That birds of northern Oregon post I might write some day

Scott turns his back on Kelso. Or on being at work on a Friday afternoon.

No time like the present, I say, since obviously I'm not going to do anything but stare at a computer screen this evening. Poor Scott is stuck waiting for me to catch up to him in Swann's Way and rather than read, I'm squandering my time trying to catch up on the world of online. It feels a little like binge-watching Mad Men--I sort of feel like I should be drinking some vodka or whiskey.

 However, none of that has to do with the birds of the Oregon coast or even about the Oregon coast though there was a little rye consumption there.

One of many sets of pelicans to be seen off the shores of Northern Oregon

 We decided fairly late in the day--like the last week of August--that we should throw caution to the wind and head down to the Oregon coast for Labor Day weekend though, as a rule, I don't travel on holiday weekends and it seemed unlikely we'd be able to find any place decent to stay. But Enterprise had started up their $9.99/day weekend special so I had a look around online for lodging. We didn't want to spend most of a day getting there and another one getting back so I looked for options well north of our usual haunts. Although the quite charming spots in Seaside and/or Cannon Beach turned out not to be available at all, the nice woman at Vacasa found a condo in Gearhart that seemed like it would work, even if it didn't look all that attractive. The reality was, for a change, nicer than the online photos so while it wasn't exactly heavy on charm, it was more than serviceable and in no way nasty.

Splooshing terns

 Gearhart itself is pretty darned tiny but it has a nice little downtown with a post office and a grocery store and a bakery and cafe. There's a liquor store just off of 101, too, so if only Scott had remembered his wading sandals we would have had no reason to go anywhere else.

I'm calling these marbled godwits

 But what of the birds? Well, we went to the beach as soon as we'd unpacked despite the somewhat uncertain weather. And it did rain on us a little but not badly. How could we complain about that when we encountered a pair of what Mr Sibley would seem to identify as a pair of marbled godwits (see right). On that first day--and, in fact, seeming to want to keep company with the godwits--we also saw an extremely handsome whimbrel. And we saw the first of a great many brown pelicans. By the river that divides the Gearhart beach from the Seaside beach, we saw quite a few Caspian terns, diving quite violently into the water, presumably after fish though I don't know that we ever saw them catch anything. Maybe that's a trick they learned from the kingfisher that was on the unreachable Seaside side. It's doubtful it's something they picked up from the great blue heron, also on the far side of the river.

 On our first outing we failed to find the passage through the creek, river, and sodden environs to reach 101, but we were more successful a day later. On that second expedition, we encountered scores of plovers and sandpipers. Reading reports on the OBOL page a few days later, I found that odds are there were some other, more unusual birds in the mix but since the mud was a bit like quicksand, we didn't want to stand in any one spot for too long.

Handsome whimbrel we saw on more than one beach

On Sunday we got into the car and drove ten miles or so north to Fort Stevens State Park, a spot that I've got to say gets far too little attention in the otherwise excellent Day Hiking Oregon Coast. For one thing, the park is huge. For another, while the Peter Iredale might be termed a bit disappointing, it's only because Scott wanted to see it that we were on the proper part of the beach to see the thousands upon thousands of sooty shearwaters streaming south--and also resting in huge numbers on the water while on their migration. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed. If you want to be put into perspective, just watch a zillion birds flapping about their business out over the crashing waves of an indifferent ocean for a few minutes. After Scott pried me away--and we'd visited the remains of the Peter Iredale--we headed a bit further up the beach to start our proper beach walk along the spit and, eventually, the Columbia River.

All those tiny black specks between water and sky are birds--sooty shearwaters.

The walk was long and gorgeous, what with those crashing waves and all. And when we settled down eventually, to eat an apple and enjoy the warm sand, I discovered that while peeps will take off if you are walking, they'll just go about their peep business right in front of you if you're just sitting there for a bit. We were a bit tired by the time we got back to the condo but not so tired that I didn't insist upon attempting another quick swim. Sadly, Poseidon was particularly rough and after he stole my hairband, I figured I'd best call it a day.

I want these to be something other than nutrias, but that's probably what they are.

Talk about labels, as if Papa was a pickle bottle

So it's like this, blahdeblahblah. Rather than writing a post here either about making grape jamly today or about the excellent Labor Day minibreak to the Oregon coast on which we saw some thousands of migrating sooty shearwaters--or even just sharing a bit of Proust about clouds that struck me a few days ago, I've spent the last few hours creating not one final label for this year's jamly (featured above) but two wasted ones as well. The first one, well, it was pretty swell. In fact, here it is

I feel like it has a '60s soft rock album feel to it. But then I realized that I had selected the same Gradka photo that I'd used on this year's apricot label and, in fact, the layout was pretty damned similar too.



