North Coast Diaries

2007 Year in Review

We had a pretty good year on the Lower Columbia, full of unusual events, new discoveries and remarkable returns.

It's probably appropriate to start with the news that's generated the most buzz even though it comes at the end of the year and that would be the ARCTIC LOON which was found in Blind Slough, Brownsmead in early December. It's been so cooperative that nearly everyone who has come to see it has gone away happy. Other divers are also hanging out along the slough in higher numbers including COMMON, PACIFIC and RED-THROATED LOONS, WESTERN GREBES and lots of juvenile DOUBLED-CRESTED CORMORANTS pretending to be Yellow-billed Loons.

Way back in February and March the big news was along the beach. Remarkable numbers of RHINOCEROS AUKLETS and HORNED PUFFINS were washing up dead. No comprehensive explanation has been put forth, though poisoning and disease were more or less ruled out. At least 3 MOTTLED PETRELS and a THICK-BILLED MURRE were also found on beach surveys.

In May, word came through the scientific journals that the Saddle Mountain populations of COPE'S GIANT SALAMANDER were genetically distinct enough to constitute an evolutionary unit. The distribution of Cope's Salamanders in the Oregon Coast range is not well understood, so I undertook a mission to find them in places not previously reported. Lee Cain and I started along the South Fork of Quartz Creek where Ronald Nussbaum had found them in the early 1970's, but where none had been reported since. We found lots of them. Over the course of the summer and early fall I was able to confirm Cope's in at least 5 other streams including northeastern Tillamook County for a first county record.

David Bailey found a LAUGHING GULL on Del Rey Beach in August which was relocated about a week later at Seaside Cove. At least I'm pretty sure it was the same bird relocated.

In butterfly news this was another CALIFORNIA TORTOISESHELL year with obvious northward movements in the spring and a fairly strong southbound movement . The fall movement included some strong VARIEGATED MEADOWHAWK movements when the wind blew from the east. Odd-year GREAT ARCTICS were noted on Saddle Mountain, but wet, cool weather made finding them a bigger challenge than usual. A PERSIUS DUSKYWING was found in September in southeast Clatsop. September is unusually late for this species. The apparent freshness of this individual suggest it may have been from a rare 2nd brood.

A couple of storms in late November and early December made some remarkable changes to the local landscape. The December storm combined the energy of a North Pacific cyclone with two Japanese typhoons and blew for 36 hours straight with winds gusting to 120mph. Acres and acres of trees blew down, some pushed over at the roots, others snapped at the trunk. It's unclear how folks will respond to the changes, though I suspect mostly through "salvage", leaving way too many naked slopes and landslide/erosion hazards. The hazards of bare slope logging were made evident by the massive landsliding between Westport and Clatskanie, though forest managers are still in denial.

The Columbia Estuary Count was marked by a couple of notable returns. The BARROW'S GOLDENEYE that has spent 7 winters in front of the Astoria Dairy Queen was there again this season. More surprising was a RED-NAPED SAPSUCKER in the very same tree where one was seen last year. We are assuming it's the same individual.

Columbia Estuary CBC 2007

The Columbia Estuary Christmas Bird Count was conducted Sunday, December 16. We had better weather than predicted, but the birding was tough. Nothing seemed to want to come out and be counted. We finished the day at 126, the count week included 4 additional species.

I have included a few snaps of species seen on count day. The most notable of which are a RED-NAPED SAPSUCKER which we found in the same tree where one was found last year (we assume its the same bird) and a BARROW'S GOLDENEYE which has been at the same spot in front of the Dairy Queen for 7 winters.

Arctic Loon at Blind Slough

Yesterday, I was lucky to come across a concentration of mixed divers including Western Grebes, Common, Pacific and Red-throated Loons and Double Crested Cormorants along Blind Slough, Brownsmead, Clatsop Co. Among them was this (apparently first winter) Arctic Loon.

There are fewer than five accepted records for this species in Oregon.

