Just to be clear, the dam below isn’t what made the pond above. I did see a beaver once in the pond, one day when I was there late in the evening. The dam below is across a ditch that was left from building the dike which kept out salt water from the fields used by a dairy farm. That was back in the olden days before the dikes were breached to provide salt marsh as habitat for salmon.
This Natural Area is south of Olympia just west of I-5. There are a number of walking trails through the mounds and a lot of signs explaining the history of the area. It’s pretty amazing. There are approximately 8-10 mounds per acre, measuring 1–7 feet (0.30–2.13 m) in height and having diameters 8–40 feet (2.4–12.2 m). The origin of the mounds is unknown with a number of alternate hypotheses including shaking from earthquakes while glacial outwash material is uncompacted, animal (gopher, etc) construction and windblown sediment accumulation around plants, among others. Regardless of origin, they make a very interesting walk.
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!)
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:
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.