Dr. David Craig, Barbara Dolan, and I led a group of Willamette University Bird Nerds (club members) on a Sauvie Island trip. Energizing–most of them had never seen, nor heard, a crane before, nor Trumpeter Swans. Some added even more lifers!
I had billed this as a crane trip:
Look in the far back right hand corner of the top image and you can see one tiny corner or the sporead-out flocked that numbered somewhere over 300.
TRUMPETERS
Pintails and shovelers amoing foregorund waterfowl. Cranes back on left side.
EAGLES–the bird in flight was seen carrying stick to nest, presumed to be the male.
In the first pic, Common Mergansers are in front of the loafing cormorants. Kestrel. Lesser Scaup in the Columbia. Mt. St. Helens. ASmong thr bare cottonwoods if you enlarge the image, there’s a small flight of cranes in the background.
A signoifioczant historial marker; at this fort both Townsend and Nuttll stayed when they arrived in the mid-1830s. Also on that expedition was the man who’d go on to found Willamette Univiersity!
Sauvie Island (Multnomah Co.), Oregon, US Jan 18, 2026 40 species
Cackling Goose X Canada Goose X Trumpeter Swan 7 Tundra Swan X Wood Duck X Northern Shoveler X Gadwall X American Wigeon X Northern Pintail X Green-winged Teal X Common Merganser 13 Mourning Dove X Sandhill Crane 400 Killdeer X Greater Yellowlegs 1 Least Sandpiper 1 Glaucous-winged Gull X Double-crested Cormorant 40 Great Egret 11 Great Blue Heron 2 Bald Eagle 4 Red-tailed Hawk 5 Downy Woodpecker 2 Northern Flicker 1 American Kestrel 6 California Scrub-Jay 2 American Crow 250 Black-capped Chickadee 2 Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2 White-breasted Nuthatch 2 Brown Creeper 1 Bewick’s Wren 1 European Starling X American Robin 6 House Finch X Dark-eyed Junco X Golden-crowned Sparrow 60 Song Sparrow X Lincoln’s Sparrow X Red-winged Blackbird 15
Sauvie’s Island Lower–Columbia Cty, Columbia, Oregon, US Jan 18, 2026 24 species
Cackling Goose X Canada Goose X American Wigeon X Mallard X Northern Pintail X Green-winged Teal X Canvasback X Ring-necked Duck X Lesser Scaup 8 Common Goldeneye 3 Mourning Dove 1 American Coot 300 Sandhill Crane X Ring-billed Gull 1 Glaucous-winged Gull X Pied-billed Grebe X Double-crested Cormorant X Great Egret X Cooper’s Hawk 1 Bald Eagle 2 Red-tailed Hawk 1 American Kestrel 1 Peregrine Falcon 1 chased by eagle as it carried a duck American Crow X
Alpine Chough on ther Gemmi Wall, photos by my friend Eric May, who lives in Europe and has spend many weeks every year in Switzerland, when he is not at the other place on the southern coast of France. Eric grew up in Portland, OR, and he and wife are happy ex-pats. THe choiugh is in the corvid family is a happy clean-up staffer wherever people leave trash and scraps.
I found a score of Wilson’s Snipe this afternoon. They were along the grass-lined vernal pool south of Homestead Road along the suht edge of Minto-Brown Park. The kestrel was on a wire overhead. The other birds have all been seen in our garden:
From Salmon Creek Greenway and Ridgefield NWR, photos by Bill Vollmer:
Note the kestrel is eating a snake.
TUNDRA SWANS AT FINLEY NWR, photos by Albert Ryckman:
From further away, courtesy Eric May: “below freezing [here] but that does not stop the first Haubentauchlers from their mating “mirroring” dance on Lake Zürich.”
Great Crested Grebe auf Englisch. A nearly same-sized cousin of our western and Clark’s but far more decorated.
Photos by Tom Carey. Raptors: Bald Eagles, kestrel, harrier, rough-leg, juvie red-tail. Below, photos by Philipper Pessereau: eagles, Great Horned Owl in a derelict barn.
Livermore Road runs north from Bskett Slough NWR toward Perrydale, in north Polk County. It often has Horned Lark. Tim Wilson adds this image from Livermore Road: peregrine loafing.
When we supply food in aluminum pan to the crows, they dump it into the bird bath:
Coop with his back turned, and some of our regular visitors.
SAUVIE ISLAND CRANE TRIP--JANUARY 24TH. Let me know if you wanna come along.
The owl photos courtesy of Marty Karlin. Cranes were at Howard Prairie in Cascades east of Ashland. These are from my friend Peter Thiemann who lives in Sequim–that’s his first-ever White-winged Scoter shot. He lives near the besdt place I’ve found in 48 stateds for wintering Haarlequin–Harborview Park on west side of Port Angeles, WA. I’ve seen dozens there, and locals coming out to feed thme bread scraps, Harlequin clamly waddling onto shore!
ecowise 