Fogs and Phalaropes

 

Yaquina Head, jutting out nearly a mile into the Pacific Ocean, was wrapped in a scarf of gray velvet.  It was hard to imagine that any living thing would leave the warmth of the tropics for the fog of the central Oregon Coast, but birders had been flocking to Yaquina Head for the past week in hopes of achieving their Holy Grail, the sight of a lone Blue-footed Booby, very young and very lost.

“Do you think the fog will burn off later?” I asked the gatekeeper.  “What’s your professional opinion?”

He looked doubtful.  “Honestly, I think we’re socked in for the day.  You can go if you want, but it’s worse out at the lighthouse.  It’s a lot further out to sea than we are now.”

I had asked his advice.  I wouldn’t be at the Coast again for another month, and I had no hopes that the Booby would still be hanging around in October.  Ah, well, if the fog lifted, I could always come back.  I threw my binoculars in the back seat and headed south.

I stopped as I always do at Seal Rock, my favorite scenic overlook.  The view of the waves crashing into the volcanic rocks below is emblematic of the entire Oregon Coast.  I couldn’t see it.

I stopped at the wayside south of the Alsea Bay Bridge, one of the most graceful of the Coast’s many graceful bridges.  I often sit here and watch the harbor seals in the Bay.  There is a haul-out point here where hundreds of them sometimes congregate.  I couldn’t see the haul-out.  I couldn’t see the Bay.  I couldn’t see the Bridge.

I stopped at Patterson Beach.  If I couldn’t enjoy the scenery, I could at least indulge in a little beachcombing.  The tide was at low ebb, and the need to watch each footstep made for a long, slow walk to the shoreline.  The fog was even thicker now, as thick as the clam chowder at the Galley Ho, smothering the shore in silence; even the gulls were muted.

All at once, I realized I was not alone – the beach was full of Red-necked Phalaropes, about two hundred in number.  Emerging from the fog as I did, I would have expected the flock to take flight, but they seemed to accept my presence as normal and unalarming.  These shorebirds were on their post-breeding migration from the Arctic to their winter home at sea off the coast of South America.  Normally found out at sea this time of year, this flock was having a good feed on the shore, as evidenced by the thousands of tiny holes poked in the sand by their long thin beaks. I had seen Phalaropes at sea earlier in the summer, but hardly expected to find myself in close consort with so many of them all at once.  Three Caspian Terns flew low overhead, looking like watercolor birds - also migrating, but only as far south as Baja or the Gulf of Mexico.

The Phalaropes scurried along the shore on long black legs, pausing to probe the sand and tide pools for worms and other food.  A bird with only one leg hopped away from me nearly as fast as the other birds with two.  I watched it for several minutes; I was amazed that the poor thing had survived such a long migration with only one leg, but it seemed to have adapted well to its handicap.  Wait; there was another one-legged bird, and another.  I realized that they were tucking a leg up under their feathers out of sight, and learned a good lesson about drawing conclusions from a single observation.

The adults were already in their winter plumage – mottled gray above, white below, but there were a few juveniles scattered among the group still in their pre-molt reddish plumage.  They would probably be molting on the migration, but it was a long, dangerous way to travel without a good coat - difficult to fly, difficult to stay dry.  I wished them well.

A man and woman emerged out of the fog, the first humans I had seen since leaving Yaquina Head.  Some of the birds ignored them, some took flight, revealing the chevron white markings on their backs and wings and confirming my identification of them.  The couple walked on down the beach, pausing briefly to admire the birds, but then disappearing into the fog themselves.

I spent the afternoon watching the birds as they waded in and out of the waves that washed the beach.  Some seemed to favor the sand, some to favor the waves, following the surf in and out.  As the beach began to grow dark, with no diminishment of the fog, I left to make my way home.  The Phalaropes were still on shore, but soon they, too, would make their way home, a much longer journey than my own.  I never did see the Booby, but I was not disappointed.