When we moved to Clatskanie in the summer of 2023 (more about this here), we knew that moving out into the country meant seeing the occasional critter, but we never imagined just how much this was the case. I am an obsessive picture-taker, so of course I have posts to share all the photos.
At first I assumed that my manic photography of the many critters crossing our land was a newbie reaction, probably amusing to our neighbors. But even neighbors who have lived in the area all their lives have their favorite collection of critter-pics on their phones.
This post originally had all the photos of the deer, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, elk, and even a coyote—but it got to be such a long post that it was a bit much. So instead I now have multiple blog posts with pictures:
- Clatskanie elk and deer
- Clatskanie birds
- Clatskanie coyote
- This post, which shows the chipmunks, squirrels, and a rabbit
The chipmunks
The chipmunks are especially shy, even of the local birds. They are very amusing to watch as they take a leap with each step across the grass.
The squirrels
We hear the squirrels more than we see them: up in the trees they call out “Pew! Pew!,” much like little kids pretending to be shooting space guns.
Here’s a wonderful picture that Dave took of one of our squirrels disassembling a soggy pine cone:
Here’s a video of a squirrel enjoying the bird feeder, much to the chagrin of the birds:
And here’s a video of two squirrels who were surprised to see me:
The rabbit
To be honest, he’s so cute I can’t stop myself from referring to him as “the bunny.” But for the purpose of this blog post I will call him a “rabbit” in an attempt to come across as an adult.
Ahem. In July 2025 we saw our first local rabbit. He is extremely shy and we’ve only seen him a few times. He’s always alone, and his markings are distinctive enough that we can easily see that it’s the same bun-, I mean, rabbit, every time.
