Really, Birding is Safe and Relaxing. Just Mind Your Footing When Getting That Closer Peek.

~ By Vicky ~

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We all know that the year 2020 was a wash. Covid was making its mark on the world. For a whole year and counting. Weird and dangerous political and social things were happening. Then, there were those crazy out of control forest fires. 2021, not so much better. But the circumstances that started this year off wrong had nothing to do with the pandemic or politics or social injustices, but to another meteorological bang-up and just plain bad luck. Here in Salem, Oregon in the month of February we had a nasty little ice storm that left the lady and I without power for 5 days, and our yard and neighborhood literally covered in broken trees, tree limbs and downed power lines. Then, after that I broke my ankle. I'm not even joking. Here's the timeline of events in this young year of 2021.

☞ February 13, Saturday, middle of the night ⇢ woke to what sounded like squirrels on roller skates roller-derbying on our roof. Noticed our power was out. Really woke up when a frozen tree limb from our neighbor's tree broke and smashed onto our roof. The predicted ice storm was real.

☞ February 13 - 17 ⇢ No power, no hot water, no heat. The house temperature was 50 - 52 degrees. Luckily we have a gas stove (yet another reason to love a gas stove) so we could cook hot meals, and heat up water to fill our two 2-liter Camelback bladders and make hot-water bottles to warm up the bed. OK, we survived.

☞ February 17, 8:03 pm ⇢ We have mutherf*ckin power! It kicks on right as I'm heating water for our hot-water bottles. And since we kept up the Christmas lights, the front porch got all lit up and colorful too. We busted out the Laphroaig 16 year scotch and Waterford crystal glasses and had a celebratory tipple.

☞ February 18 ⇢ We head off to new destination Port Orford for a southern Oregon coastal birding trip.

We have big birding plans (See photo. Highlights mean big plans). The day of our arrival was gale force winds, so we cuddled up in the hotel with its amazing coastal view, and eat take-out and drink hot toddies - yum!

☞ February 19, 9:32 am ⇢⇢⇢ I break my right ankle.

☞ February 20, morning, and two ambulance rides later in Eugene, Oregon ⇢ I have surgery to rebuild my ankle with three plates and ten pins/screws/nails/medieval technology.

☞ To time of current writing, March 10, morning ⇢ In bed, in a boot. I can put about 25% weight on the ankle now. It'll be another four weeks until I should be able to do full weight.

The ankle break happened literally on our first stop of our vacation, putting an abrupt end to it then and there. We went to Cape Blanco Lighthouse with the dream of spotting Rhinoceros Auklets, Ancient Murrelets and Sooty Shearwaters. The day was brilliant sunshine with a smattering of wispy clouds and gentle sea breezes. I just wanted to get a closer peek at the gulls down on the rocky shore (we are trying to better our gull identification skills), so we decided to take the short trail down and see what we could see. Since it was a short walk we didn't change into our hiking boots. The terrain was steep and wet with coastal dew. Apparently it was also slippery as hell. I took a short punchy fall. S, who was walking several paces behind me, said it looked like a slapstick comedy where the character slips on a banana peel. All I know is my right foot slipped and pirouetted out from under me on the uneven slope, I heard three distinct pops, landed on my butt and back, took one look at my ankle and saw it was incredulously not the way a foot attached to an ankle should look.

I want to note that S is seriously the best person ever. She was so calm and quick to rightly judge the situation, and called 911, and got the medics and fire department to haul my ass up that slope and into the ambulance in minutes flat. If I had my full say I would have hemmed and hawed, been all Cool-Hand Luke about it, and probably attempted to scrabble back up the path the best I could before even considering calling for help. At which point I'd be a mucky painful mess on the point of hypothermia. Cuz I dumb.

Well, I'm not a doom n' gloom kind of person. Really, the intent of this post was to build a list of birding goals and give me lots of things to look forward to. So let me get on to that and move past these last few weeks.

Our birding goals list. Not necessarily for the year, but for while we are still living here in the Pacific Northwest. So I'll limit goals to PNW and California. List ignores broken ankle limitations.

❑ The mating dance of the Western Grebe

❑ Sandhill Crane migration along Pacific Flyway

❑ Seeing the Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Golden-crowned Kinglet in full breeding headdress.

﹆They are common here (western PNW) during winter but move further inland to breed

during spring

❑ Dabbling duck butt photography. Preferably Northern Pintails, but any cute grouping of dabbling duck butts will do.

❑ Newly minted wood duck chicks jumping out of their tree-hole nest

﹆Lofty goal as we'd need to know where an active nest is, plus, impeccable timing

since they jump the coop literally the day that they break free from the egg

❑ Bird babies for photos and general oogling

❑ Grebe chicks riding on parents back

❑ Revisit newly discovered American Dipper couple and their nest for babies and more breeding/coupling displays

❑ Really, really close up head-shot of Male Bufflehead's iridescent head feathers.

❑ Close shot of Cedar Waxwing, one of my favorite looking birds

❑ Get better at gull identification

❑ More owl sightings

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Pretty soon I'll be back to hiking to such beautiful destinations.

- Twenty Lakes Basin and Saddlebag Lake Trail, Inyo National Forest. July, 2020.

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Vicky's note: Intro and end pictures are composites

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