Winter Vacation I

Posted at 4:16 PM, Friday, February 22, 2008

Believe it or not, this is winter weather at Pacific City! We conducted or dead bird surveys on Sunday and Monday and enjoyed some rare sunshine.


It felt as warm as the day we were married on the beach in August. It just goes to show how you can expect any weather at any time of the year at the coast. Andie enjoyed the surveys as usual and we found plenty of birds.




At Bob Straub, the weather started out sunny, then some dark clouds moved in from the north while the sun kept shining in the south, making for an amazing light show. The gulls, sanderlings, and dunes ful-out glowed against the dark backdrop.




Speaking of sanderlings, Andie gave us a big surprise by chasing one of the small shorebirds in a big circle along the beach. Despite the fact that the bird was flying as fast as possible with its long, pointed wings, Andie had a real chance of catching the bird if we had not called her back. We hope she has the chasing out of her system because we do not want her to interfere with out bird watching, let alone injure a bird.

At our two beaches, we found four northern fulmars, two glaucous-winged gulls, one common murre, one western grebe, one Brandt's cormorant, one western gull, and one short-tailed shearwater. 

After we finished our surveys, our vacation continued on to the north. More posts about the trip to follow....