I Used to Hate Birds

A month ago Jacob and I bought a house in Lincoln City on the central Oregon coast.  We had been looking for awhile, checking out everywhere between Yachats and the Long Beach Peninsula, before we finally found this house that had almost everything we wanted.  It's on a half acre with only one real neighbor, it backs up to protected green space (one of Lincoln City's many Open Spaces), it's a quick walk to Devils Lake, a slightly longer walk into town, and you can hear the ocean when standing in the backyard.  The house itself was built in 1940 and has tons of what you might call character.


I believe this is what some folks call their "future forever home."  We can't move out there yet but when we do it will be for the long haul.   Till then there will be lots of visits!  We've been out there almost every weekend to get some work done, but also to do some birding.  Let's start with the yard birding...


We set up feeders right away along with a bird bat…

On Tuesday morning we drove from headquarters to the Burrowing Owl spot my friend had mentioned, which is a few miles from the old spot I had visited before.  It took a minute but eventually we found one hanging out.


A ground squirrel popped up and demanded attention also.


 Next we drove back down the road to head north into town and pick up some supplies.  Many things distracted us along the way.

Sage Thrasher

 Loggerhead Shrike


White-faced Ibis

After our supply run we wanted to look for phalaropes because we had only seen some on ponds with nowhere to stop.   I remembered Alan Contreras mentioning a flooded area down Ruh-Red Road that had a lot of birds, so we decided to check it out.


Success!  Wilson's Phalaropes were swimming close to the road with ten or so Red-necked farther out, about 40-50 total ropes.


From there we headed south to check for a well-known Golden Eagle nest near the Narrows.  Before we could get there we found a rattlesnake relaxing in the road.


I jumped out to ta…