Bandon by the Sea

Bandon is another quaint little town along the Oregon coast highway.  It is about 26 miles south of Coos Bay and boasts some beautiful views of ocean sea stacks and rock islands. 

Oregon is unique in that the entire coast is publically owned.  There are NO private beaches in Oregon.  Even where there are houses and resorts along the coast, the beach is public and there is always a public access strategically placed at intervals along the developed stretches.  But with so much undeveloped area along our 363 miles of coastline, finding a quiet and beautiful beach is never a problem.

Those huge rock islands just off the coast of Oregon are part of the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which stretches form Tillamook Head to the California border.  On those rocks live more than one million seabirds.  The area around Bandon is called the Oregon Islands refuge.


There is a boardwalk stairs down to the beach with several viewing platforms.  You can go clear down on the sand but the rocks are off limits so as not to disturb the sea birds.


It’s a beautiful stretch of beach, even if you are not interested in seabirds.


We don’t have the proper lenses to get pictures of the seabirds but you can see a small sampling of the pelicans here.  There are also common murres, puffins, cormorants, pigeon guillemots and others.  Oregon’s population of nesting seabirds is larger than California's and Washington’s combined.   No wonder all the coastal signs have bird droppings on them!!


An interesting note about the common murre – the females lay a single egg on the bare ground.  At age 4 weeks, the still flightless chicks jump off the cliff into the ocean where the daddy teaches them to fish and avoid predators.  Geez, and some of our kids don’t even want to leave the nest when they’re 21!! 

More about Bandon is coming up – including the Coquille River lighthouse, the jetty, and a visit we wish we hadn’t made.