Looking for the Peep show..

So it's August in Portland, and I havn't drowned in a puddle of my own sweat as I feared I might. That is promising. It is also that magical annual event where I give up on other birds altogether and pin my hopes on shorebird migration. The other birds have thinned out, as their fledglings have left the nest, and they themselves are beginning their own plans for end of summer and fall migration. All the shallow ponds and marshes of winter have either completely dried up, or what little that remains is not enough to support large populations. Whatever water is left and it's oozing muddy banks becomes a magnet for migratory shorebirds heading south; a place to search the mud for worms and little crustaceans to keep these cracked out little guys strong enough to keep heading south to their wintering grounds.  

You hear a lot about bird migration in the spring and fall, and it is an ongoing process and not really a fixed date, but the shorebirds actually start heading south as early as late June, early July. The weather and food supplies are the main impetus to jumpstart their annual clocks.  I myself face each August and September with a growing excitement, which is hilarious given the maddening qualities of shore bird watching.  I find my enthusiasm to embrace the challenge similar to young mothers who decide to have another baby after suffering through a horrible labor with the last.  Perhaps there is a hormone for birders much like oxytocin for mothers, that encourages me to forget the pain and frustration of last seasons fruitless racing around, and encourages me to try it all over again this summer..  sigh.

This summer I became a member of OBOL, which is an online birding post community for Oregon birders.  Aka, I've officially joined the nerd squad.  That's OK, you can say it, I barely wince at all anymore.  And another thing, I can go without my binoculars for days at a time, several days.  I just choose not to. So anyway, I can now follow posts from all over the state, of up to date bird sightings, which is kind of a cool thing.  And while I'm pretty sure I'm not interested in becoming the person who drives hundreds of miles to see one bird, check it off my list and then drive home, I do appreciate having some insider info on the whereabouts of migratory peeps.  I'd been seeing ongoing sightings all up and down the coast for various shorebirds, from terns to plovers to turnstones, and sandpipers were starting to show up.  So I chose the 17th of August to do a grand 150 mile sweep from the tip of the Oregon coast in Astoria down to Florence, which is about halfway down the state. This was ambitious I know, and honestly I wouldn't have tried to do so much coastline in one day but I was trying to tie in a visit to an inland refuge on the second day of my trip.  That spot is Fern Ridge NWR and it's just west of Eugene, about an hour inland from Florence. The coastal winds had been kind of strong with 30 mph gusts but it was supposed to die down by the morning I left.  I also wasn't trying to time my visits to any spots with high or low tide, as would have been smarter, because I had just one day to get down to Florence and I was just going to have to take what I could get regardless of where the tide was.

So I packed up and hit the road at 7:40am, heading out NW to Astoria on Highway 30.  Rolled up to the Astoria Safeway for a coffee and bathroom break two hours later and then headed out to Fort Stevens.  I headed over the big dune from parking lot B and walked north along the beach to the South Jetty.  The morning fog still lay over the surf and the beach and it looked amazing, like an alien landscape. It eventually lifted a bit and I saw a variety of gulls, including Heerman's which are my new fave for the west coast.  It's those crazy red beaks.  I seem to love all birds with a red accessory, oystercatchers, skimmers, pigeon guillemots, puffins, and now Heerman's gull.  Unbelievably, I found a dozen sand dollars, and put them in one of my handy plastic bags I keep at the ready for natural souvenirs; never know what you're going to find.  I headed over to the rocks and clambered around looking at starfish, but the sun was too bright already for taking pictures at this angle, so I headed back towards the parking lot.  I saw two dead birds down the beach from one another, both common murres, it was kind of weird. And then I saw what were to be the only shorebirds I would see on the coast all day long, a pack of about 15 semi-palmated plovers.  They've got funny personalities, not as skittish as some other shorebirds.  Most were juveniles, but one of the adults had an injured left leg and hopped around regardless, eating and taking care of business.  Better a leg than a wing, am I right?

                                       heerman's gull with that red beak

                                      california gull

                                      immature herring gull

                                       calfornia and heerman's gull

                                       common murre challenged by the life force

                                       semi-palmated plovers

       

                                     this adult plover has an injured leg, whah!!
                                   
