Birding from the Couch

 People that know us at all, know that birdwatching is our passion.  Yesterday we escaped the heat by spending the day on the Oregon Coast, and you guessed it, birding. Our first stop, and our biggest effort of the day, was at the Alder Island Trail in the Siletz Bay National Wildlife Refuge. You can see our list here. After lunch in the van, we were looking for some shade for relaxing, and better cell service so I could continue editing photos.  We drove over to East Devil's Lake State Recreation Area, backed up to a woodsy trail and opened up the back doors of the van. It was perfect.  Jeanette stretched out on the couch with her iPhone to catch-up on e-mail and Facebook.  She became distracted, almost to the point of irritated, by the cacophony of bird sounds. Thats when she hit upon the bright idea of using Merlin Sound ID on her phone to record and identify the birds. We use the free phone app Merlin all the time to identify bird sounds while taking bird walks.  This however was a new idea. From the comfort of the van, simply identify the birds and make a list.  No big effort to take a walk and strain your eyes with your binoculars to make a list.  It worked amazingly well, and she was able to identify a dozen different species while she reclined on the couch. Here is her sound only bird list. The sun eventually found us, so we moved on to the Salmon River Estuary Hotspot on Fraser Road.  Repeat observation techniques here resulted in a second sound only bird list. Our next move was to the Salmon River Fish Hatchery for another bird walk and dinner.  While having dinner we discovered that we could actually identify more birds while we ate our dinner than when we were walking around the hatchery grounds. Here is our combined walking and sitting list. More relaxed birding from the comfort of the van is probably in our future.