Jerry and Wanda Come to Yachats

 Our good friends and past neighbors from Carlsbad came to Yachats for a week, leaving yesterday.  They stayed in a beautiful Airbnb home overlooking Yachats and its little bay.  We enjoyed walks, meals, happy hours, and conversation almost daily.

We loved hanging out at their place and enjoying the view.

Wanda and Gail on the beach north of the 804 Trail.

The 804 Trail follows the shore along rocky shelves.  In the foreground is a monument to two young men who drowned in less than eight minutes after being swept off the rocks by a sneaker wave.  

Pileated Woodpecker

 Yesterday, we had a Pileated Woodpecker spending a long time chiseling away at a dying alder tree.  This woodpecker was cooperative and didn't fly away, but interfering leaves and facing the sun made it impossible to get great pictures.

North America's largest woodpecker, about the size of a crow.  This one is a male as evidenced by the red patch behind the base of its bill.

Pileated Woodpeckers dig for carpenter ants, grubs, and other insects.  

They are monogamous and the pair will defend its territory.  Since they use a nest hole only once, the holes left behind are used by other birds such owls and ducks, and also animals like martins.

I should have had a tripod.  Hand holding a telephoto lens aiming up, looking at a screen rather than being able to press a viewfinder against your head, while standing on a soft slope is a challenge (not to mention my less than steady hands).

Mountain Beaver

 Not far from our home, across the road, along an unused logging road we call "Bear Scratch", we noticed fresh burrows big enough to place a football in.  We suspected the two holes to be the work of Mountain Beavers, which are not beavers at all.  I placed a trail cam near the entrances and left it there for about 5 days.  I recommend enlarging the video to fully appreciate this unique animal.

Mountain Beavers are also called "boomers".  They are not beavers, but are more closely related to squirrels.  They are the only living members of their genus, Aplodontia.  Their primitive renal system requires them to have a constant supply of water or moisture as they cannot concentrate urine.  They are known as "living fossils".

Mountain Beavers are mostly solitary, and their burrow can have many entrances.  They are mostly nocturnal and crepuscular, and eat ferns and seedling trees.  They are seldom seen.

It's possible that this rabbit is using the Mountain Beaver's burrow, as it was recorded on the camera near this entrance on several occasions.  Mountain Beavers have tiny ears and a little stub of a tail.  They can climb trees to nibble on branches and leaves.  The forrest industry considers them pests.

Great Blue Heron

 This Great Blue Heron posed right in front of my trail cam late Saturday afternoon.

Recent Photos

 Below are some photos from the past two weeks.

Red-spotted Garter Snake

Northern Red-legged Frog

While tidepooling on a minus tide, I saw this nudibranch.  I don't know the species of this one (or any for that matter).  Okay, iNaturalist helped me determine this is a Sea Lemon.  Although this one is about 1.5 inches in length, they can get about 7 inches long.

Sea stars have made a remarkable recovery after having been decimated by sea star wasting disease.  Here, they are feeding on mussels.

 A family of Common Mergansers have been around, lately.  They are sure speedy underwater when chasing fish!

August 2nd, SWIFTY did a trip up to North Lincoln County to monitor Purple Martin nest boxes in several locations, and scope out possibilities for adding more boxes.  This is an area on the Siletz River where there are numerous Purple Martin boxes attached to old pilings.  I believe they were made and attached by Eric Horvath about 30 years ago.  He was a good friend of my brother Steve.  We plan to assist Eric build more boxes this winter, as many are falling apart.

Four of these five boxes had active Purple Martin nests, even the one missing its front.  

Paul, Jim, and Wally here.  We stopped at Devil's Lake to check out this potential spot.

This is a picture Jim took of Purple Martins in Florence.  The adult is flying in with an insect to feed one of the nestlings.

Unusual looking thistles we saw in the North County.  Update:  with the help of iNturalist, I learned this plant is wild teasel which is native to Europe, Asia, and North Africa.  The dried seed heads were used in the textile industry to raise (tease) the nap of fabrics.

We made a butterfly garden this year, planting butterfly bush, penstemon, Russian sage, sedum, Jerusalem sage, and devil's tobacco.  The poppies volunteered.  Weirdly,  we have had almost zero butterflies this year.  Last year, we had scads of swallowtail butterflies and had to constantly rescue them out of the greenhouse.  The native bees have been loving the garden, though.

Butterfly garden

I went overboard on squash this year, and can barely walk through the vegetable garden.  I like squash because it thrives and the deer don't eat it ( well, maybe a little nip here and there).

✌

What's This Owl Up To?

 Two nights ago my trail cam pointed at the river caught this owl, probably a Barred Owl.  I'm not sure if it was trying to catch something, bathing, or getting a drink. What do you think?

