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Oregon Trip Report (long)

This is long, and nothing about Utah, so delete now if you don't want to read
about birding Oregon.

The last 8 days were spent all along the Oregon Coast for what was one of my
best birding experiences ever (2nd to SE Arizona).  I started off with the long
drive from Salt Lake to Coos Bay on Saturday the 24th at 2 in the the morning.
The first bird of the trip was Burrowing Owl, I saw 3 in Winnemucca, NV.  I
made it to Klamath Falls by lunch and picked up Black-backed Woodpecker for a
lifer and saw 23 other species of birds, (all stuff common to the mountains).
I finally arrived at Sunset Bay State Park around 6 pm and as soon as the tent
was up I started birding Cape Arago State Park.  Heermann's Gull was my first
new coastal bird, followed by Sooty Shearwater right off the coast.  A storm
had all sorts of birds on the move.  At Cape Arago I managed to locate a flock
of Surfbirds, with a Black Turnstone and Wandering Tattler, all lifers.  Back
at sunset bay I picked up my first Common Murre and Pigeon Guillemot as
well.  By 9 pm I had tallied 11 life birds and was well on my way to a good
week.

The second day was spent birding the Bandon area south of Coos Bay, Black
Oystercatcher and Ruddy Turnstone were the highlights there (Ruddy Turnstone
was lifer #450, and I had been chasing that species on the east coast the past
3 years!).  After birding most of the morning in Bandon, I headed back to
Sunset Bay and visited Shore Acres State Park, where I found an Anna's
Hummingbird and 3 unidetified "Selasphorus" Hummingbird (either Rufous or
Allen's).  The last new bird for the day was a Hermit Warbler singing at my
campground that evening.

Day 3: I headed 90 miles up coast to Waldport, making numerous stops along the
way.  At Silticoos Beach came the rarest bird of the Trip, an Elegant Tern still
in full breeding plumage.  Next at the mouth of the Siuslaw River I saw
Rhinocerous Auklet on a tip from a local birder.  I ended up at Beachside State
Park where Wrentit greeted me, along with Pacific-slope Flycatcher, and more
Hermit Warblers.

Day 4: A long day of birding, from Waldport all the way upto Newport and the
Depoe Bay area.  There were few rewards, during the long day, but 2 Marbled
Murrelet's off the coast at Boiler Bay State Wayside were definately a
highlight.  I again had a Ruddy Turnstone, this time on the beach at Beachside
State Park.  I also helped an immature Common Murre back to the water, it was
stranded about 100 feet up on the shore as the tide went down.

Day 5: Got up extremely early to get to Seal Rock before anyone else did.  I was
on the hunt for Rock Sandpiper and was unsuccessful for the 3rd try on this
species.  However there were many Black Turnstones, Oystercatchers, 3
Kingfishers, and 7 Harlequin Ducks all in the little bay.  I then hit the road
70 miles to Cape Lookout State Park near Tillamook.  I arrived at around 10 am
and the fog was very heavy.  At the Cape Lookout trailhead I had Winter Wren
and another lifer in Varied Thrush.  I then hiked the 2.5 mile trail out to
Cape Lookout, the view was amazing and there were 7 Cassin's Auklets to be seen
from the viewpoint in the water below.  After the 2.5 miles back I headed to
Cape Mearas State Park to look for Tufted Puffin, a species I had not seen yet
and was running out of locations to see.  But again there were none here,
however there was a Peregrine Falcon on the cliffs nearby. I headed to Bay Ocean
Spit and  had both Western and Least Sandpiper as well as one Pectoral
Sandpiper, and at Lake Mearas was a Hooded Merganser.

Day 6: Today was the day for Tufted Puffin.  I got up at 5 am and drove to
Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock, and found that the nearest parking was a mile
north or south.  I drove on the highway parralel to the rock and scanned with
my binos and immediately saw half a dozen Puffins.  So I parked down beach and
hiked the mile to the rock and spent at least an hour photographing these
beautiful little birds.  A lifer and easily the most exciting bird of the trip.
After getting back to the car I drove to Clatstop Spit and Fort Steven's State
Park at the mouth of the Columbia River.  The weather was not being
cooperative, and it was raining and foggy.  At South Jetty I spent 30 minutes
scanning for Loons and saw only Surf Scoters.  I took a break and went to
parking lot D to actually go look on the river, but the only birds here were
Wetern Gulls Glaucous-winged Gulls and well over 100 Caspian Terns.  The
weateher lightened up a little and I headed back to the Jetty with my scope,
now being able to see further out I was rewarded with nearly 3 dozen loons!!!!
At first I spotted a lone Red-throated Loon, then a flock of Pacific loons, then
came the shocker when I fell upon a flock of 14  Red-throated Loons.  And again
another 11 Pacific Loons.  After I had exhausted the waters off the Jetty, I
headed towards Astoria and to my surpirse found a Red-necked Grebe alone on a
pond just south of the city along highway 101.  Next I crossed the Columbia
into Washington to look for Northwestern Crow, and was lucky enough to have two
in Illwaco, WA calling up a storm, the difference in call sound to American
Crow is truly amazing.  I headed back to camp and when I got in around 5 a
Nashville Warbler was sitting in a berry bush right by my tent.

Day 7:  Driving Day, 180 miles back down the coast to Coos Bay for a boat trip
on Saturday.

Day 8:  Now most Pelagic birding trips cost around $125 to $200.  I was going to
get on one but the only one I could find sold out before I could sign up.  So I
did the next best thing, I found a charter fishing company that takes people
out deep sea fishing for 6 hours and I hopped on borad for $25.  Needless to
say I call this the "Poor Man Self Guided Pelagic Trip".  Upside, it is cheap.
Downside, your your own guide and you have to go where the boat takes people to
fish, not where the birds are.  I however struck luck, when the captain was
sympathetic to my birding needs and took the boat out into deeper water,
further off coast than normal, and it paid off.  24 Species of Bird from port
to deep sea.  7 life birds, and a trip I will never forget.  The boat went out
of Coos Bay and headed south along the coast about 10 miles then headed out,
about 8 miles off shore.  Heres the bird list:

Black-footed Albatross (1)
Northern Fulmar (3)
Murphy's Petrel (1)
Pink-footed Shearwater (1)
Flesh-footed Shearwater (4)
Short-tailed Shearwater (7)
Sooty Shearwater (300+)
Brown Pelican (27)
Pelagic Cormorant (103)
Brandt's Cormorant (7)
Double-crested Cormorant (2)
Great Blue Heron (1)
Great Egret (2)
Western Gull (92)
Glaucous-winged Gull (3)
Heermann's Gull (350)
Caspian tern (2)
Common Murre (1000+)
Pigeon Guillemot (38)
Marblet Murrelet (4)
Rhinocerous Auklet (1)
Tufted Puffin (5)
Parasitic Jaeger (1)

2 unidetified Jaegers!

Near the end of the trip Captain Bill, swung the boat out near the outer edge,
where a loan Black-footed Albatross was wandering around.  He told me that he
sees an Albatross usually on one of the 2 trips out daily.

Then yesterday it was off to home.  I headed down through Redding, CA and picked
up Oak Titmouse unfortunately missing Magpie and Tricolored Blackbird :(

All in all it was a great week, 137? species of bird for the 8 days and 37
lifers for me.  If anyone would like more information on this self guided tour,
just drop me a line.  Here are some photos from the trip:

http://www.surfbirds.com/cgi-bin/gallery/display.cgi?gallery=gallery20

Good Birding and Sorry for the long post!

Tim

Salt Lake City, UT or Beloit, WI
http://www.timaverybirding.com

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