Oregon Coast Real Estate Knowledge Center: Coast Photo Gallery featuring Online Image Tours of Key Points of Interests found along the Oregon Coast.
Coast Photo Gallery - Oregon Coast Wildlife and Tide Pools
Oregon Coast Birding - Nesting Seabirds
A special moment enjoyed while birding on the Oregon Coast is when nesting seabirds come ashore to mate and raise their chicks on the coastal cliffs and offshore islets. These seabirds spend most of the year out on the open seas and come ashore only to breed during the spring and summer. Some of the nesting seabirds, including common murres and Brandt’s cormorants select the tops of sea stacks and offshore islets for their nesting sites gathering in sizeable numbers as a protection strategy against predators. Common murres form colonies with breeding pairs spaced closely together watching over their respective single pointed eggs keeping them from rolling off the rocks. Both adults spend time incubating the egg over a five week period and then care for the chick for three more weeks. At that time, the chick will leave the nest and flutter down to the water below where the adult male will escort the chick out to sea caring for it until it becomes independent.


Photo of one of the offshore islets found along the coastline of the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area supporting a large colony of common murres and a few Brandt’s cormorants nesting on top of the rock formations as part of their annual breeding season when the seabirds arrive from the ocean and hatch their chicks in sizeable gatherings.
Photo of common murres gathering together on the flat surfaces of offshore islets where the breeding adult pairs will incubate one egg on the open rocks within group nesting sites for about five weeks, and then both adults feeding the chick for about three more weeks until the chick leaves the nest site fluttering down to the sea with the adult male escorting the chick out to sea caring for it until it can feed and live on its own independently.
Photo of Brandt’s cormorants nesting on a rocky pinnacle found on an offshore islet situated at the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area, a preferred breeding location for its close proximity to their feeding grounds out in the open sea as well as providing added protection to the chicks from predators and human disturbances by being separated from the immediate shoreline.
Photo of common murres gathering together on the offshore rocks located at the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area, an exceptional park site for observing the annual nesting season of these seabirds in the wild, and sometimes the wildlife explorer and the birds themselves are rewarded with their own version of whale watching from the coastline.


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