Duck Success!

 The Hooded Merganser, April, and her ducklings have left the nest.  When I checked the trail cam last night, I saw no activity for the 18th, but a whole series of shots were taken on the 17th that had nothing on them.  The shots on the 17th were mostly at mid day, and I think the little ducklings were coming out of the entry hole and falling faster than the camera could catch them.  After seeing no activity on the cam today, the 19th, I decided to take a look in the nest box.  All the ducklings and April were gone, and there were no dead ducklings.  The egg shells were broken into small fragments, so I couldn't estimate how many eggs were laid.  There were some down feathers present.

April on Monday the 16th.

The nest today, Thursday the 19th.

There are fewer and fewer old trees and snags with cavities available for cavity nesting ducks.  Installing duck boxes can make up for some of this loss.  I have moved both my trail cams to the edge of the river, one upstream from the duck box, and one downstream.  It would be very cool to get a video of the new family!

Sarah Comes to Yachats

 My sister Sarah, who lives in Anchorage, Alaska, came to visit us the past 5 days.  She stayed in the luxurious Overleaf Lodge in a top floor suite perched over the stormy ocean washing over the rocks below.  We spent the days together here at River Song, and two evenings with Lorie and Brian.

We are having record setting rains this spring, with 9.69 inches of rain so far in May.  The outlook is for continued wet and cool weather through the end of June.  The garden may not be so great this year if things don't warm up.

Gail loves to host tea parties for our infrequent guests.  Sarah gets the full treatment!

On Wednesday evening, we had dinner up at Lorie's and Brian's home overlooking the Yaquina Bay in Newport.

Sarah and Daisy hitting it off.

Sarah and Gail at the stone shelter at the top of Cape Perpetua.

It was a very relaxing visit with short strolls around the property, long conversations, and just plain goofing around.

Hopefully, I will have a few more photos to share when I get them from Sarah and Gail.

Duck Nest Box Has A Taker

 Our duck box finally has an occupant. On April 25, I was about to weedwhack near the box, but thought I should make sure there weren't signs of a bird nesting in it.  While I was sniffing around it, to my surprise, a Hooded Merganser flew out the entry hole about a foot from face.  I was initially afraid that if she was still in  the process of laying eggs, she might not come back.  That night I set up a trail cam to see if she was continuing to use the box.  Sure enough, she has been coming and going several times a day ever since.  We call her "April".  She is usually so fast coming and going that the camera misses her, or I just get a blur.  A few times I've been lucky, though.  Below are a couple shots that came out pretty good.

"April", on April 30th, going out for food.

Today, May 4th, April coming in.

Hooded Mergansers lay a clutch of 5-13 eggs, which take about 33 days to incubate.  They all hatch within a few hours of each other and the chicks all leave within 24 hours of hatching.  They climb out of the box as the mother calls to them.  She will stay with them for about 70 days.  

It would be awesome to see her with her ducklings swimming on the river!

April Eleventh Updates

 

Saturday, SWIFTY met with Jack Hurt, on the left, an avid birder who has a lot of experience establishing Purple Martin Colonies on the Oregon Coast.  A short distance from his home is the Ghost Forest, a long stretch of ancient spruce stumps emerging from the sand.  Jack showed us some of his colonies and kindly answered all our questions.  Yesterday, Jim and Wally installed the Purple  Martin apartment at Beaver Creek that State Parks bought for our project. 

It is believed that this spruce forest was overwhelmed by a tsunami, which buried the trunks in debris and sand caused by the resulting landslides and a drop in the land from the earthquake. This occurred about 2,000 years ago and the stumps were finally exposed in the winter of 1997-98 by a series of storms that washed out the sand that had buried and preserved them.  

The wildflower "bleeding hearts" are blooming all around the house, lately.

On a hike up above Keller Creek is an area of young alders, many of which are used by elk to rub the velvet off of their antlers.

That is a black bear we saw recently not far from the house on an old logging road that we had named "Bear Scratch Trail" due to a number of alders with bear claw gouges on the trunks.  Daisy went ballistic so we had to turn around.

My e-bike finally came!  I've been having fun riding to town and back and going far up the forest service roads.  This bike is a beast, very sure-footed and has plenty of power.  It has 5 levels of assist with level 5 providing the most motor power. So far, I have only used levels 1 and 2.

I also have an e-dog to pull me up the trails!

Trillium is the first wildflower to bloom here.

Much work was done on the Amanda Trail at Cape Perpetua.  A suspension bridge was constructed to replace a smaller bridge that had washed out from a landslide.  The grotto area, above, has a statue to honor Amanda De-Cuys, an old, blind Native American woman who represents members of a forced, horrific march up the coast to the reservation that was in Yachats.  Many donors, organizations, landowners, and agencies came together to make the renovations possible.  

   Gail and Daisy crossing the 142 foot long bouncy bridge.  Daisy was not too comfortable with the sensation!  We did the 3.7 mile climb to the top of Cape Perpetua on this day.

Gail found a couple more large agates at Ocean Beach.  

We've had a couple Pileated Woodpeckers liking our dead alders, lately.  They are North America's largest woodpecker.

The Tree Swallows, and a few Violet Green Swallows, have been showing up in small flocks off and on.  They haven't settled in yet, but should start claiming our nest boxes soon.  They are checking out the boxes and discussing floor plans and such.

Our little fish pond is frog heaven.  Here are 4 bullfrogs paying their respects to Mr. Ceramic frog.

I had seen a few large steelhead trout about 3 weeks ago, and was sitting at my "sitting spot" waiting for a photo op, when this mammal came swimming rapidly by.  I think it's an otter, but I'm not totally sure.  It went by so fast, and surfaced just for and instant.  I thought it was a salmon until I looked at the camera.

