It’s our 14th anniversary (yay!) and we are at a lovely beach house in Manzanita, OR. Mostly lazy lying about and reading, or beach walks, so not much to say. But, I wanted to remember the two adorable birds that we saw out the window here, that I don’t see out my window at home.

First, an American Pipit. This was a cute little guy I heard singing in the shrubbery just outside the window. I located him and then watched him through the beach house binoculars. He would make two or three little chirps, and then throw his head back and his mouth open and do an extended trill, which vibrated his whole throat. It looked like the incarnation of joy to me. One of the online bird sites I saw when looking for a link described him as drab. Hmmph! The very idea!

Then I saw a White Crowned Sparrow. I was sitting on the window seat and he came walking down the path directly outside the window, like 2 feet from me. He looked just like an ordinary house sparrow but with a crazy grey-and-white-striped hat.

So, as long as I’m listing things, I’ll mention the 2 places we’ve eaten so far that we thought were really great: