Double Bluff Beach 08-01-15

We have been working on house/yard projects all year getting ready for our outdoor wedding here.  We were married July 11 and although it was one of the only cloudy drippy days of the summer, it was lovely.  Adventure Dog has been going stir crazy with the only hiking being in our yard, so we decided to go somewhere else today. It has been a hot dry sunny summer so if I wanted get any hike in, it would have to be in the morning.  We headed out around 8am and caught the ferry to Whidbey Island.  I got right onto the 1st ferry that was there. 
I had read about where the tides would be and it would be going out until around noon so it was perfect timing to enjoy a sunny morning on the off leash dog beach!  Cedar was super excited to be out meeting dogs, and marking driftwood. 

 

 I hoped to see an eagle and was not disappointed. 

Mount Rainier and Baker were stunning today.  I couldn't see Baker from the beach, but Rainier gleamed like a giant mirage beyond the water.

Wait a minute... does that photo bombing seagull have something in its beak?

Yep!  Looks like a big clam and he's taking it away from the rest of the seagull crew so he can drop it, break it, and eat it all by himself.

The low tide made for some fun tidepooling, and even Cedar waded a few times without any encouragement from me.  He is not a water dog, but realized that it helped cool him off. 

 

Not sure if the crab or the green stripey rock is the coolest thing in this picture!



Cedar caught wading

Barnacles and things make noises and Cedar was surprised and curious

 

The most amazing thing on this little hike though, was that we were treated to our own personal airshow!  A red biplane showed up and just started doing tricks right over our heads!  I didn't even know planes could do some of the things he or she was doing!  Some tricks were done with smoke and some without.  Adventure Dog was busy on the beach, but I couldn't tear my eyes away until the plane completely left.  I got nearly 10 minutes of barrel rolls, corkscrews, loop the loops, and more.  Thank you Mystery Pilot!  That was freaking phenomenal!!

Adventures in Game Cams

So with all the wildlife I've been glimpsing around our home, I was super eager to find out what animals we might see at night or when we're not around being noisy stinky humans.  So my biggest desire for Christmas was a Game Cam.  I got two of them!  Heaven!  : )  I got to work putting them up here and there and bringing them in to see what I've "caught."
The vast majority of my pictures are set-up/take-down and us walking by.  It is too cold and wet to bring my computer out and just take the chip out to download the pics... maybe in the summer... so for now, I remove both cameras from their spots and then set them up again later that day.

This was surprising, as the camera was set out in the water, but the water froze and Cedar went out to investigate.

See the little Cedar face in this one?

Dave, Adventure Dog and I trying out Steve's boat!

Luckily, I am also capturing wildlife!  So far the night shots are a bit blurry, so I will need to read my manuals regarding what settings I should be using.  Sorry for the poor clarity on a lot of these. 
First I was just getting ducks:

"Peek-a-boo!" says a male wood duck.

We'll get you my pretty, and all other female ducks too!

And after all the ducks and all the 'didn't get anything this time' I was super stoked to get a squirrel.  I got his butt one day and then then his better side the next.

Then, just once, we got what we really really wanted to see... a beaver!  He is going by with a stick, but if you don't know what you're looking for it is a bit hard to tell.  We really would like to know if we have more than one. We want our beaver pond to have happy beavers in it, not lonely ones.

I also got a pic of a raccoon this week!  He is super hard to pick out, so I'm putting in a pic without him 1st, so you can see where there is something in the 2nd that there wasn't in the 1st.

Can you see him?  Just left of the middle vertically and almost right in the middle horizontally.. you can just see his face beyond the leaves (he is more faded than the leaves)

And last, but not least... the coyotes.  I got one where I was expecting beavers (near where the raccoon was), and the other(s) were on the woods trail right behind the house.  Hopefully I'll start catching some of these in better lighting so we can see them better!

This one looks like it's heading for an rift between dimensions.

These last two look like they were taken one after the other, but if you notice the time stamp, it was early in the morning on 2 consecutive nights.

And here is Cedar in the same exact spot the coyote was.  Kind of  eerie!

This has been really fun!  Hopefully with warmer weather and more light, there will be more animal activity!