I spent last weekend teaching a landscape watercolor workshop at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on the Oregon coast. One of the highlights was spending Sunday morning below Proposal Rock at Neskowin Beach, just north of Cascade Head. In this photo you can see two of the painters seated just below the arch at low tide. We also painted at Knight Park and at the end of Three Rocks Road. Each day we were treated to beautiful weather, clouds and sun, and no rain! I saw lots of wonderful wildlife, too, on excursions away from the classroom. The ecology of the Central Oregon coast is really fascinating.
Our class saw a seal in the Salmon River estuary, and an osprey flying above us.
One evening after class north of Lincoln City we saw this pigeon guillemot.
The meadows around Sitka Center are often crowded with elk and one evening we saw a herd of about 40, including this beautiful bull.
A highlight for me was spotting this great horned owl. The photo is really out of focus, but the bird didn't sit still for long and I was thrilled to get any sort of photo at all! We were alerted to the owl's presence by by a student who was staying in a cabin nearby and reported she'd been observing it in one of the stately Sitka spruce trees nearby. When we approached and heard a noisy crowd of robins scolding away, we knew the owl was somewhere in the vicinity.
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