Bullards Beach State Park May 13th & 14th, 2012

Date: May 13, 2012

Location: Bullard’s Beach State Park, Bandon, Oregon

Weather: Clear and sunny, Light winds, After 4 PM winds picked up and fog rolled in

Temperature today’s Low: 45º

Temperature today’s High: 54º

Bird List: Brown Pelican, Double-crested Cormorant, Pelagic Cormorant, Canada Goose, Cackling Goose, Surf Scoter, Bufflehead, Osprey, Western Gull, Caspian Tern, Common Murre, Pigeon Guillemot, Violet-green Swallow, Barn Swallow, American Robin, American Crow, Song Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Pacific Loon

Wildlife Count: Squirrel

We had people waiting when we went to open the Lighthouse at 11 AM and had a non-stop stream of people until 12:40 PM. About 1 PM the steady stream of people started up again. We had another 50 visitors today to the lighthouse during our shift. However, what a difference from yesterday on the river, we didn’t see any crab traps and only 2 boats.

After our shift we walked all of the campground loops and walked to the Boat Lunch Ramp. It was about 4 PM. The wind was causing whitecaps on the river, the fog was rolling up the river and the temperature was dropping fast. On our way back to our site we stopped to chat with several of the other volunteers along the way.

 Date: May 14, 2012 

Location: Bullard’s Beach State Park, Bandon, Oregon

Weather: The day started overcast but got sunnier as it went on and turned out to be a surprisingly nice day.

Temperature today’s Low: 47º

Temperature today’s High: 54º

Bird List: Brown Pelican, Double-crested Cormorant, Pelagic Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Canada Goose, Surf Scoter, Bufflehead, Osprey, Red-tailed Hawk, Black Oystercatcher, Western Gull, Caspian Tern, Common Murre, Pigeon Guillemot, Rock Dove, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Western Wood-Pewee, Violet-green Swallow, Barn Swallow, American Robin, American Crow, Common Raven, Savannah Sparrow, Song Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Brewer's Blackbird, House Finch, American Goldfinch

Wildlife Count: Harbor Seal

Today being Monday it was the weekly volunteers breakfast at the Minute Café in Old Town Bandon. We had quite a crowd as 17 of our 25 volunteers made it to breakfast today.

Being our day off, after breakfast we headed out to check some of the local spots for birds. First we went to the south jetty of the Coquille River. Then we went on to Coquille Point.  with large sea stacks just off shore and nesting birds. It is probably the most visited wayside as it is closest to town and for shear number of birds. A little further down the road is Face Rock Wayside. Face Rock is probably the most scenic and on this day had the largest number of shore birds. Still further down the road is Devil’s Kitchen and China Creek Wayside.  One thing every site we visited had A LOT of WIND. China Creek is also where the very endangered Western Snowy Plovers nest and is the site where the “Plover People” John & Sue and Michael & Diane spend most of their volunteer time educating the public about the Snowy Plover nests and trying to keep dogs and people out of the nesting area.

After stopping at the trailer for a late lunch we decided to give ourselves a break and not do laundry today. So, we piled back in to the truck and headed to the recently restored section of Bandon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. The restoration of the Ni-les'tun Tidal Marsh area was just completed in the fall of last year. The best bird we saw there this visit was our first sighting of a Savanna Sparrow for this year. We also observed a Red Tailed Hawk hunting in the marsh, pick up some “lunch” and landed in the pine tree across the road from us!