I got back to the car, with my pics of the plovers and my bag of sand dollars, thinking this was going to be the start of a great shore birding day! Wrong...  It just went so downhill from there.  I guess the best that I can say is that I now know the locations of several birding spots I didn't before.  Maybe they'll come into play this fall once the water fills up the marshes and estuaries again.  Needless to say, many hours later around 4pm, I sat high up on the hillside of the Nestucca Bay wildlife refuge, eating my boxed Asian chicken salad from Safeway, staring morosely at the family of barn swallows swooping all over the valley in the now gusty winds that weren't supposed to be happening.  What to do, what to do?  I was now exhausted from 8 hours of driving and fruitless stops and I wasn't even through Lincoln City yet.  How the hell was I going to make it to Florence and to my campground by sunset?  I decided to quit making stops and just put the pedal to the metal and head south to Florence.

Driving through Newport and past Seal Rock I realized I was in territory I had only been through once, many years ago now for an annual retreat at the bar I worked at.  I had found and rented us this ridiculous beach playhouse in Yachats for a night, and I recall that it wasn't on the ocean.  We had to walk down the road and effectively jump a fence to get to the shore, and the beach was completely nondescript.  No features of any kind come to mind, just seemingly miles of flat sandy beach.  And I had never been back to that area or really anywhere in central Oregon, all my trips either taking me to the north or more recently to the southern coast. And getting there always involves taking I-5 and then cutting over on highway 38 at Reedsport.  So I was really surprised to find some stunning coastline just south of Yachats, all curves and rocky cliffs, very few towns or houses for that matter.  I'm determined to come back here soon and explore, but for now I was on a schedule.  I finally hit Florence and decided to try to find the north jetty of the Siuslaw River before I went to the campground.  Just maybe I'd luck out and find some peeps feeding at dusk. The road out was an eight mile long park road running parallel to the coast just inland from the dunes, and by the time I got out to the river, the wind was gusting like crazy.  There was a small flock of ducks that I scared off when I pulled up, but the rest was just a handful of gulls with their heads low and into the wind.  I didn't even bother walking out to the ocean from the jetty. There wasn't going to be anything there in wind like this..

I decided I also didn't want to spend the night in a campground just on the other side of the dunes in wind like this either.  Especially as I was just going to get up early and haul ass inland to Fern Ridge. So I headed east and drove about 30 miles alongside the Siuslaw River to get to the Whitaker Creek campground.  I pulled in at dusk, found a spot, and set up my bed, made some food, had a drink and read for a while.  It was about 10pm and I was getting tired, looking forward to what might be a good first night of camping.  I don't always sleep well the first night out, but this campground was fairly quiet and I was feeling sleepy.  Just as I could feel myself about to drift off, I heard a scraping along the underside of my truck.  It jarred me awake, and I slapped the inside of the truck and hissed, assuming it was raccoons trying to get to the food I'd locked in the front of the truck.  It stopped and I lay back down and shut my eyes.  Then again, a frantic scratching.   I sat up in a panic and grabbed my flashlight to look under and around the truck; nothing.  What the hell was going on?  Back in the truck I tried to settle down again... Well, I'm sure you can see where this is going by now. No rest for the wicked or crazed birders either.  Maybe I had pissed off Neptune by being greedy with my sand dollars and this was his repayment?  I know most people would have just said screw it, and gone to sleep regardless, but I'm not hardwired that way.  It finally occurred to me that the scratching was coming from inside my truck cab and it was a creature trying to get out.  I was too tired to do anything about it at this point, I'd have to deal with it in the morning.  I think I fell asleep around 2:30 and at 6:15 I got up to pee and thought to myself, "gee, if I had had a full night's sleep, this would a great time to pack up and head east". But I knew that I needed a little more sleep or I would be useless birding much less driving home to Portland.  I opened the cab doors to my truck, giving my little critter a chance to escape and then tried to get back to sleep.  I got up again an hour and a half later, made myself some tea and packed up the truck.  If my nighttime buddie made it out, I never saw it.  I really hope so, I really don't want to have to smell hot dead little rodent in a week.

