[tom roy]

Since my wife had Columbus day off we took the trailer down to Cape Look Out state park. Sunday and Monday were gorgeous with surf that resembled a winter storm day. There were a few sneaker waves that covered the whole beach even at low tide. The first time I had seen these things and they are dangerous. I saw a couple of large logs high on the the beach tossed around like fence boards. If one of these struck you would be in a world of hurt. Sunday we had to take the short drive down to Cape Kiwanda a great storm watching spot. It felt odd as we sat for hours watching the surf yet it was calm and balmy out. Ive been to the North side of some of the Hawaiian islands watching waves and been much colder. So a couple of hikes we planed were abandoned we did not want to waste time in the woods the show on the beach was to much fun to watch.

The beach look so peaceful and you could walk out to the surf but out of no where a wave set would cover the whole beach without warning.

We saw several of theses birds in the sand and surf. They appeared to be hurt with something broken this one was the worst he could not even limp away from me.

Cape Kiwanda.

Dory launching beach at Cape Kiwanda. A peaceful looking trap at the moment of this photo.

I think had this been a summer weekend they would have had more than the one rescue than the coast guard had. And someone would have got killed. I saw two dogs almost get taken out to sea and a little boy in underwear got slammed down in the hard sand and his eye brow had a bad cut. Cape Kiwanda is normally a mellow place on such a day and Dory boats use it to launch. We once took a Dory boat fishing charter off this beach and it was pretty easy and fun.

[olderthanIusedtobe]

I love the Oregon Coast! Cape Lookout and Cape Kiwanda are both great places. Sounds like the wave action was interesting to see. I believe your injured bird is a Western grebe.

[evergreen199]

We were at La Push the same weekend and also saw several injured birds (ours were Surf Scoters) incapacitated among the driftwood. Most of them had significant injuries/bleeding where their wing meets the body, it was hard to watch... We also experienced the huge waves and big logs tossed like toothpicks, quite powerful and beautiful.

[Ski]

cool. too bad about those birds. great site for viewing driftwood being tossed about like toothpicks in a blender: bluff above Ashenbrenner or Beach #1 during a mid-November storm. awesome.

[Voxxjin]

About a week ago at Kalaloch, I walked about amile on the beach and counted 10 dead birds on the sand. Very odd. No idea on what killed them. Only one had signs that something had started to eat it (crabs?).