So I tossed the endearing Gradka image aside and went with a different, more austere Gradka, eventually landing on something like this:



I wasn't entirely sure that I liked it all that much and then Scott questioned how legible it would be so I fussed with the type a bit more until I decided that the whole thing was too disconnected and I should start over again. Eventually the label at the very top came about, and it will be this year's grape jamly label. Don't think that I don't know that I squander too much time on things that no one other than Scott and I give a second thought to. But hey! This year's raspberry label is quite fine:

Coming up some day maybe, birds, etc. of the northern Oregon coast.

Drive-by note to self

Hey, what's this? Something new and not dragonslayery from Mr Fforde?

 I don't absolutely swear that I'll never write an actual post here again, but it's beginning to feel that way.

Mallard Clown Car

My attempt at a gif of the amazing clown bus of ducklings that we watched emerge from under a mother mallard last week. Unfortunately, the effect is less "How adorable!" and more "I think I'm getting seasick." Blame the motion of the canoe I was in and the fact that I was too immersed in watching in amazement to take a steady stream of photos. It was, I assure you, truly fabulous and ever so hysterical to watch.

Maple Pass Photos, Mostly

It's late and I'm tired so I'm tossing some photos here for now; with luck I'll write up what should be a fascinating trip report before I forget all the details. Until then, a handful of atmospheric snaps--in no particular order as I see that blogger decided I wanted all of them immediately.

Lunch break with some stellar scenery

Birds were not particularly brilliant on the Maple Pass hike. We think this is an American pipit.

No marmots were seen but there were a handful of charming chipmunks about.

I suspect the wildflowers will really hit their stride in a few weeks, but they weren't so shabby a few days ago.

Not from the Maple Pass hike at all; this was the day before when I opted to wade into the Skagit River. It was lovely.

Back to the Maple Pass trail--one of many unidentified mountains

Lake Ann from the trail above

Please oh please note the mud and ice (well, snow) on my Bogs!

Scott admires the view on the Maple Pass trail.

Of books, birds, bees, and jam

Rufous hummingbird that has been hanging out lately

Telling stories, telling tales. Always the implication that you were trading in lies. But for her it would always be the task of getting to the quick, the heart, the nub, the pith: the trade of truth-telling. It had been Donald's task too, in his way. Poor Donald, taken away from her forty, fifty years ago.
    Enough of this interview claptrap and chicanery. They would always want even the explanation explained! And any writer worth her salt would lead them on, tease them, lead them up the garden path. Wasn't it bloody obvious? It was about being true to the very stuff of life, it was about trying to capture, though you never could, the very feel of being alive. It was about finding a language. And it was about being true to the fact, the one thing only followed from the other, that many things in life--oh so many more than we think--can never be explained at all.

--from the final page of Mothering Sunday, by Graham Swift

I wish I could identify this bee but, well, I can't.*

Graham Swift's latest book is a very slim volume with pretty heavy leading but it's an excellent little book. It reads a lot like a good A.S. Byatt, maybe like something out of Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye but more like one of the Matisse Stories. It's a book about being a writer which, maybe, is what authors write eventually. (Mona In the Desert started, in some ways, as a book about writing.) Mr Swift's novella is a fine thing, and it was a pleasure to read it over this extra-long holiday weekend.

Not that most of the weekend wasn't given over to other things. Making jam, for one thing. We made thirty-odd jars of apricot and twenty-five jars of raspberry jam on Sunday, after stocking up on apricots and on raspberries at the Farmers Market. If I could get the photos off my phone I'd be posting photos of transferring a bit more than sixteen pounds of somewhat nasty apricot "seconds" from a large box to one of the panniers on Scott's bike. Trust me when I say it was quite the impressive bit of bicycle hauling.

Oddly pale (and yellow-headed) presumably Anna's hummingbird

The business of jam ended at pushing midnight on Sunday night which led to a somewhat leisurely recovery on much of the holiday 4th. Oh, we rode our bikes for a bit, visiting Jeb, the West Seattle pony, and, thank god, finding a not-too-hilly route home. Today was the first day I didn't ride my bike since the first of May. The streak has ended.

Instead we walked to Camp Long where we saw neither owl nor pileated woodpecker, but we did find a number of charming little fledglings, including what I've had identified as a golden-crowned kinglet.

Golden-crowned kinglet fledgling @ Camp Long

There were also a surprising number of bunnies about; perhaps the owls have relocated for the summer.

One of several Camp Long bunnies seen this afternoon

*You'd think the very large and seemingly exhaustive Bees In Your Backyard would enable me to identify the bees I see, but mostly it just makes me painfully aware of just how many bees there are in North America and just how impossible it is for me to distinguish them from each other.

 

Housiversary: Scattershot Photo Edition

 

 

The traditional Housiversary meal now includes ibuprofen

The new screen frame, as it was when I got home

The frame with clamps applied to bow the frame so the screen will be tight

 

 

 

Who can expect me to concentrate on labor when there are raspberries nearby?

Close to finished: note washers!

Call me crazy but I adore that Scott used these ancient wire brads on this project.

 

Putting in the hook and eye

What I call the Vermeer: corner of the living room featuring the two newly screened windows