Saturday, July 19, 2014

Nation's Birds at the Northwestern Corner of the Lower 48

Just a nice moment from my day. We were scouting out our impending field studies route with a trip to the Makah Nation's lands near Cape Flattery, the northwesternmost point of the lower 48 states. The Makah have a museum housing artifacts from America's version of Pompeii, a village that was overwhelmed by a mudflow about 500 years ago. The fine-grained mud protected and preserved fabrics and wood artifacts, which are usually quickly decayed in this wet environment.

We were driving the beautiful road along the coast when I saw this pair of Bald Eagles on the tidal flats. We have a few eagles back home in California, but I've only seen a couple of them. It was kind of a neat moment.

We meet our students in a couple of days, and we'll be hitting the highway with an exploration of western Canada and the Pacific Northwest. You can no doubt expect pictures soon!

1 comment:

Katrina said...

Several years ago my sister and I went to Cape Flattery. We had to hike back in pouring rain but it was worth it. We stayed overnight in Neah Bay and when I walked out of the motel room in the morning there were seven eagles in a tree across the parking lot, 18 more on the beach across the road, and another 15 or so perched on various boats and other things. It was an impressive sight. Sadly we didn't get to see the museum because it was already closed for the season.