From our living room we have seen elk several times, recently.  They are in the pasture on the other side of the river.  Elk in the rain.

We have a male Ruffed Grouse below the house that has been doing his chest thumping daily.  Here he is running like a little chicken.  We have also had a Sharp-shinned Hawk that has been swooping in on birds around the feeder.  

SWIFTY Beaver Creek Project

 Wally and I made good progress on getting the nest boxes for Tree Swallows and Violet-green Swallows finished and installed at the Beaver Creek Natural Area.  Jim is still out of state, but helping to coordinate the project with State Parks.

Wally with one of  the 17 swallow boxes we put in.  Swallows immediately started landing on them and inspecting them - yeah!  Notice the 2 smaller holes on each side of the entry hole. These are for the babies to stick their mouths out for food, as usually one baby will stay  in the entry hole and hog all the food.  Now the others will have a better chance of getting enough.

There is a swallow perched on top of the pole and others flying around like bats.  A pair of Tree Swallows will eat about 300,000 flying insects during their 45 day nesting period, and about 40% of those will be flies. They deserve handcrafted cedar homes for that!

A pan of the area next to the Beaver Creek Welcome Center where we have replaced old boxes and installed new ones, as well as adding more.  We also put up a chickadee box near a feeder that had many Chestnut-backed Chickadees going to it.

Our next step is to install predator guards on all the poles to keep out raccoons, squirrels, and cats.  Also, we have a great tip on a location for another screech owl box.  Lastly, we still plan to put up an apartment complex for Purple Martins and hopefully start a colony.  

Marchin' Along

By the end of February, we finally started getting some pre-spring color in the yard.

Crocuses

Hellebore

Daffodils

Daisy posing on one of our favorite stumps at Cape Perpetua.

We had a cold snap for a few days that dropped temperatures into the low 20's by dawn.  This is at our swimming hole - not too inviting right now.

Gail went to a high tea at a Victorian mansion in Eugene.  The theme was "Steampunk".  She sat with two friendly ladies whose hobby is to travel to high teas throughout the west.  

Trippy patterns in the sand.

I've been left in charge of  SWIFTY duties the past couple weeks as Wally and Jim are out of state.  Yesterday, I worked with Jordan of Oregon State Parks to install 10 nest box posts at Beaver Creek State Natural Area.  The posts that State Parks obtained were thick steel waterpipe, and were 10.5 feet long, which meant we had to drive them 3.5 feet deep.  It took 20-30 minutes for each post.  We did 7 and will do the other 3 tomorrow.  State Parks is providing us with all the materials and Jordan's help.

By the time we were done, we had bonded over beating our brains out  with that driver.  It was a beautiful day with many swallows circling around and a Northern Harrier cruising over the adjacent marsh.  Today, we have strong winds and pouring rain.  Such is the Oregon coast.

 

Susanna Rocks the Drums

Andria passed along this short video of Susanna, who doesn't miss a beat, literally and figuratively. She's hot on the heels of her mother and brother!

Nest Box Project, Bobcat Video, and Mary's Peak

 With no rain over the past eight days (until today), we were able to enjoy more outdoor activities, and get two roof leaks repaired (a big leak in Gail's studio, and a sky light leak in the house).

SWIFTY

Earlier this month Jim and I met with the head district Oregon States Park manager, Brian Fowler, and park ranger Jordan, to discuss the renovation on the existing bird nest boxes at Beaver Creek State Natural Area, as well as make plans for the addition of more nest boxes.  The nest boxes are for species that are in decline.  Both rangers were enthusiastic and committed to funding all our requests.  Building cedar homes is not cheap with today's high lumber prices!  Wally couldn't make this meeting as he gashed his leg on a greenhouse fan the day before.

We began some of our work this past Wednesday by installing a screech owl box, a chickadee box, and a trial run of one of the many tree swallow  / violet-green swallow boxes that we'll install in the coming weeks.  We also further fine tuned our plans.

Jim holds the ladder for Wally as he hoists the Screech owl box up as high as he can.

Screech owl box in place.

Yippee!

We installed one of our swallow boxes near the Welcome Center.

We will be installing around 15 swallow boxes, a couple chickadee boxes (one with a camera for visitors to observe), and will try to establish a purple martin colony that will have a condominium of 12 gourds.  Since it is hard to establish a new colony, we will use aids such as decoys and audio tracks of their sounds.  

On the drive back to Yachats, we stopped to admire this sand art on the beach at Seal Rock.  Jim knew the artist and says she can make perfect circles without the aid of any instruments.  She just walks and drags her rake behind.

Bobcat

This bobcat was prowling around at 9:30 AM as well as at night.  This morning while I was shaving, I saw probably the same one cruise by the bathroom window at 10:00 AM.  We'll have to keep the cats inside unless we are out with them.

Mary's Peak

We made a return trip to Mary's Peak on Friday.  This is the highest peak in Oregon's coastal range and usually would be hard to access this time of the year due to unmaintained roads, deep snow, and downed trees.  With the weather quite dry (for Oregon) the past couple months we decided to give it a go as the forecast looked great.

We parked at the 2,700 foot level and did the 8 mile round trip hike up to the peak at 4,101 feet.

The north side near the top had some good snow, which Daisy loves.

On the top you could see Cascade peaks all the way to Mt. Rainier in Washington!  Looking west through binoculars, I could see surf breaking near Waldport.

That's Mt. Hood in the distance.

Daisy loves to roll and scoot in the snow.  She was even eating it.