Beachcombing and Birds: Nestucca Spit, Bob Straub State Park, OR

For our trip to the coast this week, we chose Bob Straub State Park at the south end of Pacific City, looking for a bit of solitude and a long walk on the beach. The park has one of the closest beaches to our house. Sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and Nestucca Bay/River which runs almost parallel to the ocean for about three miles, the thin sliver of land making up the park is also known as Nestucca Spit. The park is named for the former Governor of Oregon who was instrumental in keeping Highway 101 from being routed down the spit.

Coming into Pacific City off of the Pacific Coast Highway along the Nestucca River and Bay, it was impossible to see Haystack Rock for the fog which we struck just at the highway as we came down out of the Coast Range following the Little Nestucca River. In Pacific City, we crossed the Nestucca River bridge and instead of turning right to head north the mile to Cape Kiwanda, we went straight across and immediately left to head south down the spit, past the camel- and horse-ride vendors. We had to stop for about ten seconds to let a Blacktail doe mosey across the street on our way down to the parking lot.

Parking Lot at Bob Straub State Park

As soon as we left the last set of dwellings beyond the boat launch, we entered a low coastal pine scrub, which after passing through town, felt eerily all alone. The low hanging fog and 300-yard visibility added to the atmosphere. It had been sunny, as usual for this time of year, right up to a couple of miles off the beach. The very cold water coming down from Alaska meeting the warm air at the coast often fogs in the beach and today, it was pretty foggy.

Haystack Rock at Bob Straub State Park?

We headed a few yards west out of the parking lot and climbed the dunes separating the parking area from the ocean. At the top, we could just barely see the top of Haystack Rock, about a mile north of us. Dead center in the photo, if you expand it, you can just see the ghost of the rock. The little bit of sunshine that you see on the dune in front of the camera is as much sun as we had all day.

Annie and a Fogbow

With the sun just coming up over the Coast Range to our east, there were pretty consistent fogbows for an hour or so, just off the ocean to the west. I don't recall ever having seen a fogbow before. The temperature never really got too much above 60F on the beach and visibility most of the time was perhaps a quarter mile, often dropping down to 100 yards or less. Bob Straub Park is relatively unvisited and we had the beach nearly to ourselves for the three miles of oceanfront down to the mouth of the river. With no real sites to see, we contented ourselves with beachcombing. The tide was out and would be starting to come back in on our return.

Holy Mother of Mussels!

I've seen some mussels in my life, but never anything this big! These California surf mussels (Mytilus californianus) are huge, longer than my cellphone. We saw several big ones washed up on the beach. My cellphone, for reference, is 5-3/4" (14.5cm) long. This mussel easily went 7 inches (18cm).

Driftwood. Not!

We came across a few random chunks of kelp and pieces of driftwood, including one that looked like it had been gnawed on by beavers. This piece fooled us from a distance, proving to be a very heavy piece of petrified wood.

Eccentric or Western Sand Dollar

Frilled Dogwinkle

Among the washed up clam, mussel, and crab shells, we found a very few Frilled Dogwinkles, which besides a couple of intact sand dollars were the only really interesting shells of the day. The very few razor clam shells we saw reminded me of exactly how wonderful those most-delicious clams are, and also how different their shells are to those of the eastern razor clams. Those eastern clams look like straight razors, though their official name is Eastern Jackknife Clam.

Western Sandpipers Feeding on Sand Fleas

The further away from the parking lot we got, the more birds we saw, including a few small flocks of Western Sandpipers working the surf, grabbing sand fleas left and right. For a mile or more, one group of about 50 birds kept just ahead of us. We stopped to examine what they were feeding on and saw dozens of tiny sand fleas bouncing around the sand. We also a couple different kinds of larger amphipods along the beach.

Western Gulls, High Tide Line

Evocative of the day is this photo of two Western gulls standing at the high tide line just up the beach from us. That was pretty much our view all day, except for a couple of times when the fog thinned.

Non-Breeding Western Gull

I'm starting to try to figure out gulls out here in Oregon, many of which are very different from East Coast gulls. Of particular confusion is the group of gray-/black-backed gulls with pink legs. I wasn't sure what this gull was because it seems to have a black band at the tip of its bill, a bit similar to, but less distinct than a Ring-billed Gull. I'm really familiar with Ringers as they are probably the most common winter gull on central Atlantic beaches and noted for hanging out at inland garbage dumps. They have yellow-green legs, however, unlike this bird which has decidedly pink legs.

