Picus Blog: Oregon trip

I have certainly been lucky this year in that Pamela and I have been able to take a big vacation as well as a couple of small trips. Last week we took a 5-day trip to Oregon, flying into and out of Portland. Upon landing, we rented our car and started driving towards Cannon Beach in the rain, arriving at dusk, with no opportunity to see the famous scenic views. The next morning the rain continued, so we slept in then took our time getting ready for the day, donned our rain-jackets and headed out for a hot breakfast. We spent the rest of the day driving along the coast looking for sheltered spots to check the ocean for west coast seabirds an shorebirds with little luck. At one break from the horizontal driving rain, we were treated to squadron after squadron of Brown Pelicans flying by - dozens at a time, adding up to what must have more well over a thousand individuals.

Note how grey it is...

We tried checking out several spots, birding from the car in the rain. It was easy to spot birds like Western and Glaucous-winged Gulls:

But honestly the real reason I wanted to come to Cannon Beach was to see Haystack Rock:

This monolithic rock rises 235ft from the sand and is home to one of my main target birds for this trip - Tufted Puffins. And in a lucky break in the weather, we managed to run down to the beach and pick out a few in the spotting scope - as well as numbers of Common Murres, Pelagic Cormorants, Pigeon Guillemots, and a raft of Harlequin Ducks that were in the water and on the edge of the base of the rock. As you can well guess, this is a protected area, not to mention the tide was coming in, so there was no chance at getting closer for photos of the birds. We also checked out some other local spots like Ecola State Park, and of course, the local water treatment plant (and any good birder will tell you, it's always worth a stop). Ecola was beautiful and lush (and dark) in this Pacific Northwest rainforest-like atmosphere, and we added a few birds to the rather small (so far) trip list. At the water treatment plant, we were highly entertained by a very charismatic and photogenic raven, as well as getting some of best looks ever at Violet-green Swallow.

The rain started getting heavier again, so we packed away the bins and camera, did a bit of shopping at the little shops in town then had a nice dinner and turned in at our cozy room at the Ecola Creek Lodge.
Thursday morning finally dawned bright and sunny. I managed to get back out to Haystack in hopes of maybe getting some photos, but the distance made it impossible to get anything other than just some documentary photos.

Common Murres

Tufted Puffins on Haystack Rock (yeah, you have to look closely)

With the sun on our backs, we headed east across the Cascades towards Sisters. Unfortunately, the sun turned to grey skies and then more rain the further east we traveled. Thankfully it did not last long this time, and soon after we checked into our room at the Sisters Motor Lodge, we headed over to Calliope Crossing. a great little birding spot so named because Calliope Hummingbirds are known to perch on the bare branches at the stream crossing. One of the first birds we spotted was a beautiful singing male Black-headed Grosbeak:

We also were treated to some great looks at a Northern Goshawk:

The area also had a number of birds, including Grey, Hammond's, and Olive-sided Flycatchers, Western Wood Pewees, Cassin's Vireo, and the familiar Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers including a pair of Hairy's that were feeding young at an eye-level cavity.