black oystercatchers

LATELY BIRDS

/ janpriddyoregon / 10 Comments

A deer came up our path and pooped just outside our gate.

Those little round brownish pellets in the middle of this picture are deer poop.

The nearest nesting pair of black oystercatchers were out on the sand with their youngster.

The bird at left is an adult (one of the parents. The one in the middle is the other parent. The one at right, with black shading on the end of her beak, is the “baby” already as big as her parents.

The little shorebirds are a mystery. After all these years, I can’t be certain what they are, Least sandpiper (Calidris minutilla)? Or something else?

And then the new driftwood growing up out of the sand. Usually the ocean plows them right up in a high tide, but there have been such drift logs that lasted a year or more because they were well planted.

When Portland, on the east side of the coast range, experiences seasonal hot weather, we often have morning fog. It’s been foggy the last few days when we went out for our walk, clearing once the sun is high enough to burn off the mists.

The eagle flew over our heads on its way to what Gary calls the Bird Snag on the headland north of us.

Sometimes a crow perches here a couple of hundred feet above us, but this is definitely an eagle perch.
We usually walk 3-4 miles, but the other day we walked past Arcadia, more than three miles to the north of us, better than a six mile round trip according to my old running measures. And then home.

WHOOPS

/ janpriddyoregon / 9 Comments
Sunlight over the Pacific Ocean.

I played around with other WordPress themes yesterday and managed to completely misplace the one I started with. Gone. The sidebar with personal and site information now appears way down at the bottom of this page. That is not convenient. I could pay the “Happiness Engineers” to help me, but I am so offended by that title (not to mention the cost) that I will put up with this ugliness. [Why did I ever think it was a good idea to leave Blogspot?] I do not like this layout, but it’s the best I can do.

Discuss.

[NOTE: Managed to find a “theme” with the sidebar, but now the header photos do not show on the home page and are overlaid on their own page. Better, though. imo. Yours?]

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JULY 5th

/ janpriddyoregon / 6 Comments
Or perhaps the best part was this morning’s coyote tracks on the sand, the black oystercatcher pair, and Gary spotting the first hummingbird in our garden since April or May.

Gary says the best part of the 4th of July was when it was over. I’d argue that the best part was at 5:30 yesterday morning during our walk. When we got home, we opened up the house—every window and skylight. Then, in early afternoon, when people started beach fires, we shut everything back up to avoid the smoke. If we’d had company, we likely would have gone out and built a small fire on the beach. Instead we watched two episodes of a British procedural, and ignored the booms as much as possible.

Good news: The booming didn’t start until dusk instead of trailing out across the entire weekend. The bad news: The explosions were too close and didn’t end until well after ten last night. Even the echo was horrific.

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DISTRACTION PERFORMANCE

/ janpriddyoregon / 6 Comments

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Forty years ago, I was climbing a seastack (don’t do this) and when I pulled myself level with the top I was eye to eye with a black bird with that brilliant enamel colored eye, staring right back at me.

That was my first close view of a black oystercatcher. I have seen a few since. We cannot miss their cry, a quick flutey scrawl. We particularly look forward to that sound during nesting season.

According to Oregon Fish and Wildlife, “The black oystercatcher is a large, long-lived shorebird about 38 centimeters (15 inches) in length with a long, thick, reddish-orange bill, a yellow eye encircled by an orange ring, and pink legs, all of which are strikingly set off by entirely black plumage.  Juveniles have somewhat browner plumage and a dark tip on the bill.  Oystercatchers are monogamous, returning to the same nesting territories to pair with the same mate each year.” Continue reading →