Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

Lat.: 47.0857019, Lon.: -122.70616569999999
Day, 2012
4/1/12
10:30am-2:00pm

Today we visited the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. Before exploring, a guide informed us that most of the buildings and trails follow footprints of an old farm that used to be there. He also said that this particular area could have actually become a landfill. I'm so glad it didn't. When we began the trail, the sky was overcast and it wasn't rainy. A light rain and slightly strong wind did pick up within about an hour or so into the trip. As for temperature, I would say it was around 45-50 degrees F though it seemed much cooler once the wind kicked in.

As we saw yesterday at the Mt. Rainier Trail of the Shadows, this particular area was comprised of a lot of deciduous trees with moss and possibly sword ferns growing out of them. The understory was mainly leafless trees and branches covering the water that this trail followed. However, if you looked deeper past the deciduous trees, on the other side of the trail there were many tall trees not covered in most and with not much visible understory. These trees also looked like they could've been evenly spaced which suggests to me that they may have been coniferous and/or second growth. In the more deciduous parts, we saw a lot of birds such as Red Breasted Robins, Brown Creepers, Song Sparrows, Great Horned Owls, Marsh Hawks, and even a Red-tailed hawk really up close.
The Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge also had a long pathway out into a tree-less flat area with some grass and connecting water. It was here that we saw Bald Eagles in the distance, a Marsh Hawk diving ("kiting") for food, Blue Herons flying and landing in the grass, and many ducks and geese swimming around in the water or gathering together on the grass. The Marsh Hawk kiting for prey was particularly interesting to me. It would fly up, hover a bit, and then soar down close to the ground diving for its prey. It did this for at least 5 minutes. Although I didn't get to see it actually come up with any food as I was not that close, I'd imagine it eventually got what it was after.

Species List:
Red flowering currant
American robin
Song sparrow
Canada geese
Great horned owl
Brown creeper
Sword fern
Salmonberry
Red tail hawk
Common merganser
Marsh hawk
Bald eagle
Great blue heron
Big leaf maple
Elder berry

Posted on April 26, 2012 07:40 PM by lisad22