Fish in Flight

Charismatic fish. E. took the picture. (Click for image in context.)

On Tuesday, nothing as planned. We vibrated back and forth between First Beach and Rialto: failing to see whales on the south side of the river, and then seeing not much scenery on the wild beach to the north, intermittently having the whole world disappear into fog. Good eagle manifestations in the mist. One seemed to pull something to eat right out of the ocean then landed on a tree near us and posed.

Eagle at Rialto Beach. Fog. (Click for larger image.)

It cleared for a while,

Temporary clearing, Rialto Beach (Direct link, for R.)

so we went back to First Beach and watched and watched. No blows. Maybe E. saw a whale. Actually I'm sure she did, but she wasn't sure that's what it was, it not being remotely like seeing and touching them in San Ignacio Lagoon last year.

There were some very graceful northbound flocks of birds far out over the water. And a group of pelicans, yes pelicans, northbound. Then the fog moved back in.

I took us up the Sol Duc River just for the late afternoon sunshine in the trees, planning for us to turn around at Salmon Cascades after a quickie look at the river. No, we won't see any jumping fish, I said. And then E. saw one. And another. Huge jumping fishes, some of them. We were so surprised and excited we were screaming. It was practically erotic, the incredible unexpected fierce determined fishes, leaping leaping leaping. I wanted to fling my arms around E. and dance.

Charismatic fishes. E. took them. (Click for larger image.)

I think some of 'em were 30 inches long, and fat. There were also some really tiny ones. They had to be mature or they wouldn't have 'heard' the chemical call of the river, but so little. A gentleman there said they were steelhead, and later so did a middle school teacher from New Hampshire who raises brook trout with her 7th graders and knows a lot about East Coast salmonids. :-) OK then. Gotta read up steelhead, Oncorhynchus mykiss (1) (2)(3) (4).