Category: Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

Chipmunk and Rabbit

Townsend’s Chipmunk

And I bet some of you were expecting a photo that had a chipmunk and a rabbit in the same image. Sorry about that. I’ve never seen a rabbit climb a tree, either. Anyway, I’m just working my way through images and doing some editing and clean-up … plus adding some of Lightroom’s adjustments since I took some of these several years ago. I would recommend doing that every so often. Adobe really does make significant changes to their editing tools now and then … it makes it worthwhile to pay the subscription fee to get all the updates (unlike some company’s that charge the subscription fee and in return you get no new features).

Rabbit

I think this is the native snowshoe hare, but I’m not sure it hasn’t been hybridized with some domestic variety. But it’s a cute little bunny anyway, yes?

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Monochrome Vista

Monochrome Vista

Here’s another image from the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge from before the breach of the Nisqually dike system (which opened up acres of salt water marsh for young salmon habitat). I love the monochrome of this image … monochrome, even though in full color. Click on the image for an enlarged view and see the interesting texture that this one ended up with. (just don’t ask me what I did!)

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Frosty Morning

Frosty Morning (1)

This is a road that runs through the Nisqually Natural Wildlife Refuge … or did before they breached the dikes to provide for salmon habitat. It was a wonderful spot for bird watching … with an occasional other critter … like a long tailed weasel that was carrying a sparrow in its mouth and ran right alongside me. Now visitors are channeled on an elevated boardwalk. You can see water birds from the boardwalk and lots of others in the woods near the visitor center, though. Still worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Here’s a close up of frost on the native blackberry:

Frosty Morning (2)
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Twin Barns at Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

Twin Barns at Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

Just eat of Olympia on I-5 is the Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. Excellent for bird watching and nature photography. The twin barns are iconic. The area was a dairy farm in the early years.

I hiked there for years until the dikes were breached to improve salmon habitat by increasing the wetlands.

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Nisqually – Billy Frank Jr. National Wildlife Refuge

Twin Barns

The Nisqually – Billy Frank Jr. National Wildlife Refuge is located 10 miles or so east of Olympia, right off of I-5. It was a working dairy farm for years and still has the pair of large barns from those days. The interior area of the refuge had been diked off and used for pasture, but in the recent past the dike was breached in several places to restore acres of salt marsh for young salmon habitat. It is also a great place for bird watching and photography. The area is the estuary of the Nisqually River.

Interior of Nisqually – Billy Frank Jr. National Wildlife Refuge
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