State guide
Washington Nature Guide
Washington is two states in one, split down the spine of the Cascade Range: a wet maritime west of temperate rainforest, glaciated peaks, and the island-strewn Salish Sea, and a dry interior east of shrub-steppe, basalt coulees, and the orchards of the Columbia and Yakima valleys. From the Olympic Peninsula's rain-soaked Hoh forest and wild outer coast to the subalpine wildflower meadows of Mount Rainier and the wintering swans and Snow Geese of the Skagit, the state packs an extraordinary range of habitats — USDA zones 4b in the cold Cascades to 8b along the mild Puget Sound shore — and a nature calendar driven by maritime mildness on one side and continental extremes on the other.
Every month in Washington
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The whole year
Washington Nature Year 2027
Everything Birch Compass knows about a year of nature in one state — the book, the posters, the sky calendar, the life list, and a weekly note through 2027.