Tweets,

We had a wonderful trip, starting with two days in Hood River and then five
days along the mid-Oregon coast, working from Yachats (two days) to Newport
(two days) and one final day at Pacific City.

No startling birding events to report. A few tidbits:

A surprising lack of wire-perching birds throughout the trip. We went
through a lot of habitat I would have thought ideal for kestrels, bluebirds,
shrikes, and meadowlarks, but we saw only a handful of kestrels, two
(western) bluebirds, and none of the others. Puzzling to us; maybe those
species just aren't established around the coast range of Oregon?

We did a determined raptor count from the car on our road day from Hood
River to Yachats, and when we topped 300 we were a little giddy with
satisfaction. Sure, over 200 of them were turkey vultures, but still. Any
time I can get my 11- and 7-year old kids to stay glued to the car windows
for four hours watching for birds, I count that as A Good Thing. Final count
for the day: 376 for-sure individuals. We discounted a number of sightings
which could have been the same individual seen later; the actual count
probably was near 400. Not bad for tyros.

Our best sighting was probably a flock of about 100 red-necked phalaropes we
ran across just north of Seal Rock; my wife and I were astonished to see a
flock of peeps fly up the beach and INTO the water, but getting binocs on
them made it an instant ID. They were in radiant breeding color, and as I'm
sure most of you know, it's the female who's more brightly colored in this
species. This particular batch seemed to be somewhat female-biased -- I'd
guess about 2/3 female to 1/3 male.

Other than that, lots of semipalmated plovers, whimbrels, dunlin, and the
usual sandy-beach suspects. Lovely little fellas.

We had a wonderful time. Thanks to all the tweets who sent suggestions, and
whoever it was who pointed us to the Oregon Coast Birding Trail web site (at
http://www.oregoncoastbirding.com/), thanks a zillion!

-Josh Hayes, josh at blarg dot net