To the Pacific

After a bountiful breakfast at The Original Pancake House in Eugene, Terry and I took Jessica and Mom out to the Pacific Coast. Rick had given me some complimentary tickets for the Oregon Coastal Aquarium in Newport and we were going to take advantage of a lovely day to drive over to the coast and have a look-see.

Route 126 west to US Highway 101 north brought us to a place called Sea Lion Caves (a commercial venture) just north of Florence that provides trail access down to some observation points where you can view seals and sea lions and numerous shorebirds. We chose not to pay the $10-12 fee each and walk down the equivalent of 6 flights of steps. Still, the view from the gift shop and the walk along the road was excellent.

Across the small bay from Seal Caves is this picturesque lighthouse:

Haceta Head Lighthouse

After a brief look around the area of Sea Lion Caves, we continued north on Rt 101 to Newport. We passed lots of little state parks and beaches along the way that looked like great places to explore stream outlets and tidal pools. The tide was out and that exposed plenty of wide beaches and rock outcrops.

The aquarium was easy to find and had ample parking even for a beautiful, warm Saturday. I didn't bother to try to take pictures of the fish, invertebrates and sharks in the tanks. Nor did I try to photograph the seals and sea lions in their tank as it would have meant shooting through some grimy glass. And the sea otters were a wee bit uncooperative, too. That left some birds. Specifically the dapper (or perhaps clownish) Tufted Puffins and the tuxedoed Common Murre.

Tufted Puffin

Tufted Puffin

Tufted Puffin

Common Murre

Three more from Bear River

Water birds were not the only things we saw at the Bear River Refuge. There's apparently a healthy number of Ring-necked Pheasant there as well. We spotted four of them including this one who was courting a female in the grass and two other males who were in dispute over a prime corner lot.

Ring-necked Pheasant.

Two Black-ground Night Herons flew down and land a short distance away from us as we were stopped to look at other birds. They were, of course, juuuust out of sight for a camera shot. Later, as if to reward my patience, a third bird landed in the open where it posed for this shot.

Black-crowned Night Heron

And finally...there were lots of little grebes present on the water. The Eared and Horned Grebes stayed too far out on the water for any chance of a photo, but the Pied-billed Grebes were more accommodating...despite their curmudgeonly appearance.

Pied-billed Grebe

More from Bear River

Speaking of elegant wading birds...I present the Stilt.

American Stilt

This delicate little bird looks like it is walking on pink stilts.


An all white, medium sized egret at the refuge, the Snowy Egret was brought to the edge of extinction back int he 1800s when it was killed for its delicate, long plumes to decorate women's hats.

Snowy Egret

Another very common bird at the Bear River Refuge was American Coot.

American Coot

Shaped like a small, round duck (the rugby ball to the duck's football--short and squat vs aerodynamic), the Coot feeds on grasses and aquatic vegetation. Its wide, flat, feet allow it to walk on weed beds as well as stir up the shallows of a pond to up root submerged plants

One of the most colorful of the water fowls is the Cinnamon Teal.

Cinnamon Teal

And one of the largest is the White Pelican.

White Pelican

Five from Bear River Refuge

Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge is a fantastic place to go birding. The facility is new, the auto tour is long, the birds are numerous... the only poor aspect is the presence of mosquitoes and brine flies that can sometimes create clouds of "smoke" along side the road. Or land in such numbers on your windshield that it's difficult to look out at the birds. (If the latter happens just a word of advice: DO NOT TRY TO USE YOUR WINDSHIELD WIPERS TO CLEAR THEM OFF! The little buggers are greasy and all you'll do is leave an opaque smudge across the glass.)


Speaking of blurred views...you should also check your camera's setting before you start to take pictures. I forgot and still had the camera set for landscape views when I snapped the first shots on the bird refuge. The result was less than perfect.

Western Meadowlark (Slightly blurred. DOH!)

As loud as the Meadowlark's song was (and it was very, very loud) it couldn't compete with the Yellow-headed Blackbird.

Yellow-headed Blackbird

More numerous and less melodious, the Yellow-headed Blackbird didn't just vie for attention with musical notes, he hit you over the head with the tuba...and the bass fiddle...and the kettle drum for good measure. While walking around near the refuge headquarters, I kept looking for the forklift that was tooting it's horn only to discover that it was the Yellow-headed Blackbird and not some runaway from Home Depot.

Much quieter than the two birds above but just as numerous as the Yellow-headed Blackbird was the American Avocet.

American Avocet

This long-legged wading bird was found in the flooded fields between the refuge headquarters and the refuge proper and in the shallows pools of the refuge. The bird in this photo is almost out of his depth. They wade, not swim. The long up-swept bill, the salmon coloring of the head, the black and white body made them impossible to misidentify.

