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Patience, Grasshopper

A Townsend's chipmunk eats a grasshopper in Mount Rainier National Park

I spent my first full day on this visit to Mount Rainier hiking the Skyline Trail and its various offshoots. While I had seen grouse and marmots, based on previous visits I was a bit surprised to not see more wildlife than I did. What I saw most were grasshoppers which were constantly hopping about the trails, many crushed underfoot from the mass of hikers on the previous day.

At the end of a hard day’s hiking I went back up to see if any marmots were out in the biggest colony near the trail, as they had been quite active the previous evening, but was sorry to see that they had all called it a day. I hiked a little further and was delighted to find this Townsend’s chipmunk eating what I assumed were some seeds on a boulder near the trail.

I was a little confused when, after watching it eat for some time, it started coming straight toward me. But it just grabbed some flattened grasshoppers near my shoes and hopped back up onto its boulder and ate them. It was then that I realized that most of this little section of the trail had been cleared of grasshoppers, and when I reviewed my pictures I understood why.

After a while it came back towards me, but this time hopped right between my legs and continued on down the trail. It had its dinner, and as the light faded, it was time for mine.

The Siren’s Call

An American pika calls out from its home in a talus field in Mount Rainier National Park

I’ve tried to hike the Palisades Lake Trail in Mount Rainier National Park three times over the past decade but never gotten very far. Once because of thunderstorms, twice because of pikas. I can’t resist them and spent my last hours of my latest visit watching this pika below the trail and another above it. Normally pikas let out a fairly quick call but thankfully this one let out an extended call as I had already packed up to head back up the trail and had to grab a quick handheld shot.

One day I’ll have to hike the trail with friends who can cover my eyes and stop up my ears and lead me safely past the siren’s call.

The Departed Nurse

An empty space below the roots of a tree is all that remains of a nurse log

Despite its short length, the Hall of Mosses Trail in the Hoh Rain Forest provides nice views of nurse logs, fallen trees that provide a beneficial perch for seedlings to take root. As the young trees grow into giants themselves, their roots reach down around the log and into the soil. In time the log rots away, the emptiness that remains a reminder of how life for one tree began with the death of another.

The Dry Rain Forest

A tree is covered in moss and lichens in the Hoh Rain Forest

I recently got back from a week of hiking in Washington and made my fourth visit to the Hoh Rain Forest. My fourth dry visit to the Hoh Rain Forest. While it rained heavily during much of my trip, it was warm and sunny during my visit to the Hoh, so I’ll make a return trip this winter to all but guarantee a rainy day.

I wonder if tourists would pay me on sunny days to walk behind them with a watering can held above their head, to better get the full rainforest experience.

CAT133 “Tandem Dog Bed Stealing”

Our cats Boo and Sam snuggle on a dog bed on September 1, 2014. Original: _IMG_9568.CR2

If you’ve mastered the art of solo dog bed stealing, why not double your fun? In this class Professor Boo will teach you how to snuggle, spoon, and stick your feet in your best friend’s face!

Invader Fox

An eastern fox squirrel in a tree

The squirrels in my Portland neighborhood are all invaders from the east, either gray or fox squirrels. This eastern fox squirrel was nearly obscured by leaves in a nature park in nearby Beaverton, where the large habitat also supports one of our native squirrels, the Douglas’ squirrel.

A Little Admin

I started this blog in January of 2006, self-hosting it at my old site, but when I closed that site late last year I moved the blog’s hosting to WordPress. However since my pictures went away when I shut down my site, most of the posts now had missing images. Rather than have a blog full of missing links and images, and rather than delete them, I set those posts to be private. 

I’ve been testing out hosting images at Flickr over the past year, so when I upload a picture related to an old blog post, I update the post and set it to public. I’m not sure how WordPress deals with this for those who have subscribed to the blog, but I suspect it sends out notices just as if it was a new post, even though it was written years ago. The original date is shown correctly so if I’m talking about Templeton and Scout as though they were still alive, check the date of the post.

Currently there are 225 public posts but still 1133 private posts waiting for their associated pictures to be uploaded so they can be set to public. If you’re not subscribed and just visiting the blog but want to see any pictures I upload, your best bet is to visit my account at Flickr.

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Categorized as General