I got to Fern Ridge about a half hour later and pulled out my printouts with all the stops I planned to make.  It's a pretty big lake and local residents driving it's perimeter like to haul ass on the back country roads, so good luck trying to see road signs for the first time.  I did a lot of turning around to backtrack throughout the day.  I did have a decent start birding, although the sun was high and bright and the thermometer was starting to climb.  It got up to about 93 that by afternoon which is painful to be out in especially if your last stop is a shadeless mile long road, out and back again. My pictures are a bit blurry, as peeps are cracked out and sensitive to proximity.  Some would argue isn't this the case with all birds?  And you'd be right in most regards, but not all peeps are equal. Peeps really force the serious birder to acknowledge the need for a good birding scope and/or a really high quality telephoto lens if you want decent photos.

                                     this little immature california dude was killing me

                                      american bittern in horrible light

Adult and young western grebe

                                      amphibian love in remaining water

                                       immature california with crayfish

                                      long billed dowitchers

                                      greater yellowlegs and pectoral sandpiper

                                       ruddy duck

                                       lesser yellowlegs

                                      more long billed dowitchers

                                      fern ridge from the viewing platform

                                        the hotly contested and unopened gate

                                      peepshow

                                      this land used to all be an ocean at one time..

                                      oh killdeer, how I want to throttle you...

                                      greater yellowlegs and various western peeps

                                       western sandpipers seriously camouflaged

                                      more peepshow

                                      this little crayfish was crafty, but not fast enough..

As I edit my photos after the fact, forcing the best of the image to emerge, they're still laughably pathetic compared to any of the hundreds of high quality photos taken by semi-pro birders on Flickr sites.  Oh well, you pick your battles, and I like to think that I create more of a thematic visual essay which creates a deliberate sense of place. At least that's how I justify it to myself, more like the shitty photos are consistent at creating a somewhat hazy and mysterious alternate reality.  Kind of like camping and birding in a sci-fi novel.  It keeps me interested, clearly, so that's all that matters. And as for the annual temptation of the shorebirds, it's clear that I'm a goner, a lifer.  It's the lure of the bastard.  You can see any of the photos I didn't include in this post on my flickr page, just click on the link on the top right of blog and click on any of the blog photos to see it full size.  Until next time, Happy trails!

Beating the Heat on the Southern Oregon Coast

If you weren't already aware, Oregon was hit with some high temperatures early this summer.  We apparently set a record for the hottest June, breaking the previous record of 1992.  I find that alarming.  And as a result, the air conditioner for my home office was dragged out of the box and was installed toot sweet. The temperature that everyone was alternately terrified or thrilled by depending on your attitude was the 102 predicted for the 27th, but the clouds came in the night before and actually kept us down to a chill low 90's. But that same day, Pendleton, out in eastern Oregon, broke it's own standing record since 1961 with a whopping 109 degrees. This number and others were rattled off by the tv weather people as if it weren't absolutely insane. 109 degrees?? 109?!?   I mean, isn't that Nevada desert weather?  Shouldn't livestock and old people be dropping like flies all around the region?  When I ask this question of my friends, I'm reassured that animals are smart and will find some shade and just rest through the day.  But what if there are no trees?  Have you been out to Pendleton lately?  It's not what I would describe as wooded, being mostly open pasture lands..  Well, I guess I'm overreacting, because I didn't hear about any significant deaths in the media, but I definitely decided to postpone the six day trip I was planning out to eastern Oregon on July 5th.  

I had made these plans back in May when the idea of blistering temps wasn't really an issue.  As the date of my departure approached and local temps had climbed into and stayed firmly in the mid 90's, my mind went back to some of my previous summer trips out in the high desert.  The mornings are fine and you often start your day at six because the sun is up and so are all the birds and bugs.  But by 9:30 or 10, the thermostat starts rising and you need to plan your movements accordingly.  If you're hiking or treasure hunting or even just hanging by the river, shade needs to be utilized and lots of water needs to be ingested.  I've come up with a variety of cooling strategies involving wet bandannas, spray bottles and generally just dunking your clothes in water and then putting them back on.  This is all well and good, but my days often resulted in my hiding under any nearby trees, or under a tarp canopy rigged next to my truck, and fighting the onset of heat exhaustion.  So I have survived on these trips in the past, but the question this time was:  knowing in advance that the temps were going to be severe, would I be able to have a decent trip or would I just be torturing myself?  I chose not to risk it, to postpone that week of wonderful places to see to the first week of October. At least at that point I can light a fire if I want to and have some nice cool nights as well as moderate temps in the day.  