Another wading bird that was present in abundance was the White-faced Ibis.

White-faced Ibis

This bird is extremely similar to the Glossy Ibis but mature, breeding adults have a white outline around the eye and in the area where their bill meets their head. Both birds have a glossy multi-sheen black, red, green body color. Both have long black legs of a wading bird and both have very long bills for probing into the mud. Like most of the large wading birds, their flight is quite graceful as they glide in for a landing, stalling at the last minute and suspending themselves in the air momentarily before dropping their long, long legs straight down to touch down gently.

Swimming and diving water fowl also are abundant at the refuge. One of the most abundant divers--and among the most fun to watch--is the Western Grebe.

Western Grebe

A large grebe with a very long, bi-colored (black and white) neck, the Western Grebe has a most regal appearance--until it's time to mate. The two identical birds swim side by side and quickly cock their heads at 45 degree angles to the left, back to center, to the right and back to center. Over and over again as they swim along. If things click, the two may rear up on their webbed feet and run across the water, flapping their wings as the go. We didn't get to see the latter behavior--this time, but there was enough head swinging to give me whiplash.

Well, there are five birds we saw at the refuge. I'll post more in just a little while.

Bear Lake to Logan, Utah

When we left Cheyenne, WY to head to Logan, UT, we crossed over the border at Bear Lake. The lake itself is in both Utah and Idaho. We drove along the south end of the lake before heading west up and through Logan Pass/Canyon and the Wasatch-Cache National Forest to the city of Logan.

We stopped at the visitors' center along Logan Road to view back toward Bear Lake.

Bear Lake from the Logan Canyon Visitors' Center

It was along this road that we saw wildflowers and hummingbirds galore back in the summer of 1976 when we visited a friend who was attending Utah State in Logan. There's a nature trail along one of the small lakes along the road. This week we had to pass the lake by because there was still snow on the roads.

Further along the way toward Logan, we stopped at Ricks Spring which is adjacent to the road. The spring brings forth 40-50,000 gallons of water an hour during the spring. The water originates as snow melt further up the mountains. When everything is frozen in the winter, the spring dries up. This week, it was gushing.

Ricks Spring along Logan Canyon

Ricks Spring

Wyoming Photos

As I mentioned Tuesday night, we took a scenic route through parts of Wyoming. US Highway 287, and State Routes 28 and 30 were intertwined with several of the major migration routes of the 1800s. The Mormons hand carts, numerous covered wagon trains, and the Pony Express crossed or followed the path these roads take today.

It's easy to imagine what it must have been like to be involved with one of those enterprises as there are still wide open spaces along that route today. The Pony Express had way stations about 15 miles apart and from some points you can certainly see where the next station would have been located from the hills and rock outcrops behind or above another. The wagon trains would make between 10 and 20 miles in a day. They could easily see mountain ranges three times or more further away than that.

One of the guide posts for travelers on the Oregon Trail (and later the Pony Express) was Split Rock. Seen from miles away, it was as useful as a lighthouse on the sea in guiding migrants to a turning point on their trek across the continent. Later, one of the way stations for the Pony Express occupied a position at the base of the stone spire.

The view from Split Rock.

One thing that is impressive in Wyoming is their snow fence. Other places use wooden lathe or plastic fencing but Wyoming appears to use stadium bleachers. Constructed out of serious lumber (two-by frame with one-by slats) these "bleachers" run for miles and miles along the roadways in an effort to stop snow from drifting in the highways. They seem to work quite well, too. Some still had accumulated snow over three feet deep on their downwind sides.

Serious snow fence.

We drove through one or more towns that were listed as "ghost towns" on our maps and several others that might have been the setting for the original Tremors movie. Wide open spaces are certainly abundant. I worried a little when Terry said something about being able to dump a body a few yards off the road and never have to worry about anyone finding it. That comment made me drive a bit faster.

You often hear jokes about how small a town is due to it's haveing to rent a stop light for when the annual car comes through. How about when there's a stop light but no town? A construction work site in the middle of nowhere resulted in our sitting at a stop light miles from the nearest intersection and, seemingly, from the nearest human activity.

Stop light in Nowhere, WY.

Of course I stopped--and waited. It would be just my luck to pull up over that ridge you see and find the local equivalent of Barney Fife waiting with pen in hand and ticket book open.

Wednesday birding

Wednesday morning Terry and I left Logan, Utah and headed up over the mountains to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. It's a beautiful little ride that takes a little over an hour.

