In the Field: Report Out from Manzanita
Last weekend I drove south to Manzanita, Oregon to join my sister and her family for a long weekend of Northwest Beach-y exploits. My son was with them already, and I peeled in at 11:30 p.m. after working all day, battling traffic to get out of the Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia corridor, then navigating winding state highways toward the coast as dusk fell.
At one point, I stopped along the Columbia River just outside the town of Skamakowa, to stretch my legs at the wildlife refuge along the highway. Clouds and rain shadow obscured what would otherwise be the long twilight of June this time of year, so the blue light of the hour was especially dark, but not yet nighttime.
As I slammed the car door and walked to the darkened visitor's kiosk, overgrown and silhouetted against the sky, silence invaded my ears. Then I started to hear the nighttime sounds of the riparian region: hermit thrushes making their flute-like vocalizations from the nearby trees; native frogs singing; some bovine or elk bellowing from across the field out ahead, and most close by, the twittering of a little brown bat nursery.
I'd caught sight of the bats circling around me already in the twilight, and when I reached the visitor's shelter I heard the babies bleating for their mothers overhead; there was a roost in this lesser-visited structure, and bats happily raising babies in the eaves of its roof.
I peeked through the blind opening and met the direct gaze of two white tailed doe, as startled as I was by our meeting. We stared at each other for minutes, not moving, with the twittering bats and melodious thrushes as our only disturbance, and I can say it was total bliss from my perspective.
This nature fix sustained me on the rest of my drive in darkness to the coast.
The beach at Manzanita, and cliffs to the north.
The Bough house, where we stayed.
Manzanita Beach with my son and nephew. Not unusual for June to be rainy and mild.
Puddles!
Enough already! No more photos!
Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, up the coast from Manzanita. The Rock is home to a Tufted puffin colony. The best time to see the birds is dawn or dusk as they leave their burrow-nests for a day at sea.
Local Bakery and its provisions. Yum.
Sweet house front garden along the main street in Manzanita.
Glaucous wing gull feature on the public trash bin containers, Manzanita.
The closest we got to a real Glaucous-wing gull. This bird was a habituated visitor to a local restaurant where we dined with the kids. Photo taken through the window (you can see the raindrops on the glass).
Glorious dunes and sea grass along Manzanita beach.