Sunday, January 31, 2010

Agates

We took the dogs to the beach north of Waldport called Driftwood beach, a nice place if you don't want to run into people or too many dogs. Just an hour before sunset we found an agate, we thought it was just a lucky find until we found one after the other, some pretty good sized ones. Nothing better than relaxing on the beach during sunset with the dogs running. Finding agates is a relaxing thing to do, it can clear your mind when you are just concentrating on finding the little gems.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Pelicans

There was a story in the local paper about brown pelicans along the Oregon Coast, it seems they have not migrated south and are starving. Pelicans have very specific diets and cannot process or receive nutrients from food items outside of their diet. I had seen dozens of these feeding along the coast in late fall, but never came close to any, this morning I walked the dogs along the Alsea bay, not far from our house, and a dead pelican was on the beach, it's bright orange beak and the umbra to yellow blend of feathers down it's neck was truly spectacular, a beautiful animal. The dogs were checking it out and cautiously sniffing to see if it moved. As we were ready to leave, a fisherman was trying to back into the public launch when two pelicans were blocking and wouldn't move, I never seen pelicans so brave in front of people, he tried scaring him away and called me to bring the dogs down, they soon flew away only to return on the grass again. We also saw seals bobbing their heads as we headed along the rocks. There were some hooded Mergansers too.