A New Christmas Tradition

For years we have been driving to Tillamook Christmas morning, after chores, to eat a Christmas meal at a restaurant in Tillamook with our good friends and birding buddies, John and Barbara Woodhouse. Then we would go birding by car, mostly, in their Tillamook haunts. It has been great fun over the years, since they and we have distant children who do not come for the holidays. However, Christmas 2018 turned out to be our last Christmas with the Woodhouses in Tillamook. Because of their declining health, their daughter moved them in with her in Minnesota.

So this Christmas it was time for a new tradition. I told the Woodhouses we would be driving and hiking to waterfalls near us, taking photos for them, and then birding along Agency Creek, looking for Dippers. I would send them photos from this jaunt. And that's what we did. Except I took so many photos that I'm putting them on this blog instead of clogging their email.

On the way to the falls, we saw birds and I tried to get photos. They were not too cooperative about posing. Only the Varied Thrush were moderately cooperative.

I took a photo of the quarry on the way up, too. Because the lava flows are cool looking.

And there were pretty little roadside falls like this one that I couldn't resist photographing...

The Yoncalla River (stream) is lovely.

Although we call this Yoncalla Falls, it is actually on a stream that flows into Yoncalla creek. The hike to it is short and easy. Or the trail used to be easy... before this big tree and lots of branches fell across it... You can just see the falls beyond... so near and yet so far...

The camera brings it in deceptively closer...

I don't usually take photos of us, but I thought the Woodhouses would like to see us on the hike. After Johnny clambered over the downfall, he didn't look very cheerful. So I told him to smile. He smiled but I was laughing and shook the camera, so he's blurry.

Johnny took a photo of me. I tried to smile but just managed to look dorky...

I like the waterfall pictures better...

 

There is a second falls that is actually on Yoncalla Creek/River itself, but it is not visible from anywhere except from the edge of a steep cliff in the middle of the forest... and only in the winter... when the leaves are off the trees... like now...

Then we drove back down to Agency Creek and looked for Dippers, our target birds. There were lots of pretty rapids where there should have been Dippers, but were not...

What we did find were raptors feeding on salmon carcasses. The Grand Ronde tribe gets spawned-out salmon from hatcheries and throws them in the creek to replenish the nutrients. Apparently, the "fish fling", as they call it, happened not long ago. We saw a Bald Eagle on one carcass and two Red-tailed Hawks in two different places feeding on others. Only one Red-tail consented to be photographed.

On the way home, we saw two dots on top of a dead tree. We presumed they were birds.

I zoomed the camera up little by little...

And, indeed, they were birds... Common Ravens.

We saw eleven species of birds: Great Blue Heron, Bald Eagle, Red-tailed Hawk, Belted Kingfisher, Northern Flicker, Steller's Jay, Common Raven, Brown Creeper, Pacific Wren, Golden-crowned Kinglet (lots of them!) and Varied Thrush.

It was a fun day, even without Dippers, and I think a fine new Christmas Day tradition. I hope the Woodhouses enjoy it.