Summer in the Valley can be a challenge. The birding is often slow, and when it's really hot around Sacramento, the mountains to the east are just not tall enough. Usually, but not always, the coast provides a respite. During a period that saw temperatures around 110F locally, hitting a shocking 116F in Portland, Kimya and I visited Humboldt and Del Norte counties. Near the coast, it was 65F. Somewhat by accident, the trip turned into a focus on several of the great redwood parks. The last time we spent any considerable time in this habitat was the 1990s. In the process, I came across an excellent website with park and trail descriptions to all of the accessible old growth redwood groves in the state, as well as to all of the giant sequoia groves: www.redwoodhikes.com

We visited the northernmost readily accessible redwood grove, about eight miles into Oregon, and enjoyed walks in Jedediah Smith and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Parks, and sites off the Avenue of the Giants, in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. We also visited some coastal sites and inland sites away from the big trees. It's striking how different the weather and relative lushness is north of Arcata compared with the groves off the Avenue of the Giants, which are farther inland. In southern Humboldt County, it was 25 degrees warmer and some of the hillsides were brown adjacent to the redwood groves (it felt more like home). The mossier, lusher, foggier north was quite different from what I've grown accustomed to. I really enjoyed each of the groves we visited, but the time of day and the angle of light really can affect the experience, so my favorite sites tended to be those we visited in the morning or the late afternoon. To get a feel for each site, you'd need to visit in multiple seasons and times of day.

The birding was pretty slow, though there were a few highlights. It had been quite some time since I had seen and heard Canada Jays (Prairie Creek). It was also a lot of fun to see a Yellow-breasted Chat perform a flight song at Arcata Marsh. We saw very (very) distant scope views of Tufted Puffins on Castle Rock off Crescent City (plus thousands of breeding Common Murres), and four distant Marbled Murrelets off the Klamath River mouth. We missed the Horned Puffin (by a day) that had been spending time in Trinidad Harbor, but enjoyed seeing four Purple Martins flying along the beach at Humboldt Lagoons State Park. An American Dipper in Bull Creek was an unexpected treat. Swainson's Thrushes were far and away the most common singer where we visited, with fair showings by Pacific-slope Flycatchers, Pacific Wrens, Varied Thrushes, and Wilson's Warblers. This was our first real vacation since the start of the pandemic (actually staying in a hotel!), and was a really nice change of scenery and climate.

-Chris Conard