Haystack Rock Awareness Program Nature Blog

Hello all! First of all I want to apologize for two posts in a row about birds but I could not help myself. Not that long ago, I was sitting at a viewpoint south of Cannon Beach whale watching. As I was sitting there, I noticed a falcon like bird flying in circles near me. I did not think much of it until I looked to my left where this large rock was and on one of the cliff edges was sitting a second falcon. At this point, I turned with my binoculars to confirm what I thought I was seeing. I was right, sitting within fifty feet of a PEREGRINE FALCON. As I watched a little bit longer, it eventually dove off and disappeared down the cliff; leaving me completely in awe. Since this day, I have been doing some research on peregrine falcons. They are the largest falcon in North America and comparative in size to crows. They can be found all over the continent but typically prefer to be near the coast, which is good news for us. When they dive for their prey, the falcons can reach up to 200...

Our absolute favorite time of the year is finally here! Officially all of the birds that nest at the Rock have arrived and are here to stay for the rest of the summer. The Pigeon Guillemots, Common Murres, Cormorants, Black Oystercatchers, Tufted Puffin and some others all make up the majority of the nesting bird population. From personal experience, I understand that it can be incredibly overwhelming to come to the beach in search of puffins and learn that there is so many species of birds to identify between. That is why we are here! We want to show you the difference between the Common Murres (which look like tiny flying penguins) and the Tufted Puffin; both of which look very similar while in flight with their similar size and fast wing beat. Since the Tufted Puffin are the claim to fame bird at the Rock, I wanted to give you a few tips to be able to see them! 1. Come in the morning time. Its hard to give an exact time, but with a rough guess I would say anytime before 10:00am....