Something To Report

We finally heard our first spotted owl on Wednesday night. My workmate Cliff heard a female and started walking up the road to get a different vantage point. As he was walking, a male started calling about 20 meters off the road! Thursday we went back to do our follow-up and hiked a few miles around the area, but didn't have any luck.

Thursday night I heard my first barred owl. It was exciting to finally hear something distinct. While we don't do follow-ups on barred owls, and their presence usually means there won't be a spotted owl in the area since the barred owls are displacing spotteds, it at least means there is still suitable habitat for owl reproduction.

You can go to the following website to hear barred owl calls:

http://www.owlcam.com/soundlib/sound_lib.htm

Forest Creatures

The most common animal I see is the varied thrush. They are cousins to the robin and are black with some orange striping. Even though I see a hundred a day, they fly away quickly so I haven't been able to get any photos.

Lately I've been hearing a lot of blue grouse and have actually seen several. Here's a half way decent shot. One night this week I was driving along around dusk and nearly hit one! It just stood there at the edge of the road. I even backed up and looked at it out the window.





That same night on the way out of the woods we ran into a porcupine lumbering down the road! As we gained on it, it went off the side of the road, meanwhile I'm scrambling for my camera - all I got was a butt-shot. =P



*

Bushwhacking with Sue

When given the option to do an established day hike by myself, or create a new one with Sue, I should have known better.... I chose the latter and as a result got my face scratched up by spruce limbs whacking me in the face as I trudged through the bush.


Most of this trek however, ended up on logging roads. After the initial bushwhacking, we were spit out onto this newly created road...













Toward the end of our venture we had a leisurely stroll along a well established road. The trees on the hill where Sue is looking is where we were headed.












*

Photos from the Field

This was an interesting spot. Out of the frame on the right side of the picture is a cut hillside that looks out over the valley below, and to the left is this strip of coniferous forest buffered by a line of alders along the road. It's interesting to see what sorts of things are left when logging operations leave.







Here I am off Hwy 202 near a dot on the map called Jewell. The road I was on ended up at a quarry and on the other side of the road was a dropoff and a great view. I set the camera on the hood of my truck, but not upright apparently!






Same place, better camera angle, cool backlighting.













It is quite common to run into logging operations in my travels of....well, logging roads! hehe When we know there are operations, we avoid them during the day.

Distant Views

Here I am standing on a log at a logging operation landing. Behind me is the entrance to Tillamook Bay and the town of Garabaldi. You can see the big white "G" on the hillside above the town.

Around a few ridges, the view looks south. Here you can see Tillamook Bay melding into the landscape. Hwy 101 is just left of the frame.













Off of Hwy 101 south of Tillamook is Munson Creek Falls. Behind this pretty little spot is private land that looks like this. Luckily our state owned lands don't look like this, they are more often thinned as in the picture in the previous post rather than this hillside clearcut.

Miscellaneous

I came around a corner, slowing down to look for a station, and there sitting on a branch hanging over the middle of the road was this guy. I think it's a juvenile Red-tailed hawk.













A station in the Clatsop State Forest where recent thinning has occurred.













In areas where owls have been documented for several years at a time, we first do a day hike to try to find the owl before we call the area at night. This eliminates a step if we can find it in the day first. This hike was up a ridgeline and was quite a workout for me as I've been a computer-potato since my fish job ended. =P First is looking up the ridge - Cliff is providing scale.



And this is looking back down the ridge that we had just hiked up.

21 March

Spring is here, YAY!

This day was spent visiting calling stations and taking GPS coordinates. These snags in Clatsop State Forest caught my eye.


This area used to be spotted owl habitat. Guess what happened.


There are 3 people on the North Coast crew - Sue, Cliff, and myself. Here we are at a calling station - my truck is the middle one. =D


From the last spot, we hiked up a blocked road. This puddle was packed with egg masses of newts and frogs. We saw several rough-skinned newts, in and out of the water, as well as a Pacific tree frog hop into the water and hide under a leaf. Makes you think twice about driving through puddles out here...

Rare Trees

Some of you may know about the biggest spruce tree located on Hwy 26 near Seaside. Unfortunately the tree was damaged this winter and may have to be cut down. The next contender is located on Rector Ridge, far off Hwy 53, and I had the opportunity to see it. As you might expect, it's too big to fit in the camera frame. Even so, photos just cannot do it justice. But I tried. =P In the first photo you can see a tree to the right that was broken off this winter.







*

Hooter

I have a new job. No more dead rotting fish... Now I get to hoot for owls! That's right, I'm a hooter. My job is to go to state timber sales and survey for spotted owls. When an owl responds at night, I have to go back in the day and hike around and actually find the owl. When the owl is found, I will offer a mouse to determine it's nesting status - it will either take it to its kids or if it's a male, take it to the female, or eat it, or cache it.
I hope to get at least one photo of an owl this summer, but I don't have any expectations as they are 1) nocturnal, 2) high in the trees and blend in, and 3) I don't have a spectacular camera. So mostly I will post photos of the habitat I'm working in and anything interesting that I run across.

M

Water Levels

Winter rains bring streams to life. Here is Jones Creek, a tributary of the Wilson River (which you can see beyond the bridge), on 31 October and again on 29 January. Notice the base of the trees in each photo. In the second photo you can see where the flood level reached.

More Fish Stuff

A Chinook in Joyce Creek, a tributary of the South Fork Trask River.




Bill Creek on 29 November, a trib of the South Fork Trask. Look closely and you'll see some carcasses lying about. Also notice the orange sign on the left. These signs mark the start and end of survey segments.




A scenic shot of Cedar Creek, a major trib of the Wilson River. At the peak of the season, we counted around 400 coho and Chinook in the first 2.8 miles of this creek.













Here I am with Chinook carcasses on the Little North Fork of the Wilson River, 23 January.

Flood '06

Tillamook flooded for several days in early November. We literally were stuck in town - every entrance to town was flooded. Looking north on Hwy 101 from the edge of downtown.

Coho Spawning Survey

I started working for Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife in mid- October doing coho salmon spawning surveys in the Tillamook Bay basin. I hiked through streams and counted fish - coho, chum, and Chinook. On average I walked between 3 and 7 miles every day in my chest waders and corked boots (and as a result have lost 20 pounds).

Blurry but you can see my get-up.







Early November brought a TON of rain. Due to all the flooding, our crew couldn't conduct surveys, so we went to the Trask River Fish Hatchery to help out. Here is Jim Skaar milting a male coho.








The raging Wilson River on 8 November.












East Beaver Creek, one of our bigger creeks. The photo doesn't do it justice of course, but I was wading up to my waist in parts - scary with a current.







*Click photos to enlarge

The Big Day

Chris and I got married on October 7th, 2006 in Pacific City. Amazingly, the weather was beautiful! So many friends and family joined us, including my best friend from New Zealand and her parents.





This is my favorite photo of Chris and I.









The boys.

The girls.

Glen, Christine, and Anita Mitchell
all the way from Wellington, New Zealand.