Life Abounds

Cute Kids (of the beastie kind) I have Known

Recently, I went for a hike at Mt. Rainier with my wife and nephew. (He’s from Tucson, so wasn’t real clear on ice and snow, but now is after dunking his head in the milky water coming out of the Nisqually Glacier. Can you say “brain freeze.”) We enjoyed the amazing views of the Mountain and the glaciers and wildflowers but one of the highlights was completely unexpected: baby marmots. As the young say: “OMG!” They (not the young but the marmots) were so cute. They also inspired me to share a few tales of babies I have seen in the wild.

Tiptoeing Through Tadpoles - In September 2004, I was walking out to Meta Lake at Mt. St. Helens when the trail seemed to start moving. At my feet, dozens of toadlets were hopping across the path. Many more (tadpoles and toadlets) gathered in a pulsating mass of hundreds of wriggling youngsters at the lake’s edge. They were western toads, a species not normally seen in high numbers at the volcano, or really anywhere across the west. But something curious happened because of the eruption.

On May 18, 1980, snow covered the frozen lake and surrounding terrain, protecting the toads, which hibernated underground. Post eruption, the toads emerged and found that they were in batrachian Nirvana. The hot volcanic winds had blasted down all of the trees around the lake, which led to warmer water in summer, plus, the toads’ next meals had survived in the mostly frozen Meta Lake. When the weather warmed, the western toads trekked across the snow to the lake, ate, and mated quietly (the male lacks a mating call). The eggs soon hatched, morphed to tadpoles (who matured more quickly in the warmer water) then to full-on-toads, and later migrated back into the hills around the lake. Like many stories at Mt. St. Helens, western toads illustrated that post-eruption recovery played out in many ways that researchers hadn’t predicted. And, like other stories, the outcome has been positive.

Toadlets at Meta Lake

When Geoducks Are Adorable! - Several years ago, when working on my book Homewaters, I had the splendid fortune to tour the geoduck and oyster farms owned by Shina Wysocki of Chelsea Farms. Shina showed me the tank where baby geoduck spent their days, letting their little freak flag, or what some there call a siphon, fly. Come adulthood, of course, that siphon would grow to gargantuan proportions, bestowing upon geoducks their reputation for a profoundly notable protuberance. But back in the tank of their youth, the babies are merely the size of a pinto bean and the tiny siphons are simply darned cute, swaying in the gentle waves. When I reached to touch a siphon, boop, it was gone, shrunk back toward the safety of the shell. And then it would slowly rise up, wriggle and wiggle, cuteness clamified.

Video courtesy of Shina Wysocki. Image courtesy of Leah Paisono, Legoe Bay Shellfish.

Marmots - Unlike geoducks, adult marmots are rather handsome, sporting their two toned pelage that gives them the appearance of wearing faun and black pants below a silver tinged coat. Their coloring led to their common name, hoary marmot, in reference to the whitish coat. Now shrink that down to cantaloupe size (from watermelon-sized adults) and you have a baby marmot. We saw several on a hike out the Moraine Trail at Mt. Rainier. They, like many a cute baby, were playing, in this situation in the morning sun, watched over by mom, who periodically passed through her kid’s sub-alpine playground of boulders and grasses.

An adult marmot, about 4 feet from me, Cascade Pass.

Many readers might be more familiar with the name, woodchuck or groundhog or whistling pig or even moonack, for a different species, Marmota monax. The ones we saw on Mt. Rainier are Marmota caligata, a name derived from the Latin for “booted." Alas, our hoary marmots tend to emerge in May, unlike their eastern relatives, so would not serve well as winter indicators, at least for lowland dwellers but, in alliance with those some relatives, nor is the lignacaeous launching ability known for our mountain based marmots.

Why do we think that are babies are so darned cute? Researchers say it’s our nurturing instinct for our own children that makes us like other babies. I know that I find a baby’s playfulness and insouciance appealing, which certainly came out as we watched the baby marmots, though, I don’t think either of those feelings account for my delight with baby geoducks. Maybe I am simply a mollusk-whisperer, deeply in tune with clams and their kin. Certainly, it has been said, that my mind works in mysterious ways.

I will leave you with this bit of good news. Researchers have found that 71% of baby marmots usually survive to their first winter so the charming little balls of fur we saw have a pretty good chance of reproducing and creating more darned cute babies.

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I am long been interested in cairns, those little piles of rocks that mark trails and cultural locations. Many other people are, too, as the building and destruction of cairns is a surprisingly controversial subject. Here’s a recent story about them from Tennessee, which includes a few thoughts from me.

And, speaking of marmots, Miles the Marmot is the mascot for Washington Trails Association, the wonderful non-profit that works to protect trails in the state. To help support WTA, my wife is participating in their fundraising hike-a-thon. This year her goal is 120 miles hiked in August. Seeing those baby marmots didn’t count (as it was in July) but they did inspire her and I hope will inspire you to support WTA.

Plus, an update: the developer who planned to cut down the Wedgwood cedar tree, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, will not cut down the tree.