Hi Dave & all,
My brother and I walked a full loop around the spit (from the boat ramp to
the jetty and back up the beach) yesterday evening, at Beverly's
recommendation. Although I'm not as experienced with what habitats have
what potential, I tend to agree that we don't hear as many reports from
Nehalem Bay SP as one might expect, considering the variety of high-quality
habitat on the spit. The mix of complex, shorebird friendly bayshore,
brushy interior habitat with a mix of trees and scotch broom, a jetty, the
large beach, and the interior seasonal ponds that Beverly mentioned, there
seems to be extensive potential for most of the kinds of water and land
bird migrant diversity we expect on the coast. When filled in spring and
later fall, I imagine the seasonal ponds, with many reeds and willows
bordered by the Spit's normal brush, definitely have potential to host
pssserine vagrants.
We weren't on the bay at high tide, when shorebirds might have proved more
numerous, but we still found 11 Baird's Sandpipers, over a hundred peeps on
the distant bay flats north of the boat landing, and a Wandering Tattler on
the beach side next to the jetty. We were very impressed with the location,
considering how little we knew about it before.
Good birding,
Caleb Centanni
On Fri, Sep 7, 2018, 8:11 AM David Irons <LLSDIRONS@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Greetings All,
This past weekend Shawneen and I spent most of two days birding Nehalem
Spit in northern Tillamook County. I'm not sure what possessed me to
suggest to Shawneen that we focus on this area, perhaps the fact that it is
sort away from traditional weekend beachgoer destinations. I came away more
than impressed by the possibilities of this place. Despite that fact that
the weather was nice and there weren't big numbers of any shorebirds
around, we found a nice array of species and enjoyed closeup views of all
of them, including ten-plus Baird's Sandpipers and a nice juvenile
Buff-breasted Sandpiper (joined by a second the next day).
What most impressed me was the bayside mudflat habitat just to the south
of the boat ramp at Nehalem Bay State Park. There is a mix of mud, drier
sand, dense patches of Salicornia and cobble beds generally above the high
tide line where we found a variety of small shorebirds roosting at high
tide. In structure, it reminded me of the way the ponds at the base of the
South Jetty of the Columbia River used to look before they plugged a gap in
the jetty that allowed a lot more water to flood in there at high tide.
Back in the day, the jetty ponds were far more open and unvegetated. They
consistently attracted rare shorebirds, including the state's first (and
only) Spotted Redshank, Long-toed Stint, Red-necked Stint, plus birds like
Ruff, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and Buff-breasted Sandpiper. The latter three
species were essentially annual there in the late 70s and through the
1980s. Although not as ideal in terms of geography, I think that the
Nehalem Bay flats might consistently produce these types of rarities with
more intense coverage. I know that Bev Hallberg and David Mandell visit
this area fairly regularly, but I haven't seen too many other reports.
About a mile south of the boat ramp there is a sandy wash where gulls and
potentially shorebirds might gather. It strikes me as a miniature version
of the "Crab Dock Cove" near the south jetty at the mouth of the Siuslaw
River (near Florence). We found a nice mix of gulls here on Sunday and the
flock of Baird's Sandpipers used this area some. The long stretch of cobble
beach between this wash and the flats by the boat ramp were used by
roosting Semipalmeted Plovers, Baird's Sandpipers, Western Sandpipers, a
Least Sandpiper and one juvenile Semipalmated Sandpiper this past weekend.
The open beach on the ocean side of the spit did not have that many birds
this weekend, but we did find three juvenile Snowy Plovers. The general
scarcity of people (even during Labor Day Weekend) between the parking lot
at the end of the road through the state park and the north jetty at the
bay mouth give me hope that this can long stretch of wide beach (about 2.5
miles) might collect large flocks of shorebirds during spring migration and
earlier in the fall when larger numbers are passing through. Unlike the
densely crowded beaches right in Rockaway to the south and Manzanita to the
north, there were only a smattering of beach walkers on this isolated
stretch of beach and I don't think any of them had dogs with them. It takes
some walking, but I think it is well worth it. This looks like a great
beach for large and small plovers, godwits and Whimbrel, Snow Buntings,
longspurs and who knows what else.
I've included some screen grabs of Google Maps satellite images and a
couple of my own close-up photos of the bayside habitat that I describe
above. Going forward, we intend to focus more of our spring and fall
shorebirding efforts on Nehalem Spit and it's definitely a spot we'll check
during late fall and winter.
Dave Irons
Beaverton, OR
