aggressive. The parting words of the gate attendant: "don’t let them box you in"!

Right. Bison. As in: HUGE BISON.

They had quite effective tactics, really. An animal would walk in front of the vehicle, causing the driver to stop, and then they’d nip around to the open windows and place their entire head into the vehicle, which essentially prohibited you from driving on. Giant mouths agape, and tongues extended, it was quite a sight. 

 Pictures simply don’t do justice to the size of these animals. I got to the point where I’d feed the ‘small’ ones (below) and do a quick window roll-up when the giants arrived on the scene. 

A few things to know before you go:

We arrived right at 9am and were the second car through the gates. The animals were very happy to see us as we came bearing the first bread of the day. Also, they must feed the carnivores around the same time as there were lots of active cats and roars/howls reverberating throughout the park. 

You can bring in bread to feed the animals but it must be wheat bread. No white, sourdough, or potato bread. It can be purchased at the front gate or you can pick up a few loaves at the store before arrival. 

There is an area with goats/chickens/fowl/etc which is where the kids can get out of the car but it’s closed during the winter months. All other areas (with the exception of one observation tower) are by car only. 

A quick note: choose your vehicle wisely. Unbeknownst to my parents, we opted to borrow their old minivan while they were away on vacation. [Thanks Padres!!].  And in the end, we were exceptionally grateful to have taken it along for a few reasons:

1) Height. Being up at animal eye level is pretty cool. We did the park once before in an RV and that was also perfect. Also, if in the prius, we might have felt that the bison were completely invading the vehicle, instead of just partially. So go the SUV/minivan/truck route, if at all possible.

2) Old. The caravan has 190,000 miles on it. Its glory days are long gone. By the end of our tour there was bison goo smeared liberally across the side of the van and poo was glommed onto the wheels. Chris also knew someone at work whose hood was nicely dented by an irate bison at the park. So in other words, don’t take your new mercedes though these gates. ‘Cause it won’t look pretty upon exiting. 

Also, I’d fold your side mirrors in so they don’t get caught by a misplaced horn/antler/head. And be quick with the window roll-ups!

xo, 

Sonja

Olympic Game Farm

1423 Ward Road, Sequim, WA 98382

360-683-42951-800-778-4295

Open 7 days a week

9 am to 4 pm

Rates:

Adults: $12

Kids 6-14: $11

5 and Under: Free