Chapter 22 - Wholly Toledo!!

The days are getting longer and, naturally, the nights are getting shorter. That means, Boys and Girls, that Spring, wonderful, delightful, charming Spring is just around the corner.

And that means that the Bird Walk Season is beginning. We had the first ASLC sponsored walk just last weekend and now, well, it wasn't an ASLC event but it was a bird walk.

It was down in Toledo, Oregon. We've been there before for a Model Train Show. It's a neat little town. While we were there, they were also hosting a Renaissance Fair. We liked the city so much, we even went back shortly after, walked around the small downtown and then had lunch in a local diner.

And now we were heading down there for a bird walk. The Yaquina Birders & Naturalists were hosting a birding field trip, hosted by Dawn Harris, through the freshwater sloughs and shrubby woodlands of Toledo. We stopped along the Olalla Slough and ended at Toledo's historic waterfront.  Along the way we got to see a lot of waterfowl including hooded mergansers, wood ducks, northern pintails and green-winged teal as well as several hawks, and other small birds.

But before we can start the field trip, we gotta get down there so let's fire up the Mini and hit the road, shall we!?!

We shall!!

Toolin' along through the mean streets of LCO.

Headin' down The 101 past the Yaquina Head Lighthouse.

This is an interesting stretch of The 101. Because of its proximity to the shore...

...The 101 is beginning to sink back into the ocean. 

You can see where The 101 has had some serious cosmetic surgery done here with a lot of asphalt to fill in those sagging, drooping spots along this part of the highway. It's all stopgap measures; one of the men working for the company filling in the sinkholes in the road said that it's like a never-ending cash cow. 

In other words, the road is going to continue to sink and the company is going to continue making money by pouring more asphalt into it. The only thing that will stop the sinking are some major improvements in the roadway and the bluffs that it sits upon.

I guess it's cheaper to continue piling asphalt on top of asphalt rather than rebuilding the whole thing.

It makes for one bumpy little ride along this part of The 101. 

In fact, they've even got blinking signs warning motorists to:

 "Slow Down - Rough Roads Ahead."

But soon enough, we were through Newport and, finished with The 101, we were moving on through the countryside on OR 20 towards Toledo. 

It got foggy as we moved out of Newport.

The plan had been to arrive around 0830 at the Rally Point, The DQ in Toledo just off of 20, in time for breakfast. 

And we did. I had it timed almost to a tee!!

Unfortunately, something both of us forgot to factor in is the fact that DQ is not known for their breakfast. The primary reason, folks, is because they don't serve it!! Therefore, the restaurants don't open until just before lunch.

D'oh!!

And that is why I had the time to roam up and down OR20 at 0835 hours, camera in hand and head on a swivel, scoping out the area for pictures.

And while I was out there, I did some deep reflecting....about the thought I had mentioned in my last blog. I had commented on how, when I took the pictures of the paintings, I was looking at the total painting but really trying to find the pictures hidden inside it.

Then, BAM!!, it hit me!! I was doing the same thing as I walked up the highway. Well, almost the same thing...close enough for government work.

I was looking, y'know, the 'seeing' thing I've talked about, at the total scene in front of me, and here's where it gets heavy, Man, I was looking for the pictures hiding inside it. 

Hahaha, well, it was profound, for me.

I realized what I was doing was looking for the hidden pictures, the compositions out there in the world I was seeing. I was looking for what might I felt might be an interesting picture just as I did when I stood and contemplated the painting. I was looking for a composition within a larger composition.

That's what I do. 

I know, you're shaking your head and wondering to yourself, "It took you over 40 years to figure that out!?!" 

Yeah, I'm SMH too.

But what a clarifying thought! What a crystal moment of recognition!

And what a good thing to know as I began looking for pictures to grab.

Like this one....before I shot it, I saw it in my mind!! 

And, in my mind, I saw it in B&W, too!!

I'd missed getting a shot of the first car going into the city off of 20 and so I waited for another one to come along. I wanted the next car to reach that decisive moment when everything came together on the road to get the shot I was seeing and feeling in my head.

I took the time to zoom in and frame it as I wanted. And I also took the time to consider what would appear in the picture. Then I waited for a car to put itself where I wanted it and....grabbed this shot.

And it worked so well the way I grabbed it, that I didn't have to render it in B&W. It appears to be a monochrome. But if you look closely at the car you'll see just a hint of the color.

It just worked.

I've always been a sucker for silhouettes. What better to frame against a gray, foggy sky than the bare branches of a deciduous tree...cold, wintery, gloomy. 

Hahaha, just right for the picture I wanted!!

And then this. I was seeing these small portions of the total scene and recognizing them as my photographs.

And I'm a sucker for roads, too. 

Clearly.

I was having a good time walking up the highway. There certainly was enough to catch my attention along that short stretch of road.

No birds, though. But, hey, they aren't the end-all. They add a great flavor to the proceedings but, y'know, I, obviously, can grab pictures without them.

They do give me a bit of a focus however...and an excuse to get out.

