Although the adultish Lesser Black-backed Gull that Tye Jeske and I found at
Stonefield Beach, Lane Co today was the obvious highlight (Tye will post pics
soon), we had a generally excellent day out.
The gull was with about sixty others, mostly Cals, hanging out at the mouth of
the creek at Stonefield wayside, maybe seven miles south of Yachats. The best
access is the south side of the bridge, as you can get at the whole beach with
good light. We went briefly to Yachats to find a phone signal to post this
bird. By the time others got there half an hour later it was gone.
This morning we saw two imm and one adult Northern Shrike along s jetty road at
Florence. That is a lot of shrike action for a four-mile drive on the central
coast. A latish Osprey was over the jetties. Very heavy surf made visibility
patchy there but at least 2000 Surf scoters were off the jetties.
At the jetties and every other site there was a steady flow of southbound
pelicans, Heermann's and loons, mostly Pacific.
At Klootchman we saw nine Marbled Murrelets and a light but steady flow of Red
Phalaropes. A single flyby Ancient Murrelet was my first of the season.
At the end of the day we decided to make a brief stop at the Waite Ranch gate
near Cushman with Sean Burns, who had also joined us much of the morning (the
poor weevil left us ten minutes before we found the gull). We were astonished
to find FOUR White-tailed Kites over the grassy marsh of Waite. That is more
than I have seen in one place on the coast for at least a decade.
During the day we also enjoyed the short-term birding companionship of Sally
Hill, Diane Pettey and Magnus Persmark.
Tye can add any other highlights he wants to.
Alan Contreras
Eugene, Oregon
acontrer56@xxxxxxxxx
Sent from my iPhone
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