Thoughts on a perfect storm

Beginning around noon on December 2, the front edge of a pretty nasty storm hit the coasts of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. We get winter storms with high wind warnings three or four times a year. It's not unusual for trees to get knocked down or the power to go out, but this storm was different than any storm I'd seen in twenty years of living here and folks with longer histories in the area agree this was something for the record books.

We are told by the weather service that this storm was actually three storms- a classic winter cyclone, plus two typhoons from Japan: Typhoon Mitag and Typhoon Hagibis. The warm air supplied by the typhoons provided huge amounts of energy to power the storm. The sustained winds here in Astoria maxed out at about 50mph with gusts to 85mph. The radio reports wind gusts elsewhere to 120mph. But what made the storm so frightening, so maddening, so recording-breakingly unusual was the duration. It kept going and going. Our house rattled and shook from 18:00hr Sunday evening until close to 22:00hrs Monday evening with little or no break.

Some are saying this was a 100-year storm and will never happen again, others are saying that global climate change is warming the oceans and this is a mere glimpse of things to come.

When I stepped outside into the breaking daylight on Monday morning, the wind still blowing at 40mph with 60mph gusts, my first thought was: it's warm, nearly 60°F. It had been in the low 30's with snow only the day before. My second thought was: holy shit, the neighbor's chimney is in my driveway.

Yeah, one neighbor lost his chimney, another most of the shingles on his roof. A big spruce blew down up the block and took off the corner of a house. Powerlines were down. Trees were down. Windows were blown out. There was debris and trash everywhere. But it could have been so much worse. That's perhaps easier for me to say, because I didn't have to deal with significant property damage and my only hardship was 4 days with no power and no heat. The folks who got flooded out up around Westport when the dikes broke, the folks in Vernonia and the folks in Chehalis, Washington, they had it worse. But still.

I had a chance today to get down to Seaside. One of the early casualties of this storm was the call router for the phone system and I wanted to check on friends who I'd been unable to contact by phone. There's a pattern to the way the trees came down. Ornamentals in the neighborhoods were pulled out by their roots. The non-native pines at Sunset Beach and Surfpine, snapped at about breast-height. Lone spruces left as sentinels in dairy pastures and alders along road-cuts took some serious hits. Most of the worst land-sliding was in places below recent clearcuts. Native forests left to stand together and riparian willow breaks seemed least affected.

I suspect that downed trees will be labeled damage by the accountants of this storm and the arguement will be made that the downed trees must be salvaged, but trees fall down, it's an ecological fact. A tree in the act of meeting its ecological destiny may damage a powerline or house, may block a road, but a tree fallen to the ground continues to work recycling nutrients, providing living space for a host of organisms and a growing platform for the trees that will replace it. Damage is a word to describe the how the storm has affected our human infrastructure. It is out of place in the description of a dynamic and truely healthy forest ecosystem. Change is not damage.

We can make the same arguement about the floods this storm unleashed. The rush of water from the hills after the rain has signaled to the salmon. They've returned to spawn in the days following the storm. At least 30 were seen in Thompson Creek. I saw a single Jack in Coho Creek. Boneyard Creek, Shan-gri-la and Neawanna all have new fish. The toll on our human infrastructure, on the lives of people living on land prone to flooding has been devastating, and no glass-half-full philosophising can diminsh that. But floods do happen and the aboriginal plants and animals of these spaces seem to have survival figured out better than we do.

The Anna's Hummingbird that feeds at our fuschias was back at it Monday afternoon with winds still between 25-30mph. The jays and sparrows and kinglets started moving out from where ever they hid during the storm, soon after. An Araneus Spider had its web up outside our window Tuesday morning. The Cackling Geese and the Dunlin have found the grassy high spots in the mostly flooded fields. Surprisingly little has washed up dead on the beach from out on the ocean.

The neighbor's roof repairs are nearly finished. The downed trees in the neighborhood are being rapidly converted to firewood. And we have a working furnace at our house, again.

It could have been worse.