I went down to the Bayocean Spit in Tillamook County today Feb 15, 2015. Nothing great to report. Nice warm day and a nice walk on the beach and dunes. I did hear a singing Palm Warbler when I walked south along the road before heading back north out to the jetty. The bay was empty of normal numbers of birds and the dunes were quiet. Wrentits vary from red-brown in their northern range to gray in their southern range. I thought this one was at the bright end of their red-brown spectrum.
Turns out my camera took these two picture .2 seconds apart. In case anyone wants to know how fast a Wrentits eye adjusts to the light.
And my search for anything non-Least Sandpiper continues..I don't know why, but looking at over 100 sandpipers to be sure they all are Least Sandpipers is fun.
I promise no more Least Sandpipers for awhile.
Pelagic Cormorant, this shows the snaky look to the bird. The head is about the same size as the neck. No bulb look as on Brandt's.
Anna's Hummingbird
The only alcid I saw on the ocean. Winter plumage Common Murre. Looks like it is slowly going to breeding plumage with that little line of dark feathers across the front.
My list
Cackling Goose 9
American Wigeon 200 Mallard 4 Northern Pintail 35 Green-winged Teal 39 Surf Scoter 7 Black Scoter 1 scoter sp. 20 Bufflehead 18 Common Goldeneye 1 Ruddy Duck 32 Pacific Loon 1 Eared Grebe 5 Western Grebe 40 Brandt's Cormorant 3 Double-crested Cormorant 7 Pelagic Cormorant 2 Great Blue Heron 2 Northern Harrier 1 Bald Eagle 2 Red-tailed Hawk 1 American Coot 60 Least Sandpiper 100 Common Murre 1 Mew Gull 5 Ring-billed Gull 8 Western Gull 6 Western/Glaucous-winged Gull 10 California Gull 4 gull sp. 40 Anna's Hummingbird 1 Rufous Hummingbird 1 appeared to be female Northern Flicker 6 American Crow 12 Common Raven 6 Black-capped Chickadee 5 Brown Creeper 3 Pacific Wren 3 Marsh Wren 2 Bewick's Wren 1 Golden-crowned Kinglet 9 Ruby-crowned Kinglet 7 Wrentit 4 American Robin 6 Varied Thrush 2 Palm Warbler 1 Yellow-rumped Warbler 12 Spotted Towhee 3 Fox Sparrow 1 Song Sparrow 12 Golden-crowned Sparrow 3 Dark-eyed Junco 4 Red Crossbill 7
I have never noticed that Cape Lookout State Park also includes a nice sand spit that extends north from the cape. It is the sand barrier that creates Netarts Bay. Not sure why I never noticed this area before, probably because I always go to the Bayocean Spit just to the north up at Tillamook Bay. There is a $5 parking fee. Since there seemed to be very few ebird reports from the spit itself I decided to explore this beach on Saturday, January 10, 2015. There was a heavy mist when I started my hike at about 8:20 am but it soon stopped and it turned into a nice cloudy day. The mist returned right before I got back to my car at 3:15 pm.
My Canon camera decided not to turn on while I was doing the hike. I did a quick google search upon my return home, and I hope it is just a bad battery. It went dead after I tried to switch lenses. It seems they can be picky if you leave the camera on by accident while doing this. That might also be an issue. but I am hoping for a bad battery. All these pictures are from my iphone.
The spit is a typical for Oregon. It is covered by dunes with grass on ocean side with thick spruce and pine in the middle mixed in with wet bogs, the bay side has marsh grass and piles of seaweed.. This spit differs than Bayocean in the amount of erosion. Numerous trees have been pulled over by the waters on both ocean and bay sides. I walked the 5.1 miles north to the entrance to Netarts Bay. I was hoping to find a way back to the parking lot or at least to cut back to the ocean side by coming back down south on the bay side. All I ran into was thick wet forest and wet smelly bogs. I was forced to turn around and head back to the northern tip and return via the beach. I figure I slogged through 13 miles of hard sand, soft sand, bay grass, washed up piles of seaweed and thick pine woods over the course of my hike. The dog and I were very tired at the end of it all!
The beach had large numbers of Least Sandpipers and Sanderlings. I also found two Western Sandpipers and a few Dunlin. I spent most of the time scanning for any longspurs or Snowy Plovers. It is such an isolated spot, I would think plovers would like it. But none found.
Due to the thick woods, the birds were hard to find. Walking along the matted grasses on the bay side I found Song Sparrows, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Pacific and Marsh Wrens. The tide was out, many Harbor Seals were on the sand bars and many Western Gulls were flying about. Below is a photo of an access road that heads out from the overnight camping area. This was a very birdy spot. I think the camping area and this access road would be well worth exploring more. I took this photo as I was returning, the mist had settled in obscuring the woods in the distance.
Since my camera was dead and I was having a hard time getting to where the passerines would be, I decided to document all the dead birds I found on my hike on the beach. See if you can figure them out based on the bills, answers at bottom:
Bird 1:
Bird 2:
A hint:
Bird 3:
A hint
Bird 4:
Bird 5:
Bird 6:
Bird 7:
Bird 8
Answers as I see them and numbers seen:
1) Western Grebe 1
2) Pelagic Cormorant 1
3) Brandt's Cormorant 2
4) Rhinoceros Auklet 1
5) Northern Fulmar 1
6) Cassin's Auklet 45
7) Common Loon 1
8) Scripps's Murrelet??? 1
Bird #8 had long bluish legs. All the Cassin's Auklets I found had short little dark legs. I think the long blue legs belong to the Synthliboramphus murrelets (Scripps's, Guadalupe, and Craveri's) . There was not much left of the bird, but it did have white on underside of wings. Craveri's have dark under the wing and Guadalupe is the far southern version of the old Xantus's Murrelet. So Scripps's would be the more likely.
UPDATE on 1/12/15: Well I do not think it was a Scripps's Murrelet. Cassin's Auklets, when alive, also have blue legs. Marbled Murrelets have black legs. The bill also looks like the Cassin's Auklet.
I am sure I could have spotted more ducks and passerines had I not spent most of the day scanning the high tide mark for plover or longspurs. However, a fun day all in the same exploring a new spot. My ebird list:
Brant 2
Cackling Goose 25 American Wigeon 7 Mallard 45 Northern Pintail 55 Green-winged Teal 8 Greater Scaup 23 Surf Scoter 23 Black Scoter 9 scoter sp. 12 Common Goldeneye 5 Red-breasted Merganser 13 duck sp. 23 Common Loon 3 loon sp. 6 Western Grebe 3 Brandt's Cormorant 2 Great Blue Heron 2 Northern Harrier 1 Bald Eagle 3 Sanderling 75 Dunlin 14 Least Sandpiper 100 Western Sandpiper 2 Mew Gull 1 Western Gull 45 Western/Glaucous-winged Gull 4 gull sp. 120 Northern Flicker 4 American Crow 2 Common Raven 4 Chestnut-backed Chickadee 17 Bushtit 5 Red-breasted Nuthatch 3 Brown Creeper 5 Pacific Wren 6 Marsh Wren 7 Golden-crowned Kinglet 3 Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2 Wrentit 4 American Robin 3 Varied Thrush 7 European Starling 5 Song Sparrow 6 Dark-eyed Junco 3 Red-winged Blackbird 6
Happiness is a wet dog with a sandy nose.
I found this cool spoiler for a blog, I'll use it to hide answers on tests in future. Just testing it now. I need to figure out how to stick a picture in here.
Another test to see if two work
A different code I found, easier to put two in same blog
