Double Bluff, Whidbey Island

My wife and I visited Double Bluff Park on south Whidbey Island the first weekend in June. It was a terrific find and an off-leash dog park, too. Daisy had a terrific time chasing the ball in the water.

The park runs along the beach below Double Bluff (pictured below), with views of the Olympics (I think – it was cloudy) and across Admiralty Inlet. The bluffs are tall sandstone and clay banks, pretty classic for Puget Sound, and, in some places, actively eroding. We walked to the point on the left of the photo and then back to the parking lot off the right side of the photo.



We saw lots of wildlife. There were a good-sized group of pigeon guillemots along the second bluff, to the left. This is, I believe, one of the sites of an on-going study of pigeon guillemots nesting around Puget Sound. They were clearly nesting on the bluffs and hanging out in the water alongside. A little further along, there were a goodly flock of goldfinches perching on the shrubs growing along the top of the bluff, but also fluttering around the cliffs and on the beach. Every couple of hundred yards, there were great blue herons fishing the shore. The stars, though, were the four bald eagles, including a couple of juveniles, sitting on snags along the top of the bluff.