Back to "Work"

Hi All,

After our wonderful trip south we were back at Heceta Head. Unfortunately, there was little wildlife to show people, a few distant sea lions and less than a dozen murres and cormorants. With our collection of murre eggs we can still tell the murre story even if there are no birds in view. 

Love
Sandy & Carl

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Univ. of Oregon field trip for international students (19 kids from 15 countries).  One young woman was headed for MIT in Cambridge MA for graduate studies in Urban Planning

More Coastal Beauty

Hi All,

After a lazy morning we did some shopping in Brookings then hiked some of the Oregon Coastal Trail and explored all if the viewpoints for ten miles north. The scenery defies description (see below) and this was just ten miles of a 300 mile long state!!

Love
Sandy & Carl

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Harris Beach State Park

Natural Bridges

Whale head Rocks

Looking North

Redwood Country

Hi All,

We drove south into California today; our first stop was Castle Rock National Wildlife Refuge. We set up the scope and looked at birds on an offshore rock, just like we do on days we work ;-).

Castle Rock is further offshore so we couldn't see the auklets we knew were there.

It is a beautiful rock and we saw Stellar and California sea lions and elephant seals.

The murre colony was enormous. The sign said 150,000 birds.

Next we drove to Klamath River Overlook where gray whales had been seen every day this week. We got the gray part as the fog rolled in but no whales. There really is ocean down there. 

This redwood is known as "Big Tree"

The groves of coastal redwoods are as magnificent as they are impossible to photograph.

The forest was carpeted with ferns

Our last stop was a beach walk at Gold Bluff Beach. This, of course, is Gold Bluff.

Love 
Sandy & Carl

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Rogue River Jet Boat

Hi All,

Today we drove north to Gold Beach and took the 104 mile jet boat trip on the Rogue River. The boat did loops and spins until we were thoroughly soaked. Wildlife sightings were great as well, including river otter, beaver, deer and black bear plus bald eagles, osprey, kingfisher  common merganser, cackling geese and a spotted sandpiper.

Love
Sandy & Carl

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Jerry's Jet Boat

The boat from yesterday's Trip

Patterson Bridge

Entering a canyon

Another even narrower canyon

View upriver from our lunch stop in Agnes, OR

More wild river with few signs of civilization (if you don't count our 1,000 HP jet boat)

This is as far as we go. Rocks block the river at mile 52.

We then flew back downstream 

South to the Border

Hi All,

On Monday we drove the coach 170 miles south to Brookings Oregon, just six miles north of the California border. From here we will spend the week running the Rogue River and touring the California redwoods.

The coastal scenery down here is jaw-dropping. The offshore island dot the water with innumerable shapes including one that looks like half-dome in Yosemite.

Across the country in Florida, Wyatt was showing everyone how to catch flounder.

Love
Sandy & Carl

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

Life is Damp but still Good

Hi All,

Today ranged from light drizzle to steady rain. For most of the day the fog prevented us from seeing the sea lions across the bay. Still we had 68 enthusiastic visitors. Once again, many were in the area for the Olympic Trials in Eugene. One young woman visiting today was the US National javelin champion.  Another visitor commented that the coastline here looks a lot like the Na Pali coast of the Hawain island of Kauai. Yet another reason to be thankful although the water here is 52 degrees not 82 degrees.

Love
Sandy & Carl

Photographed and sent from Carl's iPhone

When the rain got heavy we protected the scopes with trash bags.

Back to Yaquina Head

Hi All,

After "work" today we drove to Newport to return the "Build a Bird" materials to the FWS office.

While in Newport we went to Yaquina Head to see the thousands of murres ( instead of the single murre we had on the rocks at Heceta!).

This is Colony Rock; thousands of murres to the left and surprisingly

Two Bald Eagles on the right side of the rock

We looked in vain for chicks but we did see adult birds with fish tail first in their bills bend over to feed a chick and come up empty. The chicks were there but deep in the cluster of adult birds.

We did see lots of abandoned eggs. Check out the baby blue cone shaped egg in the right center.

Back at the visitor center parking lot, we found the all four if the Peregrine falcon chicks had fledged and we're flying around.

Love 
Sandy & Carl

Sent from my iPhone