All these scenes were taken in the 20-25 minutes I should have been eating my delicious and nutritious DQ breakfast...if only DQ did breakfast.

One last shot. Here you can see the fog was being burned off by the rising sun. It promised to be a "not totally ugly day." And no rain, yet. 

I was noticing there are lots of water features around the city of Toledo.

Fun Facts: In the summer of 1970, Paul Newman traveled to Lincoln County and the City of Toledo to film Sometimes a Great Notion. For nearly three months, the cast and crew worked here to transform Ken Kesey's epic novel into a movie.

If you want to read an interesting article about an alleged Paul Newman incident while he was here filming the movie, check out this: http://www.powells.com/post/on-oregon/sometimes-a-great-notion-—-the-movie

I think I'm gonna try and get that book, 'Sometimes a Great Party'. It should be fun. Oh, and Newman was alleged to have come into a bar in Toledo, totally drunk and with a chainsaw. They said he then, without a word, proceeded to cut off the four legs to the pool table sending the slate crashing to the ground. Then he walked out. Without a word.

Hahaha, sounds legit to me.

But, soon enough, I was back at the DQ to meet up with the other 24 of our gallant party of Birders for today's adventure.

First things first, we got a quick overview of what was going to happen and then a request to carpool to cut down the number of vehicles in our convoy. At the moment Dawn mentioned this we were talking with Denise and she invited us to ride with her and, by golly, we accepted her invitation. What a nice thing to do for us.

So I left the faithful Mini at the DQ and we all headed off in our Convoy towards Dawn's house. Dawn was the woman serving as the Field Guide for this sortie.

Our first stop was at Dawn's house. She has a beautiful home on several acres overlooking a slough just outside Toledo. In fact, they were in the process of making it even more beautiful with some remodeling. Fortunately, the remodeling didn't bother the birds 'cause they were all there this morning.

Along with a whole slew of Birders. There's Dawn giving us the low-down. We were hoping the wood ducks would still be in the slough when we got there. And, by golly, they were.

Dawn, the one wearing a green sweater, had her hands full with all the people that showed up for this soiree. 

Oh, see the white-haired lady in the gray jacket? That's Denise.

We were standing in her driveway while Dawn was getting us oriented. The primary reason we came to her place was to see the wood ducks in the slough in front of her house. She was telling us they are there in the morning and then, normally, they leave for the rest of the day.

While she was talking, someone spotted a hawk in the tall trees on the hill behind her house. "Look!! It's a Red-Shouldered Hawk!" and everyone turned to find him, including me. And, POW!!, I knock off around 10 shots of this guy.

Well, even I can get tired of looking at a hawk and Dawn was trying to draw our attention back to the wood ducks who had suddenly appeared down in the slough. She was anxious for us to get a good look because once they moved on they wouldn't return while we were there.

They were not very cooperative. She even had her husband go down and spread some feed on the grass along the shore for them but these guys must be super-shy. They resolutely stayed in the water and behind some scattered trees along the bank.

By this time, I, and everyone else for that matter, began noticing the 40-50 bird feeders out in her yard, literally all around us. And those feeders were busy. There were Stellar's Jays, junkos, chickadees, sparrows, redwing blackbirds and, well, you get the picture.

It was like being in an aviary....so much to see.

Then someone yelled, "Look!! There's two of them!!"

And, by golly, there were!! In the same tree. The first time we had looked one had been up high, at the top of the tree, and the other had been maybe 10 feet below on a lower limb and partly hidden by the branches.

Now the one on top had joined the one on the bottom. A mated pair.

And so, yeah, I shot a couple dozen more pictures of them. They were pretty far away and I was out to the end of my lens....shaky.

But we got to see them. After a while, my attention waned and I wandered off, shooting the other birds. Suddenly these two began their mating ritual. I got to see them briefly, entangled together with one flapping its wings above the other before they broke off and one flew away to another nearby tree. 

Someone remarked we may have witnessed the first copulation of the season for these birds and we all enjoyed a hardy laugh.

Ahhhh, birders. Such witty companions.

A detail of the slough.

It's been a nasty week. Lots of rain and overcast skies. But today was looking semi-good. We were getting some sun breaking through the clouds.

And the wood ducks still stayed just outside and behind some sparse foliage. Just close enough to let us see them a bit but not enough to capture their full color and beauty.

Fortunately, we could look almost anyplace else in the yard and see activity. Dawn and her husband must spend a couple of big bucks each month on the feed bill for these birds.

Here's the hawk that flew to another tree after the brief tryst. Doesn't look too put out, now. 

Note the blue sky behind it.

Then Dawn led everyone round back to see their chickens. They were a bit concerned seeing the hawks because, well, hawks, chickens, what could go wrong there? 

They even have a special cage they can put their chickens in should any raptors attack. After an attack, they keep the chickens in a low, covered cage for a few days until the raptors go off somewhere else in search of food. 

You can see the yard is, like the house, also a work-in-progress.

They had maybe 10-15 chickens. A lot of different species back there.

A real nice area for their coop with several small, protected houses for the chickens.

