I am hoping to do a gull trip in Bandon in a few weeks. In the past few years, I have done trips on the big sand bar you can access near the end of the north jetty road in Bandon. In order to make it work we need a low tide on a weekend. You would think with an entire month+ (November and the first week of Dec), that would not be a problem, but I can only find one weekend that would work. Of course, we would also need decent weather as you are totally exposed on the sand flat, so I have picked several days for the trip, here is what I have:
The best (and really only) November tides are on these dates:
Thursday the 19th- low tide 2.3 at 2:08PM (meet at noon)
Friday the 20th- low tide 1.4 at 2:57PM (meet at 12:30 PM)
Saturday the 21st- low tide 0.4 at 3:42PM (meet at 1PM- sunset 5:05PM)
Sunday the 22nd- low tide -0.4 at 4:26PM (meet at 2PM)
My preference would be Saturday the 21st as the target day but if weather looked bad, I would pick Friday as the 2nd best day, Thursday as the third best day, and Sunday as the 4th best day (we just can’t get out on the sand bar until close to sunset that Sunday). Given that it usually rains at least 50% of the time in November or we have flooding and no low tide (!), I think picking the best day might not be as complicated as it sounds since the weather may dictate the obvious choice. So, what I would ask folks to do is contact me before 16 Nov if they could go ANY of these days and I can put you on a list with updates as the time gets close. I probably will not know until the Tuesday or Wednesday (17th or 18th) what the weather will do.
The spot we have used is on the sandbar near the north jetty in Bandon and is wonderful on a low tide on a non-rainy day for gulls but would not work if we had rainy, windy weather or flooding from recent heavy rains. We can meet at the times listed above for whichever day I choose at the north jetty parking lot in Bandon. I think you need a parking pass anymore to park in any State Park in Oregon so if you do not have a pass you may want to come with someone who does (or buy one!). I think it would be possible to carpool in Bandon with someone who has a pass if so but let me know and I can see what I can do to make that happen.
There are lots of gulls coming in of late. In addition to the usuals- Westerns, Californias, and Western x Glaucous-winged hybrid (Olympic Gull- one many confuse as a Herring or Glaucous-winged- the hybrid is very common), I have been seeing Short-billed (Mew) Gull, Bonaparte’s Gull, American Herring Gull, Glaucous-winged, and my first Thayer’s Gulls (lumped with Iceland Gull these days). I will try and show folks all these gulls if possible and hopefully get folks more comfortable trying to ID our more common local gulls. They are often the most plentiful species out there in the winter, and “ignoring” them means ignoring most of the birds out there! In order to learn them, you need a good spot where multiple species congregate so you can see the entire bird on the ground close by- the sand bar at Bandon is perfect for that and has many more species than the south jetty parking lot which is usually filled with the first three gulls I mentioned above. We will focus on adults and first year gulls which make up 90%+ of each species. The Cape Arago Audubon website (look under local birding) has some gull sheets I put together which you can review or download and print.
Anyhow, let me know at timrodenkirk@gmail.com if you are interested and ANY of those days may work.
In the meantime, Happy November!
Cheers,
Tim
