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Lots of birds have successfully nested on our hillside this year – American Robins, Say’s Phoebes, Western and Mountain Bluebirds, House Wrens, Tree and Violet-green Swallows, Bullock’s Orioles and more. The biggest highlight has been our Nice Nests kestrel box hosting its first successful nest of American Kestrels. Four birds were raised and got out of the box and were standing around on branches up until a few days ago. That is the branchling stage. Now they are out doing flying and hunting lessons. I hope they stay here and work on our rodent population. And I hope they return next year. We have another kestrel box that hasn’t been used yet!

The wild currants are ripe
Serviceberries
Kestrel nest box
All four baby kestrels
Western Bluebird with a Bullock’s Oriole flying by
Western Bluebird
Calliope Hummingbird
Bullock’s Oriole
Two baby kestrels take in the last light of the day
Western Meadowlark

New Places

The girls and I, along with Red Molly went out on a new road the other day. It’s always fun to explore new places. It was good timing because the wildflowers were still quite nice. Of course, the mosquitoes were still quite numerous and hungry. A person just can’t stand still for long.

No Place Like Home

After our beach trip, we had to go to Virginia for the sad occasion of my father-in-law’s funeral. It was not an unexpected death but saying those final goodbyes is always difficult.

So with that, we were gone most of the month of June. As you might imagine we came home to lots of things that needed to be done and our dogs, who were well cared for in our absence. Molly was here for a long weekend while her family went to a wedding.

After suburban northern Virginia, it was incredible to be walking on our own hill with mostly peace and quiet.

Even the weedy flowers look good.
aster
mariposa lily
paintbrush
fleabane
fireweed
There have been some terrible winds recently and we lost numerous snags including this one – the second biggest on our hill. Luckily it landed right in the draw and not on our driveway or the road.

Fort Stevens State Park

We stayed two nights at Fort Stevens. After an evening at the beach, we were driving back to camp and were lucky enough to see a herd of eleven Roosevelt elk. They were all bulls with velvet-covered antlers. We had seen them near Warrenton outside of Astoria, before going to the park and Ken had seen one from the beach. Some of them were grazing on Scotch broom, a nasty yellow-flowered invasive weed in the Pacific NW.

Just before we left Oregon, we went to see the wreck of the Peter Iredale. It crashed into the sand in 1906. The ship was 287 feet long and 30 feet wide. Only a small portion of it remains visible in the sand. The area surrounding the mouth of the Columbia River is knows as the graveyard of the Pacific in regards to shipping disasters.

One of those high dune crossings to the beach. Beach sand in sun was quite hot and I worried about the dogs’ paws. We got them to the wet beach sand as quick as possible. It was too hot for us to cross with bare feet.
Ken finally got to fly his kite.
How happy is this?
South Jetty of the Columbia River
Roosevelt elk. All bulls in velvet
The wreck of the Peter Iredale
Dogs on the leash. Waiting. Good dogs.

Another Day, Another Park

For the second half of our camping trip, we went to Fort Stevens State Park in Oregon. It is also at the mouth of the Columbia River but on the south side. It is an enormous park with lots and lots of paved bike trails and miles and miles of beach. Much of the beach is open to driving which decreases the wild nature of the place but there weren’t too many cars on the sand while we were there. The tracks were evident though.

The campground is a long ways from the beaches so we drove to them with the dogs. Some beaches are much less popular due to a high dune to cross to access the water. And the campgrounds cram a lot of people into a small space so they were noisy and crowded. We probably won’t go back to Fort Stevens. Oregon has lots of other nice state parks on the coast. This park is good for families and people that bring their bicycles.

Part of the famous Astoria bridge that crosses the Columbia. It is over four miles long!
Container ships waiting to go into Portland. Someone said they were there for months, waiting.
See that white head poking out from behind the dead seal?
This Bald Eagle did not go far and it was not disturbed by the presence of people, dogs or cars.
A kite surfer
Luna wanted to meet the kite surfer
But then she changed her mind.
Sunset at the south jetty
Jellyfish at sunset
Dog at sunset
Ken’s brother Carl joined us for our first night at Fort Stevens.