Nature in Flight

South Jetty, Hammond, OR  ~ March 9, 2013  

We live in an amazing region full of wildlife.  Unfortunately, I didn't have my regular camera with me and am shocked at how well the phone camera captured this eagle in flight.  I was able to get surprisingly close to the eagle.    There are far better images by others of wildlife.  Do you have favorites you've taken?

      Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store and Astoria Sunday Market.

Who Knows Where This Is?

Hammond, Oregon ~ November 2012  

"Secret Beach" at the South Jetty near Astoria, Oregon.  Can you find this?

Where to look:  Go to the South Jetty at Fort Stevens State Park.  There is a wide walkway that heads north parallel to the Jetty.  At low tide you can cross a creek bed and continue North where eventually you'll find the ocean and Columbia River.  The driftwood teepee can be found tucked into the sandy dunes to the right, though weather and time may eventually sweep it away.

 

Cyndi Mudge, Guest Blogger

Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

A View from Cape Disappointment

Cape Disappointment, Washington ~ September 14, 2008

There is a lighthouse on Cape Disappointment, and I'll show it another day; I was standing near it when taking this picture. It's a different lighthouse, but not far from North Head lighthouse, which I posted a few days ago.

All of the water in the foreground is still the Columbia River. The actual mouth of the river is a ways to the right, outside the photo. You can see a white line on the right just below the mountains (especially if you enlarge the photo). Those are the breaking waves of the beach beyond South Jetty. North Jetty is farther to our right. The hump in the middle of the horizon is Saddle Mountain, the top of which I showed in this post. By the way, the name "Cape Disappointment" is obviously not derived from the view or the scenery, but because an English fur trader named Captain John Meares could not find shelter here from a storm at sea; the river was so wide, he didn't recognize it as a river, and thus found no shelter. He knew that a river was supposed to exist here, but apparently in the storm and low visibility, he concluded that it was not a waterway.

Astoria is at the far left of the photo. The Cape Disappointment link above includes an image identifying various places in this scene and some that you can't see here. It's worth a look.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Mouth of the river

August 14, 2006

As seen from this vantage point, it's other mouths one has in mind besides that of the river. It looks like an idyllic day. The weather can be changeable and a storm or shower come along at any time, but at the moment all looks balmy and bright.

We're in the river here, facing the spot where the Columbia pours into the Pacific Ocean. The bit of land to the left is the spit near South Jetty. On the right is the very picturesque Cape Disappointment in Washington, which I havn't shown yet.

The fishing boat is approaching Hammond, which you reach from Astoria by crossing Young's Bay Bridge and turning right.

The fish? Salmon.

Hood Photo Blog came to Astoria. We didn't meet, but she posted a pic of our beautiful city on her blog today. Check it out!

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Where the Oregon Coast begins

Oregon is known for its fantastically beautiful and interesting coast, and this is where it starts at its northernmost end. I took this photo the other day from the viewing platform where I also took the picture of South Jetty. In today's photo, you can see some of the rocks forming the jetty, and you can also see light-colored, faded timbers that once formed the trestle and railroad line that brought the boulders that create the entrance to today's Columbia River. There's a lot more of the old trestle to be seen on the other side of Clatsop Spit, and it's quite scenic. The first mile of the stretch of beach you see here was formed after 1885 by the build-up of sand caused by the jetty's presence. Yesterday's post shows this whole location from the air.

The mouth of the Columbia River

It was a bit hazy early yesterday evening when I drove the few miles to Fort Stevens and out to South Jetty to get a photo of the mouth of the great Columbia River. And I got lucky. Do you see the small gray bump in the center of the horizon? That's a big ship coming in from the ocean. It's best to click on the image to enlarge it for a more impressive view. I took this photo from the viewing platform on the jetty. The ocean is on the left, and the river is on the right. The end of South Jetty and North Jetty are so far apart, I couldn't capture them both in the same picture from here, but you'll get an overall view tomorrow, when I intend to post an aerial photo by Frank Wolfe that shows the river pouring into the ocean. In fact, South Jetty angles to the left, and the end of it is just outside the frame of this photo. On the north side, the jetty also ends just outside the frame of the picture. I could easily fill a week's posts with different ways to look at this spot.

Before the jetties were built, ships sometimes waited as long as two or three weeks for conditions to be safe enough to attempt to enter the Columbia River. The jetty in this photo is made of huge rocks, but if you look at the left edge of the silhouette, you'll also see the remains of wooden boards. This is part of the ruined railroad trestle that ran several miles, bringing rocks of up to 50 tons for construction of the jetty. (Much of the trestle still exists, and would make a good photo for another day.) When it was finished, the jetty was five miles long, but it was extended another two miles - a task begun in 1903 and finished ten years later. According to the interpretive plaque supplied by the State Park system, the two jetties were built between 1885 and 1895 "to keep the mouth of the Columbia river from moving around, to narrow the current to help flush out river sediment, and to keep beach sand from clogging the river mouth . . . . Generally, waves and wind push Oregon Coast beach sand south in the summer and north in the winter - sometimes driving sand into shipping channels."

Locals and tourists enjoy coming out for an interesting view, to watch the sunset here and to see big waves during storms. Occasionally the storms are so strong that advisories will warn us to stay away from the jetty and viewing platform.

For scenic photos from around the world, drop in for a visit to Scenic Sunday.