Pacific Northwestern Gothic

A loving homage to the gloomy beauty of the Pacific Northwest: British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. I don't take things seriously, I just live here. » Header and user icon photos by @overnitereligion «

[luthienne]

H.D., from Helen in Egypt

[Text ID: but I was home-sick for familiar trees,]

[untothedust]

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

One of the most beautiful cities I’ve seen yet. Shoutout to my Canadians 🇨🇦

[highways-are-liminal-spaces]

Sleet through the mountains, driving from Nanaimo to Port Renfrew, BC

Taken March 2026

[expressions-of-nature]

1990-2007 Mountain Stars by Michael Williams

[climbhighsleeplow]

The bridge at Hood River Oregon

Columbia Gorge

[oooklathemok]

Oregon

oooklathemok

[miamaimania]

"Rosie the Salmon" ~ Sekiu, Washington — painted wooden roadside mascot in pink skirt & sneakers ❀

[pytheon]

[zephyr-raven]

6/18/2026 📸 iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro

[exposenature]

[fxrestfxiiry]

[seabeck]

Fungal log

[weepingveil]

[rebeccathenaturalist]

The Oregon Zoo has released more than 1,300 Oregon silverspot caterpillars to coastal habitats in a major effort to bolster the threatened b

This is really exciting news from my corner of the world! The Oregon silverspot (Speyeria zerene hippolyta) is a highly endangered subspecies of the zerene fritillary that is only found in northern California and Oregon, and once ranged in extreme southwestern Washington. It is found in coastal meadows, most of which have either been developed, or closed in by forest due to repression of natural and cultural fires.

The silverspot is an excellent example of how insect herbivores tend to have very limited diets. Plants don't want to be eaten, so they produce chemicals that deter and poison herbivores that eat them. It takes a long time and many generations for an animal species to develop a tolerance for these chemicals, so insect herbivores usually only manage to overcome a small number of toxins. Some species, like the silverspot caterpillar, can only eat the leaves of a single species of native plant, and if that plant disappears, so does the insect.

This also illustrates that "save the pollinators" isn't as simple as planting some flowers for adult butterflies and moths. You have to also consider what the caterpillars will eat, and around here planting a bunch if butterfly bush or other non-native species isn't going to cut it. If you aren't feeding the caterpillars, you certainly aren't going to get the butterflies.

Why preserve a single species that is so dependent on one other species? Well, for one thing, every species deserves to exist regardless of whether we consider them to be useful to us or not. Moreover, when we preserve habitat for these isolated species, we also preserve habitat for many others who live in the same place. And we ultimately know very little about the intricate connections species have among each other; when we lose a single species, we have no idea how far-reaching the negative impacts will be across the entire ecosystem.

So while it may seem like a waste of resources to breed and reintroduce the caterpillars of one butterfly species, the potential benefits across the board are more than worth it.

[givememtnspls]

Second Beach, Washington - 35mm

[prairie-fever]

[3liza]

do you live in seattle (the american city)?

yes

no

Voting ended onJul 10

please reblog to get this poll out of my bubble, i want reach

[3liza]

so ive been meaning to do this poll for a while because my hypothesis is that seattle is the most Tumblr city, likely in the entire world. tumblr has a huge american majority userbase obviously, but just for comparison going forward, only 0.22% of the american population lives in seattle. as of this reblog, this poll is showing 4% of respondents are seattleites. given, this isnt scientific at all, because my blog just has a lot of seattle connections and seattle followers, but it's still an impressive bias

[flammableengineering]

Well now I'm curious

Do you live in Portland, OR? (the american city)

Yes

No

Voting ended onJul 10

[pacificnorthwesterngothic]

Just to cover our bases…

Do you live in Vancouver, BC (the Canadian city)?

Yes

No

Voting ended onJul 9