But in the meantime, what was I going to do with this time I'd scheduled off from work, and how the hell was I going to get away from these dreadful temperatures?  You got it, head to the coast.  It's about 30 degrees cooler and even a bit foggy.  Our hot temps here in the Willamette valley tend to create foggy conditions at the coast, so I was so ready to go grab a couple days of typical NW early spring weather.  I decided to head back down to the southern coast because I fell in love with it the first time I explored it just a couple of years ago.  I had been to Cape Arago then, as well as Port Orford, Bandon and Gold Beach, and I decided on a pretty similar route this time..  

Got up early on Sunday July 5th, packed the truck and headed south on I-5.  Was torn between heading east on highway 38 along the Umpqua River, which is my favorite beach highway so far in Oregon, or checking out highway 42, which is a little further south and getting to see a new road.  The curiosity won out and I gassed up at Roseburg, then headed east on highway 42.  It wasn't particularly scenic, but nor was it that crowded.   It was mostly two lanes at the beginning and when it became a single lane, I just pulled over to let a few people pass.  I enjoy my drives out of town too much to let tailgating drivers piss me off.  All in all, I wasn't too impressed with this road, that is, not until I got to the town of Coquille.  At that point, the road to the coast turns to 42S, and runs another 18 miles through very pretty farmland and coastal sloughs until it ends at Bandon.   And the temperature had now dropped considerably, so the air was cool and wonderful.

I'd been driving about four and a half hours in the heat, and was feeling pretty rough at this point.  I had planned on heading south to Gold Beach and camping on the Rogue River, then working my way back north the following two days, but the enticing proximity of Edson Creek campground lured me in and I decided to head there and call it a night.  This really sweet little campground is 5 miles north of the town of Port Orford, and 4 miles west of 101 on Sixes River Rd.  There isn't running water and it has vault toilets, but it's really pretty and serene.  It's a very modest $6 and there are 27 sites.  I chose a grassy spot on the second meadow which I had to myself, with the creek to my back.  I set up my truck, made some food and just decompressed.  Walked down to the creek and fished out an entire cut up watermelon that previous campers had dumped in the water, clearly mistaking it for a trashcan. Have I mentioned how much I like people?  But the creek was lovely and I took a few pictures, then went back to the campsite for a nightcap and some quality reading in the back of my truck until I fell asleep. The one thing that is a little bit of a drag about the Edson campground is that a forest service road continues past it along the west side and seems to be a pretty popular road to parts unknown.  There was a fair amount of coming and going along it which can be a little jarring when you're trying to chill or sleep, but all in all it's bearable, and tends to die down at nightfall.  As always, my first night in the truck isn't my best sleep, so I attempted to sleep in a little later in the morning to make up for it, at least until my neighbor's chatter woke me up.  I was on the road not too much later, heading out to the lighthouse at Cape Blanco, just a couple miles north.  Was beautiful and blustery, I snapped some photos, then headed south.  

                                          Edson Creek

                                          Cape Blanco lighthouse and headlands

                                 

                                          Douglas Iris

Stopped in Port Orford at the southern tip of town at the public beach.  Headed down to the beach and took some pics of the vultures on their fishy carcass, some rocks, gulls, and swallows. So glad to be here, with the lovely gray skies, and the waves and the salt spray and the call of the birds. 
Man, I love the coast.  

