Sunday, April 26th, 2015 Bandon, Oregon; Monday, April 27th, Bandon to Port Orford, Oregon

Sunday, April 26th, 2015, Bandon, Oregon

The temperature this morning is 46 degrees and heavy overcast skies with no wind. We walked from our motel out to check out the seastacks. We were very excited to find a Tufted Puffin sitting quietly outside his hole in the middle of the Elephant Island. There was a Peregrin Falcon perched on the other end of the rock island, of course with all the murres, cormorants and gulls crowded at the top.

Tufted Puffin

We birded around Bandon including Bandon Dunes State Park, Bandon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge where we saw these striking blue-flowered shrubs and Marsh Wrens entertained us with their songs.

We visited Bullards Beach State Park and the retired Bandon Lighthouse. 

We had a constant chorus from White-crowned Sparrows every place we stopped.

We kept crossing paths with the same birders at each place and sharing information.  We discovered a couple were guiding two women, and were kind enough to clue us in on several spots to look. We had lunch with Ron and Midge (the couple) at Tony's Crab Shack (highly recommended) and they encouraged us to drive to Cape Arago and Shore Acres.

On Cape Arago we stopped at Simpson Reef, the largest marine mammal haul out in Oregon, featuring thousands of harbor and northern elephant seals and Steller's and California sea lions.

The beautiful, rugged coast at Cape Arago

The formal gardens at Shore Acres, the estate of early timber baron and shipbuilder Louis Simpson. Though the mansion is gone, the extensive botanical gardens are open to the public. Perched on a bluff high above the Pacific, Shore Acres began as a private estate with luxurious gardens featuring trees and plants from around the world. The restored gardens continue to attract thousands of visitors.

Known as "Prickly Rhubarb", the Gunnera tinctoria is from Chile

The gardens include a Japanese-style garden built around a 100-foot lily pond

One of the more curious trees was the Mexican Weeping Pine

Today our eyes were on the following new trip birds: Tufted Puffin, Peregrin Falcon, Pigeon Guillemot, Black Oystercatcher, Barn Swallow, Tree Swallow, Marsh Wren, Orange-crowned Warbler, Chestnut-sided Chickadee, Red Crossbills, Bushtit.

Our eyes were also popping with beautiful Oregon coast scenery and the century-old gardens of Louis Simpson at Shore Acres.

Monday, April 27, 2015

We left Bandon at 9 am on a beautiful sunny morning. At Face Rock we saw Surf and Black Scoters. We then visited the New River Area of Critical Environmental Concern and saw a Band-tailed Pigeon. It flew in and perched on a tree for a photo-op!

Band-tailed Pigeon

This was followed by a Hutton's Vireo. It did not pose, but we finally managed to get a good look through all the branches.

A walk to Muddy Lake revealed a Hairy Woodpecker.

Anna's Hummingbird

Then on to Cape Blanco Lighthouse, the highest light on the Oregon Coast.

We only travelled about 36 miles down the coast to Port Orford today. Our motel was perched above the dock. We were fascinated to watch the activities there. There is no marina and all the boats are hoisted onto the dock by two massive cranes and stored on trailers on the dock! This activity went on long past dark.

Western Gull at Port Orford, Oregon

 The dock at Port Orford with the cranes on the left for lifting boats out of the water.

It was fun to watch the process of lifting the boats out of the water.  These were mostly smallish fishing boats. The activity went on well into the night.

Other new trip birds for the day were American Goldfinches and a female Pine Grosbeak. We spent a lot of time trying to find and ID noisy, flirty birds with limited success!