Ossagon Trail

Common Raven

I set off at 0630 and go straight to Lake View Road. The activity is much the same as yesterday except there seem to be fewer Great Egrets (10) and less Blue-winged Teal compared with Green-winged Teal. Today the latter outnumbered the former by at least 4:1 with as many as 50 Green-winged Teal visible. Again some Northern Pintail (4) and this time some Northern Shoveler (4). Mallard not particularly numerous as was the case yesterday. Again some Gadwall. Also fewer Western Sandpipers but they were still conspicuous and about 50-100 present today. Still 2 Great Blue Heron but no Bittern seen. There were 12 Canada Geese but none of the small dark Aleutian form Branta hutchinsii leucopareia. A few Cliff Swallow amongst the many Barn Swallow feeding above the rushes. A single White-tailed Kite seen sitting up on a bare branch. I noticed at least 60 Band-tailed Pigeons sitting in another dead tree or two before suddenly they all came pouring in to the road beside the car. Obviously filling up on grit! Some came right up to the car and ate from the soft mud alongside about 30m from me. Most interesting and a very handsome pigeon with black tipped bright yellow bills and yellow legs and feet; neat white collar across back of head; large iridescent nape patch and clean grey general body colouration with lavender shades on the breast and a distinct band on a long broad tail formed by contrast between dark base and pale outer portion. Remained almost silent except for an occasional soft coo. The loud clapping of the wings as they flew up or came into land and the soft whistling of the wings in flight was much more audible. Today at least 4 Yellowlegs seen and again I assume them to be Greater. Clear tu-tu-tu calls. Fewer gulls and not much else to note.

I drive out to the Lake Earl Wildlife Area down Old Mill Road to the end at a trailhead car park. This is a little past the LEWA headquarters building and car park mentioned by Barron (2001) - continuing left another half mile. The whole area looks very good and worth a walk or two if I had the time. I see a small party of American Goldfinch as I return to go out to the harbour and a White-crowned Sparrow. I take the Pebble Beach road from the turn off on Washington Blvd opposite the airport having missed the turn to Dead Lake which I was going to explore. I then slowly drive back to Crescent City stopping to view the sea and shoreline at several pullouts on the way. The tide is out. Nothing special to note and I eventually park at the base of B pier for a look at the harbour. Here I find 2 Short-billed Dowitcher which I am sure are the same two seen a few days ago! A few Common Loon on the harbour including a remarkable performance by two birds, one still very dark on the head and neck the other in ‘winter’ plumage as far as I could tell. They chased each other with flapping wings propelled by their feet at a remarkable pace motor-boating hither and thither for at least 2 minutes without stopping. They covered a lot of water in that time. Sometimes they were side by side but mostly in line and often close but occasionally 10-20 m apart. On at least two occasions a typical wailing call was given briefly by one or possibly both birds. Eventually they stopped, each dived, wing flapped and preened and both settled without further ado. A sustained effort that must surely have been exhausting. It certainly showed the enormous power that exists in the legs of loons. Was it part of some courtship performance? A testing of fitness? Was it an adult with a full grown young? This latter possibility only came to mind after the experience of later in the day!

I move on to the car park near the outfall of Elk Creek but find that most of the gulls have dispersed onto the wide beach now it is low tide. With the gulls a few Black Oystercatcher on the muds. A party of at least 6 Common Raven give me a chance for a few pictures.

Common Raven

Heermann's Gull

Glaucose-winged gull

It is now nearly 1000 so I return to the cabin in Gasquet ready for the main walk today which will be in the afternoon after we return to have lunch at the Chart Room at about 1200.

Seals on the pontoon while we eat at the Chart Room include at least 30 Harbour Seal and 20 or more California Sea Lions that seem to be mostly mature males; large bodied with very high foreheads and short muzzles. I have not certainly seen any Fur Seals or any Northern Elephant Seals. Sea Otters have also not been seen at any time.

Newton B Drury Scenic Parkway at trailhead, a fern and some fungi on a log

We head down to Klamath and the Newton B Drury scenic Parkway to walk the short Ossagon trail to the beach. This trail starts in tall redwood forest rising a little (to about 800’) before taking a long descent to sea level. We see a few Band-tailed Pigeons and hear a soft cuc-whoo call from at least one of them.

Ossagon beach

The redwoods domination very soon progresses to mixed conifer still of massive proportions then as it becomes cooler and wetter broadleaf components become more conspicuous and it eventually becomes Alder woodland before breaking out onto a broad flat dune system at least 500m wide before the final steep slope onto the tide line. In the wet gully of the Ossagon creek we saw a Varied Thrush. The sea is calm. While still in the edge forest I can hear Murres moaning and their food begging chicks squeaking. Sure enough out to sea are scattered couples of Common Murres an adult and an accompanying well-grown but generally slightly smaller chick. I see one chick fed a large fish that must have been about 10cm long. There are countless numbers of them visible to the limits of our vision in both directions. Mostly about 1 km out from the tide edge. Also present are numerous loons. Both Pacific and Common Loon but many of the latter appeared to have a ‘murre’ in tow! I assume these were recently fledged young Common Murre that have latched onto a Loon as a surrogate parent! How extraordinary! I could find no Pacific Loon with a ‘chick’ in tow. All parents had but a single chick. There were plenty of them!

Also present in large numbers were gulls dominated by Western Gull but the next most numerous was Heermann’s Gull. There were Caspian Terns and many cormorant that mostly seemed to be Double-crested but some were certainly Pelagic Cormorants. Cormorants were sitting on some offshore craggy rocky up and down the coast. There were numerous Brown Pelican. A few Surf Scoter were present or flew past in small groups or singly and a few Western Grebe were in amongst the loons and Common Murres.

Tracey saw an Osprey drop down to the sea and we then saw it fly off with a large fish. The Osprey headed S and into some trees about 2 mile down the beach often shaking itself dry as it flew. Maybe a feeding post but possibly a nest site.

Just before we left we spotted a small dark grey dolphin with a very short rounded dorsal fin. It seemed to be an adult with an accompanying young and the snout on the uniformly coloured body was rounded. After looking at Carwardine (2000) I am reasonably certain that these were Harbour (Common) Porpoise Phocoena phocoena. To quote Carwardine .. 'when it rises to breath, the lasting impression is of a slow, forward rolling motion, as if the dorsal fin is mounted on a revolving wheel lifted briefly above the surface then withdrawn'. Exactly how it was. At about the same time we saw that a seabird feeding frenzy was building up out to sea to the S and just about every gull, pelican and many of the cormorant were gathered in the one spot. Mostly it was a mass of squabbling gulls feeding on the surface close together as a mob. Gulls were flying in from a mile or two from both directions. I take picture of the dune vegetation system and its most prominent colonizing plants for Petrus Heyligers!

View north on dunes

View south on dunes

Strandplants at Ossagon Beach

A Marsh Wren crosses my path as I leave the creek side and enter the woodlands at the back of the beach and we plod uphill back to the car. Again not a lot to see or hear in the forests at this time of the year but we do see many small frogs in the wetter parts near the Ossagon Creek. They were almost certainly Pacific Treefrogs Hyla regilla, mostly as far as I could tell in the brown colouration with none green. I use Stebbins (2003) for this identification. A very good field guide it seems to me.

We take a quick look at Walker Road in the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park on the way out from Crescent City and drive to the river taking the right fork in the road. A Common Merganser bashing upstream at the surface was presumably engaged in chasing some fish. It was thrashing along with the head underwater!

Band-tailed Pigeon and Common Murres with chicks at sea were highlights today.