Good day for cool birds, considering how little birding I actually did:

At 0815 hrs today a quick check of the recently disked field on the north
portion of Wireless Road produced a brightly speckled juvenile AMERICAN
GOLDEN PLOVER (probable -- tail REGION was prominently dark -- appeared to
have dark primaries longer than tail, but was at about 50m with a somewhat
less than perfect pair of compact Brunton 8X25) was actively feeding .

At about 1730 hrs a BARRED OWL flew up from the logging road I was walking
along (south of Astoria about 4 miles) and landed in a Western Hemlock; I
watched it and it watched me for about 5 minutes until it lofted and was
gone. Surrounding forest is predominantly ~ 25 yr.old hemlock, some red
alder. This is the third Barred Owl I have been aware of in this immediate
area in the past 2 years.

Lee Cain
lcain at seasurf.net
Instructor, Aquatic Biology/Integrated Science
Astoria High School
Astoria OR