Wild animals and plants

Today was pretty hot - for this area, anyway. It was cool in the shade but when I was standing in the sun at the overlook, the water looked really inviting! It was incredibly still - there were no waves at all, until a boat went by, and then it was just that one series of waves from the boat's wake, splashing into the cliffs and then bouncing back and creating interference patterns that showed up as shadows on the floor of the cove. It looked like a giant swimming pool.

At one point, there was no one at the overlook, so I went to stand in the shade for a moment - and see if there were any raspberries on the bushes growing off to the side and below the platform! I've gotten a few here and there, and every couple of days there are another couple of ripe berries. As I was making my way around, I noticed a strange noise - I wouldn't have heard it if anyone was there talking. Sort of a hard scratching sound... I looked over, at the bare ground under the platform, and spotted this!

A chipmunk was under there, gnawing away at a plastic water bottle! I don't know if he thought there was food inside, or was trying to get to the water, or just felt like chewing on something, but it was a very unusual sound! He got kind of jumpy once I started getting closer, but I kept still for a minute and he went back to chewing so I could get a picture.

It was warm all afternoon, but it was already feeling cooler when I walked to the car to go home. I had really hoped it would stay good and hot so I could go for a swim, but it was definitely cool when I got home, so I didn't even try. I did go for a walk after supper, though - just through the sandy area across from my house, then around to the beach. And I found blueberries! There are a lot of little blueberry plants all around Sand Point - including behind the house. I had a handful of them the other day. There are only a few ripe ones, a lot more that are unripe - but most of the plants have a few ripe ones each, and then a bunch that are still just green or pink. They're delicious, but they're kind of hard to pick because they're only a few inches off the ground - so it's a lot of bending over for a very small payload! If it weren't for the fact that there are still some mosquitoes out there, I would have just sat down next to the patch and picked from that level! Maybe once there are a few more ripe ones...

Also, there are different kinds! I can't really tell a lot of difference between them. They all taste good, though! 

I walked over to the beach near Headquarters. Not the place where I've gone swimming, on the point - this was a little more isolated, a little more sheltered. And I spotted some shorebirds! Sandpipers or plovers of some kind - they seemed pretty small to me. They kept pecking around the high water line, and occasionally at the water's edge. It was kind of exciting to see something new right near where I've been living all summer!