New Trip Report: Olympic National Park, Washington USA
Here’s a first full report from Greg Geer from a productive day on the Olympic Peninsula
Olympic National Park, 2022: 1 day & several species including Olympic Marmot, the local subspecies of Yellow-pine Chimpunk and a Black Bear with cubs.
Jon
2 Comments
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Greg Greer
Thanks so much Richard. My error in stating NE as you cannot get much more NW in the lower 48. There were a few different reports of mountain lions in the area. We certainly scoped a lot of mountain vistas looking for cats. Also, thanks so much in regard to sex identification with the marmots. This solo animal was considerably larger than any we observed, and his head was quite broad, thus my assumption, which I guess I may be incorrect in this I.D.
We just departed from Rainier and had really nice observations of Hoary Marmots. We had good numbers along the Skyline Trail and had only a few on Myrtle Falls Trail. One of the Hoaries had to dig out of a snow field, which was interesting to see.
Thanks so much for your comments, Richard. they are greatly appreciated to improve accuracy in my report.
Greg
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Richard Klawitter
Hi – So glad you got to visit the Olympics, my neck of the woods. Great luck in seeing the sow with cubs. I’m envious. There have been mountain lion sightings along that road also.
One correction: the Olympics are in the NW part of the state, not NE.
One comment: I have watched and photographed the Olympic marmot for about 15 years now. It really isn’t possible to assign a sex to an animal without watching its behavior for sometime. Sometimes size difference is notable, but often difficult to gauge. I named an animal “Momma” early in a season as I identified her as the breeding female of the colony I watch. After further observations, I realized that “she” was the mister by the way he was acting. I’ve kept his name to remember to be humble. Glad you had a fun visit.
Richard Klawitter