Oregon Part 1: Birds of the Best Coast
The first week of March was spring break from grad school, which meant I had a whole week to not be in Washington DC (which, after a few months of living in DC, was a very good thing). Many different options were considered, some more exotic than others, but ultimately I settled on a visit to Oregon to visit my sister Morgan and (just as important) her dog that I still hadn't met. It didn't hurt of course that there were lots of West Coast-specific birds in Oregon that I still hadn't seen, my only previous experience being a trip to Washington state when I was an even worse birder than I am now. On that front, it ended up being easily the most successful birding trips I've ever had, in terms of very good birds seen, targets ticked, and pictures taken. I arrived in Portland on the night of February 27, with just enough time to have a beer with Morgan and her boyfriend Lee and to meet my new (dog)niece before going to bed. The next day my first official outing