Leadbetter Elk Herd in Oysterville Meadow, 2017

There were eight of them traveling almost single file.  Elk trotting north along the tideline in front of the house about six o’clock this morning.  Elk on the move!

It was all I could do not to pick up the phone to call our neighbor Carol but, so far, I don’t have a direct line to the Great Beyond.  For several years before she died, when the Leadbetter Elk Herd was traveling along the bay, we would call one another and that’s what we’d say, “Elk on the move!”  There was just enough distance between our houses for notice to be given and the sighting made.  Those early morning phone calls are among the many things I miss about Carol.

Carol Nordquisr, 2014

The first two in this morning’s lineup were not quite in single file order.  One was very small – about up to the other’s haunches.  Mother and child, I assume.  I wondered if it was the elk calf and mom that Dobby told me about several months ago.  Mother elk chose a spot in front of Dobby and Lila’s house as the perfect place to give birth.  Several bull elks were hanging around nearby… to claim parentage?  Hard to tell with elk.

I don’t know if they’ve been staying around Dobby’s since then or not.  In my imagination, they have been in the area, perhaps along with the two bulls, all this time, and a delegation was sent from the main herd at Leadbetter Point to escort them home. Perhaps Dobby has some details to fill in that will illuminate the truth of it a little better.

I wish, in a way, I’d been close enough to get a good picture.  On the other hand, those elk are huge.  I don’t really want them too close to town or to my backyard.  Dobbie said they kept a respectful distance from his house and garden, but even so…

Elk on the move, Carol!  Hope you saw them.