A Walk Along the Spit in Autumn

The tip of Semiahmoo Spit with the resort to the left, the old water tower center and marina to the right. The Blaine Marina is opposite. Directly above the tower in the distance you can see the Peace Arch at the US Canadian Border.

There is a wonderful path that extends down the length of the Semiahmoo Spit with Drayton Harbor on the inside and the Pacific on the outside. It extends from the deep forest below the Semiahmoo community (where there is an active bald eagle nest), along both sides of the spit through the county park at the land end of the spit on to the tip and around the Semiahmoo Resort.

Birding seems to be the number one activity along the path but there are joggers, cyclists and families with kids on trikes and elderly people strolling along taking in the sun and sights.

Students observing birds on Drayton Harbor.

Greg and I regularly hike the Semiahmoo Spit trail and this entry in our blog covers just one day.

Most days I wimp out and just walk to the county park and come back to the marina, a two mile walk. The best walk is the entire loop - a four mile hike with a good climb up the hill along a beautiful creek.

We are temporarily on A Dock and I leave the docks through the bicycle compound. Below the ramp on the rip rap is a young harbor seal. This plump little guy apparently likes solitude and chooses to sleep here every day, coming in with the high tide. Most of the other pups hang out on the marina breakwater.



The marina's breakwater is the local wildlife hangout. Segregation is part of nature. I rarely see birds in big mixed congregations; they usually stay with their own kind. On the breakwater the seals look like a Salvador Dali painting -their bodies draping (almost dripping) over the docks. Next are the cormorants standing straight as sticks (one woman asked me what all the sticks were out on the breakwater and had a hard time accepting that they were birds). To the right of the cormorants are the Canadian (US) geese and an occasional great blue heron or two.



Seals to the left, cormorants to the right.



The pups, once they leave mom's side, hang out on the log booms at the end of the breakwater practicing their banana poses (that's a real technical term, really).



Great blue herons (GBH) are not "supposed" to be common around here but there have been large numbers of them fishing in Drayton Harbor. There is a rookery nearby and during nesting season they fly back and forth over the road from the bay to their nests creating a regular heron parade.



 

It's amazing that there are still so many wildflowers in bloom on the spit. There is an abundance of blackberry and wild roses which provide food and cover for a wide variety of song birds, mostly sparrows now.

Blanket Flower

Wild roses full of hips. Mt Baker in the distance.

Crows are abundant and fight with the bald eagles for roosting spots. Unfortunately there is also a large population of starlings.



We have a variety of gulls. These delicate little gulls are mew gulls.

Everywhere I go I find a belted kingfisher at work.

A pair of kill deers are walking along the edge of the harbor. They are a skittish little bird.

The surf scotters are regulars in Drayton harbor.

The mallards have just arrived, probably on their way south. They rest comfortably on the dried ell grass until someone wants to get a closer look at them. Harlequin ducks are here today as well. As you walk along the trail its "butts up" every where you look. For some reason the mallards decided to join the geese parade.

Not much action on the Pacific side of the spit. The wind is good for sailing though (one sailboat out near Pt. Roberts).

I didn't see any bald eagles today but I know they are here and tending to housekeeping. A few days ago I saw one on my way back from town and it was trailing something. I worried that it had gotten fouled in something. As I got closer I saw that it was carrying a branch, longer than his body, back to the nest.

It's time to head back. Looks like someone has been waiting for me.



GBH patrols the dock by Comocean.