Evidently Dawn and her husband, I never did catch his name, are big into chickens. Is that obvious? I noticed on the side of their Prius (Haha, they're Oregonians, after all!!) a small sign declaring, "We Love Chickens!!"

Their front yard runs down to the slough at the base of the hill and that's where the wood ducks stayed. Just far enough away to make it difficult to get a reasonable picture.

But I tried!!

Good Golly, how I tried. 

But the other wee birdies were still there and making a joyful noise and I kept wandering back to them.

Like this chestnut-backed chickadee. These braids are brassy little fellows and will get quite close while you're laying out some chow. 

Can't talk. Eating!!

It was a really nice morning, weather-wise. And birding-wise, too.

Farther off in this slough we could see other waterfowl. But mostly we were focused on the wood ducks in front of us. Oh, and there was one other duck, a mandarin duck, Dawn kept mentioning but I never saw one.

So we wandered all around the front of the house and along the side. That's the addition they're putting on their place, the part in black. They're going to paint the inside later on today and the contractors just have the exterior to finish.

Meanwhile, Dawn led us into their garage to see the baby chicks. She was able to tell which was which but to me they all looked like....baby chicks. Carol told me their were 20 different varieties of chicks in the garage.

They have a mail order business where they sell these chicks.

They really are into chickens. On the wall of the garage they had some paper-mache Chicken Heads. Plus a lot of books on birds.

As we were leaving, we got to, almost, see this yellow-shafted flicker. I've seen a red-shafted flicker several times before. We used to have one that visited our feeder in Seattle quite often. I'd never seen a yellow-shafted flicker before. 

Now I can say I've seen part of one. He never did leave that side of the suet feeder while I was there.

Next, we drove around the slough to the road directly across from Dawn's house. The waterfowl we'd seen in the distance from her house now became our focus.

And there were several different kinds.

The slough. You can see Dawn's place just right of center in the background. Pretty nice, eh!?!

There were the usual mallards out and about.

Plus a couple of killdeer.

And a whole bunch of birders. 

Cars passing by on the road would slow down and look out towards where we were looking. I'm sure they were expecting something way more interesting than birds because, well, why else would a large group of people be out staring at one place?

There's Denise, the lady that gave us a lift, on the far left. Dawn, the Field Guide, is in the green sweater. Michael, the guy who presented the class on photography back in November is looking through the scope.

Looking farther to the right of the last scenic picture that I took.

There was, as you can tell by the many different directions those binoculars are pointed, a lot to look at.

Then we drove down the road towards the elementary school and parked so we could walk along the river.

Oh, Canada...Goose.

Dawn remarked several times on the large number of hybrid birds in this area. You can see an example here. Look closely at the goose on the left....doesn't look quite the same as the other two, does he.

He's a mudblood, he is!!

(Channeling my inner-Draco Malfoy)

And the song sparrows.

Water is everywhere around Toledo.

What would a Smilin' Jack Blog be like without some road shots, right!?!

And some artsy-fartsy B&W pictures. 

We were on a schedule and so we headed back to our caravan parked illegally in the No Parking zone at the entrance to the school. 

C'Mon, it's Saturday and no one really cared.

Next stop was the city park.

Carol and Denise.

And a white goose. This is what I expect when I hear the word, "goose".

These guys are trained to come to come when folks appear along the shore of the lake at this park.

Ah, silhouettes and B&W. A potent combination and someday I'm gonna get one shot that makes all this preparation worthwhile. Someday!!

But we got to see a Blue Heron way off on the other side plus some other waterfowl. I was just wandering around trying not to step in any goose matter.

Another hybrid.

Finally, I got to see a semi-looking Daffy Duck.

Last stop was downtown Toledo along the waterfront. 

That's Andy, the guy that manages the Boathouse. He came out and gave a small talk about the waterfront and his boathouse. He takes in old kayaks and canoes and reconditions them. In the warmer months you can come by on Fridays and Saturdays and check out one for free to go boating there.

That's his boathouse there and in the foreground is an older fishing boat. Kinda cool, eh!?! The fishing boat, not the boathouse.

And another, slightly larger fishing boat.

From here you can get a good view of the downtown Toledo.

The Mill this city depends on is to the left in this picture.

And that was pretty much it. We'd had a good time and I really enjoyed seeing so much of the area. One of the perks of birding is that you get these free guided tours around places. I probably never would have seen three-fourths of the places I've seen so far while here without the birders.

And we get to meet new people.

I gave Dawn and Denise my card and invited them to contact me if they wanted any pictures from today. Then we all said our good-byes. Denise drove us back to the DQ where the faithful Mini was waiting and we gathered up Michael and a large vanilla cone for Carol and then headed back.

After we dropped off Michael, he lives up near the Yaquina Head Lighthouse, we doubled back for a run to the Newport Walmart. And then off to LCO.

A great day. A solid adventure and a lot of new sights. I sorta reaffirmed my affection for Toledo. I'm a-thinking another trip down there for lunch and sight-seeing might just be in order.

And we got our shopping done. A real win-win-win kinda day.

A "Life is Good" kinda day.

          Hooah!!