                                          Turkey vulture on mystery fish              
                                     

                                          Heerman's gull

                                          Immature western gull

                                          Bullwhip seaweed

                                          barn swallow

Kept heading south and stopped a few more times at various beaches, then rolled through Gold Beach.  Got a cup of coffee and headed south to Pistol River, driving up to and around the lovely Humbug Mountain along the way.  I wanted to hike that trail on my last trip and this one as well, but the top half of the mountain was covered in fog, so I knew I wouldn't be able to see any views.  I probably should have just done it anyway; oh well, next time.  I pulled in at Pistol River, loaded my camera and gear in my back pack and hiked down to the south side of the beach.  Brought along Teds, my intrepid travel companion through thick and thin.  This is what happens when you really love animals.  Like, "should have been a veterinarian" loves animals, and yet you're allergic to most of them.  Sigh, maybe in my next life.. Until then, there's Teds.

                                          Teds!

                                          Pistol river emptying into the Pacific

                                          Immature western gulls

                                          Western sandpipers

Found some playful immature western gulls eating in the surf as well as a pair of western sandpipers and a few sand dollars kindly left by previous visitors in the rocks. Thank you, don't mind if I do. Took some pics of waves crashing and then had this creeping fear that I'd left my lights on. This happens to me all the time, and often at the coast, where the gray rainy weather necessitates lights, and then I'll drive home to sunny Portland, and not even think about checking them.   This very thing took place on my last trip to Cannon beach in May.  The next day the battery was dead and although I had AAA jumpstart it, I still had to buy a new one later that day at Les Schwab.. You people, with your newer cars where the lights turn off automatically, you don't know what fun you're missing.  So here I was, with the very real fear and no memory whatsoever of turning the lights off. Shit! Shit, shit, shit.  I decided that if I just hoofed it back to the parking lot, it would have only been about an hour and I should be fine either way.  That beach was way longer than it looked, but I eventually got back to the river and climbed over the dunes to find my truck safe and sound with the lights off. Sigh of relief.. Was a good thing really, as I needed desperately to change into something cooler.  The day was still overcast but much warmer than when I'd dressed at the campsite, so time to transition into shorts.

I really love being on the road with my little home in my truck. I become that person who changes their clothes in ten seconds between cars driving by, the person who can quickly pee behind any bush without anyone being the wiser, and the person who pulls down the tailgate to fry up a quick sausage on my single burner stove.  Then I quickly pack it up and I'm on my way.  I'm a good gypsy, a good traveller, but of course I'm also totally on my own, doing whatever suits me.  Sometimes I want company, sometimes I don't. I often find people to talk to on the road, at campgrounds or pullouts, I've had some good talks, met some nice people, and it makes it more interesting, hearing their stories.

So I'd decided to head back north to Gold Beach, and any points in between. I stopped at a couple beaches along the way, looking for tidal pools, rocks of interest, shorebirds, flowers, driftwood, seaweed, any and all of it looked good through my camera lens.  I took off my shoes and wandered around into the water at spots; the Pacific was pretty cold, but refreshing.

                                          Dudleya Farinosa aka sea lettuce

                                          Pigeon Guillemot, kind of my new fave sea bird

By the time I got back into Gold Beach it was late afternoon, and I decided I should head up to my campground to make sure I was going to get a spot.  I took a right on Jerry's Flat Rd on the south side of the Rogue River and headed east about 9 miles on a curvy and pretty stretch of road.  Lobster Creek campground is on your left, and you can drive through the campground and come out to the day use area on the huge gravel bar there at the curve of the Rogue.  You can camp out there for free if you want to, there were a couple of campers and a tent out close to the river, but there is no tree cover on the gravel bar. I decided I preferred the shade and privacy of a campsite and headed back in to choose the site across from the bathrooms and the host's RV.  There are only seven spots here, but there is running water and plumbed bathrooms, so I was fine with the $10 fee.  I  backed in under the two huge myrtle trees and set up camp. Made some food and had a chat with a fellow named Ted who was two spaces up.  He was a cool older liberal guy who had quit working at the age of 39 and been on the road ever since.  He was admiring the "simplicity of my set up", as he put it, and we talked about all sorts of things until he went back to his trailer and left me to my Indian curry packet and a fried sausage.. Ahh, camp food.  That night I slept better, although there was a lot random traffic on the road, which was apparently right over me up the shaded embankment.  I made it through the night, and woke up to lovely sunshine dappling through the trees.  I picked some myrtle leaves for drying, packed up and headed back to town.  Apparently you can use them like bay leaves, so I'm excited to experiment.  Lovely trees.