Also, the adult pink-legged gulls have red dots on their lower bills, rather than a black band across both bills. Moreover, the neck and head feathers are not completely white on this bird, making me think that this is not a fully mature bird. It turns out that the common Western Gull takes three years to grow in its adult plumage and get the red spot on its lower bill in place of the dark band seen above.

Brown Pelicans

The most common bird just offshore and on sandbars down the beach was the Brown Pelican. Pelican Brewing in Pacific City is aptly named. Down just before the Nestucca River meets the ocean, we came across a couple hundred pelicans roosting on the beach. For most of our walk, small groups of 5-10 pelicans were patrolling the ocean, flying parallel to the beach, perhaps 100 yards offshore.

Adult and Juvenile Pelicans

Fog at Mouth of Nestucca Bay/River

At the southern end of the beach, we bent left inland around the point and started walking back along the Nestucca River side of the spit. Even just a few yards off the ocean, it became very quiet in the absence of the roaring breakers. It was so quiet that we could hear the crabbers talking in their boats as they pulled in their crab traps in the river.

Great Blue Heron

In just a short stretch along the river, we encountered many Great Blue Herons hunting in the shallows. The more brackish and stiller water of the river must suit them.

Going Back to the Beach

Following the riverbank was a tough barefoot slog through very soft sand, unlike walking along the hard sand at the waterline along the ocean. Moreover, behind the dunes, we lost the cool breeze and it was getting to be warm going, dressed as we were for the ocean breezes. We could have followed the river back to the tree line and then taken a trail through the woods, but Annie was ready to get back to the easy breezy walking of the beach. We climbed back across the dunes to the beach. This bit of time off-trail brought us in contact with the very few flowers blooming in the dune grasses.

Searocket (Cakile spp.)

The most common blooming plant looked for all the world like a Brassica with light pink to lavender cross-shaped four-petaled blooms. I saw what looked to be two different species with different leaves, structures, and blossoms. Some looked very like arugula blooms, elongated like papery ceiling fan paddles, some as you see above with nicely rounded petals.

It turns out that there are two species of this plant called Searocket (rocket as in arugula) and the key to distinguishing them is in their seed pods. None of the pods in my photos are mature enough yet to make a definitive identification. I'm happy enough to know that they were searockets.

Yellow Sand-verbena, Abronia latifolia

In crossing the dunes, I walked right by a big mat of Yellow Sand-verbena whose brilliant yellow blooms cheered up the gloomy morning. Two interesting things about this plant: first, it lives on salt water rather than fresh, and second, as you can see in the photo, it attracts sand as a defense mechanism, making it unpalatable to most animals. The only other yellow in the dunes were a Tansy Ragwort and Coast Goldenrod here and there. For white flowers, we saw widely scattered Yarrow and Pearly Everlasting. Mainly though, we were walking through a veritable sea of grass.

Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea)

Once back on the beach, we headed back north towards the truck, the tide coming back in and washing up on our feet fairly often as we sought to stay in the firmer sand near the water. Back near the truck, the coastal fog had lifted just slightly off the ground to the point where the base of Haystock Rock was visible. Despite this, the sun would never cut through the fog while we were there. All day, the fog thickened and lightened, and at one point when it was really thick, we saw a group emerge slowly  coming towards us, vague shadows morphing into people on horses, perhaps ten strong.

After a 5- to 6-mile walk, we found our landmark and recrossed the dunes to the truck. Whenever I go out on a beach, I find a landmark so that I know how to find my way back. That was super imperative in all the fog. We could still be searching for the truck!

Haystack Rock, Pacific City

Crossing the Dunes Back to the Truck

Post Walk Libations

We were pretty thirsty after our walk the length of Nestucca Spit and back, so we headed two minutes north up the beach to Pelican Brewing for lunch before heading back home to McMinnville. Bottom line on Bob Straub State Park: easy parking, less populated, long walk with a lot of birds, not much in the way of scenery along the beach. Next time, I think a return trip through the trees is in order.