Oregon and Washington Part 5

This is the final Oregon and Washington post.  After this, I will be returning to my regular posts, though school has started again, so I won't be posting that often.

On the final day of our trip, we went to Mount St. Helens.  It was quite a long, winding trip up there.  The views from the road were very beautiful.  It was mostly forest and a lake or two.  We stopped briefly at a visitor's center, where there were three or four ospreys flying around.  There was also a nest high up in a tree.  Below are some photos of them.  The fourth photo is of the nest (left) and an osprey that had just flown out (right).

Osprey

Osprey

Osprey

Osprey

Mount St. Helens is an active volcano that used to be cone-shaped until it erupted on May 18, 1980.  A strong wind from the explosions, rivers of mud, and huge amounts of ash killed wildlife and people, and changed the green, forested area to a barren, rocky place.  Plants returned remarkably fast, though.  Hardy flowers and some other plants sprouted.  Tree seeds that had survived, or ones pushed upwards by gophers (which were some of the first animals to return), sprouted.  Other small animals began to return, and then birds and elk and others.  It's been about thirty years since the eruption, and there are still very barren areas, but there are also many, many flowers and trees.  Where we were, it was very dry and rocky and there were very few birds, but farther down, it was very green.  Below are three photos I took of Mount St. Helens from different places.

There were a lot of dried up stumps and tree trunks around.  They were the trees knocked over during the eruption.  In some of the dead trunks, there were flowers growing.  Below are two photos of fallen trees.

 

Far below us and in the distance, there were trees growing.  Where we were, though it was rocky, there were tons and tons of colorful flowers everywhere.  Below are some views of trees and flowers.

 

 

 

 

There were several different insects running and flying around.  One of them was a kind of grasshopper, though I don't know the species.  It was gray and blended in well with the rocks.  They would frequently fly into the air and I could see that they had a bright, electric green color under their wings.  When they landed it was incredibly hard to find them, even if I saw where they landed.  I did manage to take a photo of one of them.  Below is the photo.  If I can find out what species it is, I'll put it on the Insects and Arachnids page.

The only mammals we saw were golden-mantled ground squirrels.  They are found in the western United States.  They look similar to chipmunks, but have white eye-rings rather than stripes on their faces.  They have reddish-brown fronts and are gray on their backs and tails.  They have black and white stripes on their sides and are white below.  They are very beautiful ground squirrels.  Below is one of them.

Golden-Mantled Ground Squirrel

The only birds we saw at Mount St. Helens were a few ravens, swallows, and a kingbird.  The barn swallow was the most common swallow there.  They are found throughout Canada, the United States, and Mexico in the summer.  They winter in South America.  Their most distinguishing feature is their long forked tails.  They are dark blue on their heads, backs, and tails.  They have orange faces and are golden or light yellow below.  They have thin pointy wings.  As their name suggest, they often make their nests on barns or other man-made structures.  Below is a barn swallow.

Barn Swallow

We had to wake up very early for the flight back to San Diego.  I was tired, but the sunrise views from the airplane were very beautiful.  Below are a few of them.