                                          Lobster Creek campground and the gracious myrtles

I planned to head to Floras Lake as I passed back through Port Orford.  The temperature was warmer but still so pleasant compared to what I'd been suffering through in PDX.  I did the nature walk at Floras Lake, spotting a savannah sparrow and what I think were some pine siskins, one sort of nesting right on the path.  I skirted through the woods to avoid scaring it in case it was hurt. Went out to the edge of the lake and watched two windsurfers try to get going.  Walked out to the ocean and enjoyed it's sheer emptiness and space, as the occasional gull or cormorant swept along over the waves. It's a nice place to sit and gather your thoughts.  Headed back to the parking lot to once again peel off some layers, then head north to Bandon Beach.  

I drove in through the beach loop drive, and parked at the top of the stairs, climbing down onto Face Rock beach just a bit south of my last sojourn onto it.  Last time I had parked downtown and walked south from there.  I found that same spot today as I walked north up the beach.  That was where the interesting rock formations were, as well as most of the wildlife, from tide pools to birds to harbor seals.  The incoming tide prevented me from going any farther north, but I found the point where I had seen my first and only marbled murrelet two years ago, so that was cool.  Today was all about the pair of oyster catchers feeding on the rocks and the pod of harbor seals that eventually showed up.  The water was lovely and I stood in it up to my knees snapping photos of everything.  It was perfect weather and a great beach to stop at.  I climbed the stairs back to my truck, talked to some ladies behind their birding scopes, asking if they had seen any puffins today.  They said they thought puffins were around but tended to stick to the front of the rocks in front of us. Of course they did, those devious little sasquatches!

                                          Mourning Dove

                                          Pine Siskin

                                          Savannah Sparrow

                                          Beach at Floras Lake

                                          Bandon beach seaweed

                                          Harbor Seal

                                         American Oystercatcher

I dusted the sand off my feet, and headed north to Coos Bay where I stopped for a Whopper, fries and a medium soda (this is medium, it's like 20 oz??).  I do this a couple of times a year, almost exclusively on my camping trips, when I've run out of food.  It was disgusting and tasty.  My plan was to leave Reedsport heading east on 38 no later than 3:30pm so I could make it back to PDX with enough time to unpack and relax.  I turned east on schedule, resisted the temptation to pull over and take more photos of a drowsing elk herd at the Dean Creek elk viewing area.  Something about the way they're always there, conveniently near the walkway makes me feel like its a zoo and sort of depresses me. But it's a really pretty stretch of greenery, and they do have a bathroom.  With a bladder my size, I know where every frickin' bathroom in the state is.  I should make a pamphlet for other frequent bathroom break victims; it's what inquiring minds want to know.

This drive is really one of my favorites, especially the early portion where the Umpqua is wide and glorious. It becomes narrower and shallower and after you cross over it some miles in, the river bed that's now on your right side becomes littered with large rocks, almost more rock than water it seems. The temperature began to rise as I crossed the hills and approached the inland valley,  and as I approached Elkton and then Drain, I was growing acutely warm as well as drowsy.  I foraged in my bags for a can of Dr. Pepper and dumped it in the cup over the remains of ice from my previous soda.  It gave me enough caffeine to get me through, although I eventually had to took a caffeine pill too.  It was hot and with no air conditioning, this was going to be a long drive.  Highway 38 dumps you out on I-5 at Cottage Grove which is about 125 miles south of PDX.  And I would be hitting Eugene and then Salem at rush hour.  But I was lucky, and other than the usual game of Frogger in two lanes, I didn't hit any stopped traffic until I was approaching Portland.  I promptly exited the highway and took back roads home.  Was home by seven and got the truck unpacked and got some sushi from Fred Meyer for dinner.  I had a really wonderful two and a half days taking in the southern coast, cooling off and seeing some new sights.  Another place I intend to keep visiting, and next time I'll climb Humbug Mt. with or without the sun.  Go check it out, it's waiting for you. and happy trails!

and if you would like to see the photos larger, just click on them to see the whole photo stream.