Haystack Rock Awareness Program Nature Blog

OMG! OMG! OMG! All my dreams have come true! The stars have all aligned! We got to go to the BACK SIDE of the Rock three mornings in a row!!! It is was absolutely amazing! There was a -1.7 and -1.9 tide, a sand bar connecting the first needle and the Rock, plus the surf was small! There was creatures to discover everywhere you turned! Lets just make a list off the things: SOO many Sea Stars, including Ocre, Six-rayed, and Red Brittle SOOO many Chitons (Leatherback, Mossy, and Lined) Skeleton Shrimp Lemon, Opalescent, Janolus, Rustanga, Frosted  Nudibranchs Olive Snails and their maze of paths Sea Urchins Decorator, Red Rock Crabs Sea Anenomes Muscles Barnacles I definitely missed some of the things people found, it was impossible to see everything, but something so special. There was two moments that stood out to me. The first one was all of sudden I turned around and realized I was not surrounded by tourists. All of the people who got up early to come out were loca...

This weekend was the second annual Manzanita Music Festival in downtown Manzanita! Two HRAP staff members-Alanna and Jesse- went down and represented the program with a booth. Alanna is not on staff this year but she has been for the last five years and is now off studying the ocean at Oregon State University but she came home to volunteer her time at the festival for the program. It was an AWESOME weekend with great music and fun people. Alanna and Jesse made more fun puffin puppets and colored lots of pictures with kiddos and even some adults who took the puffin to the next level with extra details and teeth(do puffins even have big white square teeth?). They both had so much fun representing the program off the beach! Thank you Manzanita Music Festival for allowing us to be part of your awesome event. We can not wait for next year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BIG NEWS! Guess what? Guess what? THE BLACK OYSTERCATCHERS HAVE BABIES!!!! THREE OF THEM!!!!!! AND THEY SURVIVED THEIR FIRST WEEK OF LIFE!!!!     We are REALLY excited about the little fellas. It has been a week and a half of a lot of excitement and a little added stress. We are working hard to ensure that the parents are happy and that the babies are protected. Please help us do that by understanding why there might be more area closed off than normal. Black Oystercatchers are extremely special birds and we are lucky to have a pair that nests at the Rock. Ready for the quick and dirty story of Black Oystercatchers: They are shore birds who are considered a species of concern because their population is so low. It is estimated that there is only 400 on the entire coastline of Oregon, approximately one for every mile. They are territorial and will loudly chase off any other Oystercatcher that comes to close. At the Rock, there has been a pair nesting for a whi...

❤ Here is an update of our magical moments from Haystack Rock! ❤ One of our favorite visitors, Barbara Hauser, wearing the latest fashion in Puffin ! Puffins line down alongside the center of her coat's zipper. Don't we all wish we had one of these? 🙋🙌 This is what our inter tidal area of Haystack Rock's Marine Preserve looks like once the tide starts coming up quick! Be aware and don't forget, the ocean comes up really quick (after hitting low tide)!💧💦 A beautiful, healthy sea star enjoying some underwater sun!😁 The sunset frames Haystack Rock in pink from sea to sky! 💗 All Photos by: Brianna Ortega

Saturday was a busy day at the Rock. There were three events going on simultaneously—a guided tide pool tour, the Great Puffin Watch, and a Discover Haystack Rock event about puffins. All three went totally perfectly. Discover Haystack Rock is an event/activity that we put on once a month throughout the summer. This month we made paper puffin puppets out of brown paper bags, paper, glue, and super fun googley eyes. The children, parents, and even grandparents loved every second of it. The wind served to be a little bit of an issue, but luckily no puffin puppets went flying away. All the kiddos walked away with a fun new Tufted Puffin puppet and a ton of new knowledge about the wonderful puffins living at Haystack Rock. It was absolutely FABULOUS!  Yay puffins!  A grandpa really wanted to make one for his grandson. One Visitor took the puppet to the next level by adding eyebrows and a beautiful rainbow.  "Quick everyone hold up their stunning puffins!...