16-20: The aroma of rotting salmon

Spent 4 of the last 5 nights out in the field, attaining a sense of oneness with the river, the tides, the migrating salmon, the moss and lichen cloaked trees of the rainforest, the bloodthirsty blackflies, and the ever present aroma of rotting fish carcasses--the good life. Several interesting encounters with wolves  which I'm sure will make it into the book.

Flying south tomorrow and home the day after. Now that all the field work is completed, I reckon I'll be chained to my computer for the next month and half writing. Don't think I'll be posting daily updates.

A black bear carries its prize back to shore for a late afternoon meal. 

Day 5: Puppies!

Doug and I walked into a area where he has found wolves fishing for salmon in past years to see if there were fish running in the stream yet. Apparently we weren't the only one's curious about it!

Three curious wolf pups in a wet meadow.

Two ravens discussing the morning's events.

Learn more about my project on Wolves in the Pacific Northwest!

Freeloading Chicken Update

"Dave-  I checked the White Pine camera on Sunday the 20th after two weeks, got about 640 shots of a Pine Marten, two grey jays, and a few wind triggers.  I replaced the batteries, card, bait and scent.  It only took that Marten two days to get all the bait."--Pete Jenkins

American marten poses after dispatching the freeloading chicken.

Clayoquot Sound, B.C.

Wolf tracks along west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Bald eagle above a foggy forest.

Carcass of juvenile humpback whale on beach of island in Clayoquot Sound

Racoon foraging for sand flees on beach of island in Sound

Black-tailed deer feeding on seaweed on island in Clayoquot Sound.

River otter scent marking on seaweed as tide goes out.

Black bear foraging for invertebrates in the intertidal zone by rolling rocks.

Large Sitka spruce in ancient forest on island in the Sound.

 A gray wolf trots along the beach early in the morning with ravens in the background.
West Coast, Vancouver Island

Tofino Inlet, Clayoquot Sound.

Harbor seals lounging at low tide.

Despite decades of conservation efforts, Clayoquot Sound, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve,  faces numerous severe threats to its ecological integrity including clear cut logging of roadless old growth forests, industrial Atlantic salmon fish farms, and proposed open-pit copper mining. Learn more about the region and how you can support conservation in the region at the following websites:

Friends of Clayoquot Sound

Clayoquot Biosphere Reserve

First Nations Environmental Network

Atlantic salmon fish farm in Clayoquot Sound with uncut forest in background. Several rivers with no clearcuts or roads in them are seeing massive declines in salmon numbers due to sea lice and other issues associated with fish farming in the Sound. The smell is overwhelming, far worse than a dairy farm and totally shocking in such a wild setting.

Active clearcut logging in Clayquot Sound. Top of the photo is uncut oldgrowth. Bottom is regrowth from a previous clearcut.

Growth rings: over 200. Destination: ?

Huge western red ceder stump set amidst second growth forest of planted Douglas firs. Note that the original nurse log that the ceder tree started growing on in still under the stump, attesting to the volume of biomass in the previous ancient forest and the literally centuries it took to create the structural diversity so important to many Old growth obligate species.

WILDLIFE

 

 Western heather vole (Phenacomys intermedius).

Olympic National Park, Washington.

Winter Wren with insects in its mouth bound for hungry young.
Western Washington.

Black bear.
Olympic National Park, Washington

American Pika

feeding on just sprouting larch needles

Lake Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness, North Cascades, Washington

Male Blue grouse

North Cascades, Washington

Townsend's vole

feeding on grass

Snoqualmie Valley, Washington

Black-tailed Deer Buck
Klamath Mountains
Northwestern California

Western Grey Squirrel
feeding on acorns in an oak tree
Klamath Mountains
Southwestern Oregon

Western Jumping Mouse
Selkirk Mountains, southeastern British Columbia

Grizzly Bear on Elk carcass
North Fork Flathead River, northwestern Montan

Bull Moose
Northeast Washington

Mountain goats in mist
Goat Rocks Wilderness
Washington Cascades

Bighorn Sheep Ram
Clemens Mountain
East slope Washington Cascades

Great Egret
Bolinas Lagoon
Northern California

Wolf Tracking in the Salmon River Mountains, Idaho

The landscape, typical of the mountains of central Idaho shows conifer forests, dominated by lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) in various stages of regeneration after naturally occuring fires. Interspersed are large wet and dry meadow systems.

Don Taves inspects the trail of a wolf trotting down a dirt road.

The right front foot of a large wolf. The toes have splayed widely and the claws of each digit have dug in deeply, including in the reduced inside toe due to the fast speed of this animal. The bounding trail of this wolf was adjacent to the trail of two fleeing mule deer indicating a pursuit (apparently unsuccessful for the wolf).

A pine marten (Martes americana) peers down from a safe perch.



Sandhill crane (Grus canadensis) in flight. Cranes breed and rear young in the vast wet meadow systems of central Idaho.



Columbian ground squirrels (Spermophilus columbianus) at a burrow.



Rocky mountain elk (Cervus elaphus)



Students in Wilderness Awareness School's Idaho Wolf Tracking Expedition hiking out across Corduroy meadows at the southern end of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness towards the end of a long day in the field searching for and following wolf tracks and signs.

A Northern Pocket Gopher (Thomomys talpoides) Hard at Work.

Pocket gophers are prodigious soil movers. Though seldom seen, the throw mounds they create are conspicuous in areas they inhabit. Mounds are often confused with those produced by moles. However, as seen here, gophers produce fan shaped mounds expelling dirt from a hole to one side of the mound of soil which is plugged afterwards. Moles expel earth from a hole which come straight up out of the ground and the resulting mound of soil is generally evenly dispersed to all sides of the plugged hole when complete.

I had the opportunity to photograph this creature while it worked right in the middle of where I was camped and could thus leisurely photograph and drink a cup of tea as the sun rose one May morning in Western Colorado over the course of an hour, an unusual pleasure while photographing elusive wild creatures.

The gopher had just begun to expell earth when I discovered him hard at work.

The exposed gopher quickly pushes soil out of his hole and then retreats back to a safer position to observe its surroundings.




The completed throw mound with the hole plugged at the base of it. Throw mounds are produced in the process of creating underground tunnels the pocket gopher uses for accessing food (roots and vegetation), as well as sleeping chambers, food storage spaces, and latrines.

The finished throw mound with the tent I was staying in the background.