Harrison Bay

Today, with Christmas shopping done and no desire to go near any stores until the holidays are over….we thought we would do some local exploring…in order to give a wider perspective of the area the Chehalis Estuary is located in…

The weather, however, was not co-operative, never the less we decided to take the 5 minute drive over to Kilby.  This is Harrison Bay as seen from the beach adjacent to the Kilby campground – which is, by the way, open year round.

The Harrison River runs along this shore line….

When I zoomed in from the same spot, you can just make out some of the swans that were sheltering on the bay….there was quite an out flow wind coming down the river…

walking up the beach along side the river, the bridge, where Highway #7 crosses the river is just visible in the distance.

Heading back now, those are all ‘well picked over’ fish skeletons scattered on the beach.  This whole area, the bay and this section of the river, all form part of the I.B.A.

The species seen on the river and the bay vary quit significantly from those seen at the estuary.  Here we get more of the diving ducks – Scaups, Goldeneye (especially Common), Buffleheads, Mergansers and on occasion ducks we normally associate with salt water, like Scoters.  Today there were hundreds, if not thousands of ducks out on the choppy water – primarily Scaups

back to the beach just below the campground….with a train going over the rail bridge that crosses the river at this spot – the hill behind is known as ‘Harrison Knob’ and has just, in the last couple of years, been given protected status by the provincial government as a wildlife management area – something the estuary itself needs desperately!

I’m throwing this terrible photo in, just so I can point out that Double Crested Cormorant are commonly found in winter, in Harrison Bay and on the river.

after leaving Kilby, we crossed over the bridge and stopped for this shot up the Harrison river,

then continued on, turned around and took this, which is looking across the bay to the spot we had been at initially.

and I’ll throw this in, just because I mentioned Double Crested Cormorant and you certainly wouldn’t have been able to see what they looked like from today’s awful picture.  This picture was taken a year or two ago, on Sardis Pond in Chilliwack B.C.