Once at the refuge, we stopped at the headquarters (which wasn't yet open) and then drove the 12 miles west to the refuge proper. Birding at the headquarters and along the drive to the actual auto loop tour was excellent. The auto loop itself is 12 miles long. The number of individual birds we saw was astronomical. American Avocets, White-faced Ibises, Yellow-headed Blackbirds, Western Grebes and others were present in huge numbers.

Here's the full list of the days tally. Only the species is indicated because the numbers were too large to attempt an actual count.



Location: Bear River Bird Refuge
Observation date: 5/13/09
Notes: A great place to go birding. Cool, clear morning. Twelve miles from the headquarters then another twelve mile auto tour. Too many birds to count individuals.
Number of species: 50

Canada Goose X
Gadwall X
Mallard X
Blue-winged Teal X
Cinnamon Teal X
Northern Shoveler X
Northern Pintail X
Canvasback X
Redhead X
Ruddy Duck X
Ring-necked Pheasant X
Pied-billed Grebe X
Horned Grebe X
Western Grebe X
Clark's Grebe X
American White Pelican X
Double-crested Cormorant X
Great Blue Heron X
Snowy Egret X
Black-crowned Night-Heron X
White-faced Ibis X
Northern Harrier X
American Coot X
Sandhill Crane X
Killdeer X
American Avocet X
Spotted Sandpiper X
Long-billed Curlew X
Bonaparte's Gull X
Franklin's Gull X
Ring-billed Gull X
California Gull X
Caspian Tern X
Common Tern X
Forster's Tern X
Mourning Dove X
Western Kingbird X
American Crow X
Common Raven X
Tree Swallow X
Northern Rough-winged Swallow X
Cliff Swallow X
Barn Swallow X
Marsh Wren X
Red-winged Blackbird X
Western Meadowlark X
Yellow-headed Blackbird X
Great-tailed Grackle X
Brown-headed Cowbird X
Bullock's Oriole X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)

We finished by returning to the headquarters and looking at the great displays they have there. I took lots of photos and some even came out pretty good. I'll post those and some from our little jaunt through Wyoming a bit latter.

It wasn't until nearly one in the afternoon before we were on the road again heading northwest to Idaho and eventually into Ontario, Oregon. Without the wind to blow us about and dropping several thousand feet in elevation, the truck seemed to enjoy the ride as much as we did as it posted its best gas mileage on the trip. Even while hitting 75 and 80 mph for long stretches, the Tundra got 19.4 mpg.

Windy day on the road

We traveled less today but it seemed like more. Starting in Cheyenne, we went west on I-80 then north on US Rt 287 to State Routes 30, 28, 89. This took us across southwest Wyoming and into Utah. The Wind River Range was visible much of the morning. Then we wend down the shore of Bear Lake and up over Logan Pass and through Logan Canyon to Logan, Utah.

I will never complain about the wind at the Aerie again. Today we traveled in gale force winds almost the entire day. Even when I should have been coasting down hills having 5 and 6% grades, the wind held me back forcing me to use the accelerator just to maintain my speed. When we stopped for fuel, the clerk at the store said the forecast was for 50 mph winds. We ran into gusts much higher than that passing through some of the gaps in the mountains. In one stretch, the wind, blowing into our face as we drove at 70-75 mph, separated the molding off the windshield's upper edge and nearly sucked the rubber off the groove on the driver's side of the roof. I managed to re-insert the roof strip, but the windshield molding was long gone when I noticed it was missing. (A strip of duct tape replaced the top molding on the windshield.)

Shortly after we turned on to US 287, we spotted our first of many, many pronghorn antelope. And then we spotted a Bald Eagle. During the day we saw several Magpies, Western Meadowlarks, numerous hawks and vultures including a Black Vulture. Common Egrets and California Gulls were spotted near the Sweetwater River.

Parts of our trip in Wyoming were through open range. We had done that once before back in 1976--at night--in the rain and fog north of Cody, Wyoming. Today's trip was a piece of cake in comparison. Despite the wind, the light of midday is much, much better conditions in which to travel. We managed to avoid one antelope and a White-faced Hereford calf that was trying to catch up to its mother who was already on the other side of the road.

On Route 28, virtually in the middle of nowhere, miles from the last intersection and from the next one, we came upon a sign saying we could expect road work for the next 11 miles. And then there was a stop light. In the middle of nowhere. We stopped and waited. And waited some more until, ten minutes after we stopped, a pilot vehicle showed up with a dozen other vehicles behind it. The pilot vehicle pulled over and allowed all the others to pass. It then turned around in front of me and led me through the one lane construction zone...all 11 miles of it. Not terribly unusual, of course, but it just seemed a bit surreal.

Tomorrow, we'll be going over the mountains from Logan to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.

Report from the road.

