Fawns, Flowers, and Whale Watching
Port Townsend has a large intown resident deer population, and some would say, a large intown deer problem. Click here and here for local news articles on these urban deer.
It is difficult to drive anywhere in the residential part of town without encountering these beautiful animals.
As a person that formerly maintained a large collection of perennials in gardens around my home and business, I can’t imagine what the folks here in Port Townsend have to put up with in trying to maintain their gorgeous landscaping.
As a tourist here, I enjoy being able to see and photograph these youngsters, there really are few animals as cute as these guys.
To the many serious gardeners here in Port Townsend, I am sure it’s a different story.
These youngsters obviously can’t read that they are not supposed to be here.
And here is the reason the inner city is so popular with all these deer, just an unlimited buffet of delectable gourmet deer food.
Many gardeners in town have erected deer fencing in an effort to keep the deer out. Local ordinances limit the height of any fences to six feet, not an unsurmountable height for for some of these deer.
A drive around town reveals some very impressive landscaping. I envy the ability to grow such a wide diversity of plants in this environment. The difference in available plant selection in Zone 4 where I gardened and here in Zone 8 is huge. Don’t envy them the challenge of growing some of these flowers amongst the deer herds though.
Some wonderful dogwoods in bloom right now.
Even the bark of some of the trees is photo worthy.
Whale Watching Trip on the Redhead
A four hour whale watching trip out of Port Townsend was a wonderful way to enjoy a beautiful calm and sunny day ( the only one here so far ).
The whale watching part of the trip was actually kind of disappointing …
… spotting only one lone Humpback Whale and one small pod of transient Orcas or Killer Whales.
Regulations require all boats to remain at least 200 yards from the Orcas and 100 yards from other whales and our captain certainly didn’t come close to violating those rules. I would say we never got within 500 yards of the Orcas, thats over a quarter of a mile away, meaning you could barely discern their large dorsal fins poking out of the water and certainly could not get any kind of decent images of their activity.
But spending four hours on the calm waters of Puget Sound on a nice day was a welcome change of pace for me and there were other interesting sights to see out on the water.
The Fort Worden Lighthouse is much more scenic from the water than it is from land.
I hope to remain here in Port Townsend through the 4th of July week and then will venture farther out onto the Olympic Peninsula after the holiday week, hoping I might then be able to find a place to stay.
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