One of the places we enjoy walking on the Central Oregon Coast is the Siletz Bay National Wildlife Refuge, between Depoe Bay and Lincoln City. This location is one of six refuges known as the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex.¹

The Refuge is directly off Highway 101 in the coastal lowlands of Siletz Bay, and is composed of “salt marsh, brackish marsh, tidal sloughs, mudflats, and coniferous and deciduous forestland”, as described on the official website of the US Fish & Wildlife Service.

The photo immediately above is one of the scenes you see upon parking your car and starting on the path leading to the Alder Island Nature Trail. In our experience, fog is expected on otherwise sunny summer days along the Oregon coast.

There is also an Osprey nest near the path, and on one of our visits this summer, we heard a juvenile Osprey calling loudly as it made one of its first flights.

The Alder Island Nature Trail makes a half-mile loop through the forest. The dappled light filtered through the Red Alder trees is delightful. The forest also helps to mask traffic noise from Highway 101.

As the trail rounds the small island, trees lean out over the Siletz River. The river’s north shore is visible in the photo’s background above.

A narrow Siletz River channel winds around the island’s south east side.

In August 2023, I made a short video (embedded above) of the half-mile trail on Alder Island.² This trail was opened to the public in 2017 following a restoration project in 2016 that allowed “brackish waters to once again flow to the center of the island,” as described on the Refuge website.

As I was filming the video, Hideko spotted a Cooper’s Hawk (or possibly a Sharp-shinned Hawk) land on a nearby branch and then fly off to avoid a smaller bird coming to chase the predator. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the hawk until it was too late to film.

The history of the people who first inhabited this area is fascinating and complex, and I have only begun to explore the heritage described on the website of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.

1. The other five refuges are Cape Meares, Three Arch Rocks, Bandon Marsh, Nestucca Bay, and Oregon Islands. ↩︎
2. I misspelled the National Wildlife Refuge acronym in the video’s title. ↩︎