Terry and I are currently in Cheyenne, Wyoming after two days of driving across PA, OH, IL, IN, IA, and NE. We've covered between 1600 and 1700 miles of the 2800 total from the Aerie to Eugene, OR.

Sunday, Mother's Day, proved to be an excellent day to travel through Ohio and Illinois. The roads were empty and the weather was ideal. We ran into areas along I-80 where construction would have been happening on a weekday but, no one was at work. (I-80 is ALWAYS under construction in every state. I think they start at one end and rebuild the highway working from west to east. When they reach the east side of the state, they go back to their western border and start over again.) We managed to cover about 825 miles and made it just beyond Davenport, Iowa. Virtually no rain fell along our route although the southern parts of Indiana and Illinois got hammered with severe weather.

Monday was a good day on the road, too. We again traveled between 825 and 875 miles (I'll have to check the trip odometer in the morning) and the weather was gorgeous. We would have made even more distance but...well, Nebraska has three Cabela's that are close to I-80. We managed to pass the first at LaVista, but the one at Kearny--although very difficult to find due to poor signage--just called to us. And the original store in Sydney was just about the right time for our dinner stop. We managed to spend very little at each and could have picked up the items we did purchase using my accumulated points. (Total time "lost" at the two Cabela's was about 1 1/2 hours.)

We gained one hour each day as we crossed west from one time zone to another. This will not happen tomorrow, however, as we will only be going as far as the area north of Salt Lake City. We'll lose that time on our way east next week but it's making the trip westward quite nice.

Some observations from the road:

Along one stretch of I-80 in Ohio, where the road was three lanes wide, there were signs saying trucks and slower vehicles should use the right two lanes. This resulted in some slow cars remaining in the middle lane and slowing traffic down. Proper signage should have been: Keep right except to pass. No trucks in left lane.

The stretch of I-80/I-90 to the southeast of Chicago is still under construction. It has been under construction since at least 1993 when we did a tour of the western states with the kids.

Despite being very windy in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska, only Iowa had any sizable wind farms generating electricity. It also had very large corn farms producing corn for energy (ethanol) and has some of the largest refineries for ethanol production in the US. I am led to believe that these refineries have filed for bankruptcy. (Search "ethanol refineries" and "bankruptcy" and "Iowa" for a list of articles VeraSun is one company that has already been auctioned off under Chapter 11.)

Kansas may be super flat (as I reported when we drove out to Colorado a couple of years back) but so is much of Nebraska. And Nebraska is much, much larger than you think. Over 400 miles from the east side to the west, you could plop Pennsylvania into the eastern portion and still have over 100 miles on the west uncoverent by the Keystone State.

One good thing about Nebraska is the 75 mph speed limit. Although, traveling at that speed will really, really kill your mpg levels--especially since you are likely to be batteling a wind AND you are going up hill most of the time as you head west. The highest point in the state is where I-80 crosses into Wyoming.

There have been tons of calves born to the cattle in Iowa and Nebraska so don't feel badly about eating beef for dinner. The little ones dot the pastures in plentitude! (Oh, and as cute as the calves and their mommas are in the field, Terry says feed lots really, really, REALLY stink! But then, she can smell whether a coin is heads or tails from across a room crowded filled with curry loving Indians.)

Birding at 70-80 mph is extremely difficult--especially if you're the driver. We did spot some interesting birds along the way, however. Most were large as you might expect. In the flooded waters along I-80 in Illinois we spotted a horde of Common Egrets. Hawks abound along the highway verge and Terry identified many Red-tailed Hawks, a pair of Ferrigenous Hawks, a Swainson's Hawk, a couple of Kestrels, and perhaps a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Bank, Cliff and Tree Swallows could be seen at every crossing of the Platte River in Nebraska and we got very up close (perhaps too upclose as it smashed into the windshield of the truck) to a Rough-winged Swallow on Route 15 in PA. Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles, American Robins are far from engandered. Several times in the waning hours of the afternoon on Monday, we spotted Wild Turkeys in the fields between the highway and the Platte River in Nebraska.

With the distance we've made so far, we should have no trouble getting to Salt Lake City, Utah tomorrow. We will then see about doing some real birding in the evening and on Wednesday morning at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.

We got a phone call from Adam, who is babysitting our cats and keeping an eye on the Aerie for us. He had given each of the cats a whole can of moist food for dinner tonight and then though better of it when he took a look at the stock. He called to confirm that, yes, we feed them ALL just one can of food a day. That is, each cat gets just 1/3 of a can of food. If Adam continues to feed them each one can of food per day (he won't), Chester will look like a beach ball!

That's about all for now, time to hit the sack and get ready for what tomorrow may bring. I'm toying with the idea of getting off I-80 and doing some back country roads. We'll see how much time we have.