Friday, November 26, 2010

Oregon Coast: Bird Omens, Sky Weirdness

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday on the Oregon coast. While there, took photos on the beach. Was privileged to see a pelican hovering, swooping and fishing the sea for food. Among all the gulls, one lone pelican. I've seen pelicans before of course, but usually they're in a flock, just sitting around. This was the first time I'd seen one going solo (no other pelicans in sight) and so active.

We saw another odd thing: several dead birds on this same beach. Not unusual to see a dead bird or two on the sand; we often see that. But this time, there were five dead birds; four gulls, one crow, all in a curved line, about five feet apart from each other. (And later, we had to swerve to avoid hitting a gull that just wouldn't fly off; it was on the highway, pecking away at a gull carcass. On the way back, we saw what we assumed was the once live gull, now dead by the side of the road, near the bird corpse it was cannibalizing earlier. This about a quarter mile from the place on the beach where we saw the dead birds.)

When I uploaded the photos of the gulls and pelican, I noticed this weird "object" -- I don't know if it's a camera/computer glitch, or something that was really there in the sky. From a distance, without zooming in, the object appears different than the birds; sharper. It's pixalated and becomes more so as I zoom in. We didn't notice anything odd when we were out there, but then again, we were watching the pelican. I get the feeling that it's an object, and probably man made (not an alien/outer space UFO, but some kind of military object.)

The sharp, dark object just about in the upper middle of the photo: glitch or object?

There were weird electrical glitches during that trip, including one odd thing with the camera earlier the day before. I went to turn off the camera, and vertical colored stripes appeared, and a strobing effect. Then it turned off; but seemed fine after that. No problem since. Object in the sky, or camera glitch?


I had hoped to explore Stonefield Beach, which, according to local lore, is a hotspot of weirdness, including UFOs and aliens. But when we drove down the drive we found this:

Stonefield Beach Park closed. (Blobs aren't aliens or ghosts, just raindrops :)
(Stonefield Beach is roughly eight miles from the beach near the Silver Surf motel discussed earlier.)

For more coastal oddness, visit my blog Animal Forteana.

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