Below are some frame shots from the above video.

The Birds and the Bees

 "Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees... "    Jewel Akens would be in his glory here right now, as we certainly have birds and bees, and other natural delights, (although maybe his lyrics weren't literally about bees and flowers). 

Last Friday I rode my e-bike over the mountains to Eckman Lake east of Waldport.  It was a 31 mile round trip with about 25 miles being on gravel Forest Service roads.  It is a bit of a maze of logging roads, usually unmarked.  Fortunately, I have a good map app that shows my location via satellite.   

Bye for now 😎

Bears

 We left a trail cam on the Carson Creek abandoned logging road for the past 8 days.  This is about 3 miles from our home.  We didn't get much, but we did get a couple different bears on their commute.

This bear looks plump and healthy.

This skinny bear went off the trail to come sniff out the camera and give it a good whack.  

La De Da!

 July 4th is the annual La De Da Parade in Yachats.  It seems that half the town is in it, including SWIFTY.

Gail and I carried the banner followed by a puffin, otter, and swallow kites.  My birdhouse played musical bird themed earworms; Rockin' Robin, Surfin' Bird, and Fly Like An Eagle. Gail got a lot of attention for her creative costume!

Wally was ahead of us with the Trails Committee, but I know he really wanted to be with SWIFTY.

It was a beautiful day for a parade.  The vibe was all smiles and no partisan politics. Photo by Quinton Smith.

The temperature was in the 60's at the parade, but 8 miles up the river at our house it was 96.  The next day, the 5th, it reached 103 degrees.  It is 103 again today.  We have spent the last two afternoons floating and swimming in the river.

A Summery Two Weeks

 The following is a bit of a mish mash of what's been happening around River Song and beyond the past couple weeks.

We've been enjoying sitting out on the decks after a day of physical activity.  Summer, ahhh!

On the 20th, we took a day trip to Eugene.   The first stop was the Cascades Raptor Center.

We toured the grounds seeing the many resident raptors that can't be released, mostly because they have imprinted on humans.  Behind the scenes are the avian hospital and enclosures designed to minimize the sight of and contact by humans while the birds receive care. This falcon flew to the perch this boy is holding.

Lethe, the Turkey Vulture, hatched in 2000.  He was released in a state park, but despite efforts to keep him from imprinting on humans where he was raised, he kept flying down to pull at park visitors' shoe laces and had to be brought back to captivity.

A Barn Owl with its handler.

This huge owl is an Eurasian Eagle-owl.

Next, we went to a gallery exhibit to see a show that included works by Russian born artist Olga Volchkova.  Her exhibit was titled Florae Animalia.  Each painting included plant that referenced an animal in its name, and that animal.  There were amazing details and clever elements that became apparent the more you looked.  Pictures and reprints did not do justice to the brilliant colors and three dimensional effects of her originals.

Foxglove, a fox, and its heart.  Foxglove is a source of digitalis, a heart medicine.

That might be Momma Bear Manzanita and a momma bear.  

Speaking of foxglove, it is blooming wild in our yard right now.

On the 18th, Marty and I were checking on and bringing in duck nesting boxes.  We crossed this meadow where a herd of elk were grazing.  They took off, and a few minutes later we saw them again at a marsh. They ran through the water sending up big sprays and making a quite a commotion.  It was a National Geographic moment.

Three out of the five boxes we checked had successful hatchings of Wood Duck eggs.

Speaking of ducks, we got another trail cam video of April with her three ducklings on the 16th.  The ducklings have really grown!

Marty has taught me how to determine how many eggs in a duck nest have hatched.  You dig through the nesting material and find all the large pieces of egg membrane, and count those to determine how many ducklings hatched.  There will be smaller pieces of membrane and little pieces of egg shell, also.

This is April's nest, and the 10 larger pieces of egg membrane in the upper left show that she had 10 eggs hatch.  Of the 10, apparently only 3 made it past the first month.  When they hatched, we had just had 3.6 inches of rain and the river was running fast and high which could have accounted for the mortality.  It's a tough life for animals in nature, always living on the edge.

Speaking of living on the edge, below are a couple pictures of a recently abandoned campsite about a mile and a half above us.  Those people were there for about three years, even though National Forest policy is you can only stay in one place for two weeks.  We notified the U.S.N.F.S.  about this over two years ago, and they were already aware of this site.  Because they did nothing, the camp grew and spread.  Vandals already shot out the windows.  I have read that it can cost the Forest Service up to $30,000 to remove just one old trailer or RV due to the asbestos in them.  This site has three RV's and a utility trailer, not to mention piles of junk and old tires.  It also looked like stolen luggage was lying around as there were suitcases, piles of cosmetics, and other stuff that seemed out of character.  No telling how long this will remain there.