Latest Happenings

This past two week report includes photos of visitors, animal sightings, and our activities.  We are still in cutting back the jungle mode, but transitioning to watering mode.

On Saturday the 29th, Lorie, Brian, and Wyatt came to camp, leaving the next morning.  Gail was up in Forest Grove taking a series of  book arts classes that she had signed up for months ago, but this was the only weekend that was going to work for a visit.

 They drove down to the bocce ball area and set up their camper. Wyatt slept in the cabana by the river.

 It was a beautiful and warm day, just right for crickn', as Brian says.

 The boys floated for a couple hours despite numb buns.

Our barbecue turned out great!

 Last Friday, Gail and I hiked into the Drift Creek Wilderness to Drift Creek.  This is a pristine river that has an important salmon run.

We didn't see another person all day, but there may have been ferals living in the forest. After rock hopping a little way up the creek we came upon two miniature vegetable gardens. This one had a tomato plant and herbs.

Meanwhile back home, we have two nesting families of swallows. That is a tree swallow on the left, and a violet-green swallow on the right.

Last Saturday, we joined the Cape Perpetua BioBlitz to document as many different species as we could to iNaturalist. The data will be used to monitor life at the seashore and coastal forest all the way up past our house.

We did some entries from the tidepools at Neptune State Park which is part of the area's marine preserve.

 Gail BioBlitzing.

The sea stars along the pacific coast had been decimated by sea star wasting disease, but they are coming back very well here at Neptune. The current epidemic started around 2014.  How many sea stars do you see in this picture?

Saturday afternoon, we hike up the 5300. At the bottom of the road were a number of dragonflies. One was mostly white, which we thought could have been fungus or a different species from the others.

 It turned out that most were female Common Whitetail Dragonflies like the one above.

And this is the male Common Whitetail Dragonfly.

A check of the "river cam" a couple days ago revealed:

Northern Flicker

Raccoon

Deer

Mink

Gail spotted this Barred Owl while we were hiking yesterday in the middle of the day.  She is a phenomenal spotter!!!

It had a devastating injury to its right eye that didn't look recent.

It seemed to be behaving normally, preening, yawning once, and rotating its head.

Barred Owls have been expanding their range from the Northeast and are considered an invasive species in Oregon. They are similar to the threatened Northern Spotted Owl and out-compete it for its scarce nesting sites in old growth forests.

"By turning my head, you won't be able to see me. Ha!"

On this jaunt up the 5300 we also saw a drumming Pileated Woodpecker, and a Red-breasted Nuthatch.