Short Beach and Cape Meares

A friend who had never been to my favorite beach and wanted to go provided me with the perfect excuse to go hunting for Black Oystercatchers in my old stomping grounds. Years ago I found and monitored a nest at Short Beach. And helped friends monitor nests at Cape Meares. But those areas are quite far for me to travel and there were other folks who were more able to get there during the summer. So it's been several years and I miss my former haunts. Today, we hit a perfect day weather and bird wise. 

 My first view of Short Beach from the road. So exciting to be back!

A closer look at that rock at the edge of the waves found 7 black dots...

... black dots that turned into adult Black Oystercatchers

As I climbed down the long winding staircase, I saw three BLOY at water's edge where the fresh water stream flows into the ocean. I thought they were adults...

But after I uploaded my photos into my computer and enlarged them... two of the birds turned into subadults. So I think this was a family group of one adult and two fledglings...

Enlarge the photo to see the dark distal end of the bill plus the colorless eye

The flume of water coming from Short Creek now flows mostly under the rocks to the ocean

Far down the beach is the traditional BLOY nest site, below Cape Meares

Meanwhile, far behind me, Johnny and friend Mary were enjoying the incredible scenery, Mary for the first time...

Behind Mary in the below photo are three BLOY on the rock, two of which I discovered from my photos, were subadults. I believe this is the same trio I first photographed bathing in the fresh water where it flows into the ocean.

From Short Beach, we hiked back up the long, picturesque (but I didn't take pictures) stairway and drove on to Cape Meares.

Very soon from the top viewing platform, we spotted a lone Black Oystercatcher. We could not see well enough from there to tell if it was an adult or a subadult, so hiked down to the next viewing areas. At #3, we hit a good place to set up the scope and scan the North Toe for the elusive little black bird. And we found it. A subadult for sure... all by itself. It must be that some BLOY do not get their full red bill and red eye until their second year.

Obviously, I must check all through the winter to see if/when these sub-adults change to full adults with red eyes and completely red bills. What a lovely excuse to visit my favorite beach plus the incredible Cape Meares!