Wing it on a trip to Nestucca
By Michael Edwards
For the TODAY
Wading through the chocolate ripples of the brackish bay, a female surf scoter tumbles a clam in her beak, orients it just right and swallows the mollusk whole. Clam meat will fuel the scoter’s long flight to the Canadian Arctic’s boggy nesting grounds. Her powerful gizzard pulverizes the clam shell into dust. Again, the sea duck dives into the murky shallows to dredge up another morsel. As the female scoter probes the mud for mollusks, above, her candy corn-beaked and skunk-feathered partner beats his wings furiously and slaps his webbed feet along the liquid runway. The sound of the drake’s labored lift off brings to mind the sweet song of a 1985 Plymouth Voyager with a failing timing belt straining to merge into Highway 101 traffic.
A few feet from this author’s barnacle-armored spruce log perch, a river otter pops its head out of the water, takes a breath, looks my way, grunts and melts back into the bay. Displaying less animus than the otter, a harbor seal amuses himself by watching me mumble PG-rated swear words as I stumble over stones slick with seaweed.
“These fluffy apes sure are an ungainly lot.”
In the misty March sky above the scoters’ clamming grounds, weak sunlight flashes against the white head and tail of a mature bald eagle. The seasoned raptor banks into the flight path of an eagle her junior. The raptors flash their talons at one another, perform evasive maneuvers and disappear into the misty rainbow arched over the Bob Straub peninsula.
Along with providing a hidden haven for wildlife, the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge offers visitors a number of accessible paths into the Central Oregon Coast’s natural world.
The Two Rivers Nature Trail is a 2.2-mile loop that leads hikers through an old growth Sitka spruce forest into an atomic green, moss-draped ferry land and on to a forested bluff overlooking Nestucca Bay. A short path from the bluff leads to the fishing area where I observed the wildlife mentioned above.
Along one of the trail’s branches, on a steep hillside guarded from the Pacific’s fury, a giant broken-crowned Sitka spruce stands tall. Though the Fish and Wildlife service hasn’t given this sentinel a designator, you’ll know the tree when you see it. This spruce’s branches are the size of mature conifers.
Further along the trail, on the forested plateau near the bay overlook, eagles nest. If you are deep in thought and spook an eagle you will scream like a little child. Don’t try to explain away your response. Own it and know that even after 20 years, when you are puffed up about passing a Kia on some lone desert highway in your big truck, that your partner will remind you of that rainy day on the Oregon Coast when a big bird sent you running for momma.
Thankfully, nature is always there to knock us down a peg.
If emasculating yourself in the eagle’s lair on your first date isn’t atop the agenda then the 0.6-mile round trip Pacific View Nature Trail might be for you. This paved trail winds upwards from the main parking lot through a vast meadow to a wooden platform lined with informative nature kiosks. When the platform isn’t soaking in a cloud, visitors atop this high vantage point will see the Pacific Ocean, Haystack Rock, Nestucca Bay, the Coast Range, the Little Nestucca River and Pacific City. In the meadow below the platform, northern harriers fly low and slow in search of voles while blacktail deer browse the shrubbery. The meadow is also home to the rare Oregon silverspot butterfly and its food, the early blue violet.
Because the refuge hosts a variety of rare and sensitive animal and plant species, be mindful of specific trail instructions posted by the refuge staff.
Like other destinations on the Oregon Coast, people tend to visit the refuge during the glorious summer months, but possibly the best time to observe (and be spooked by) wildlife is when the weather is sketchy and the crowds have yet to arrive.
If you are traveling to the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge from Lincoln City, drive north on Highway 101 for about 17 miles. Just past Oretown you will see a brown sign directing you to take a left into the refuge. Christiansen Road will take you to a small parking area and a kiosk that overlooks the Little Nestucca River. To get to the main trail heads written about above continue on the road up the hill to the main parking area. For more information, go to fws.gov/refuge/nestucca-bay/visit-us.