Notes on a Portland Trip

A very different ecosystem from Iowa or Wisconsin, but Oregon has many of the Wisconsin political attitudes about environment protection and natural resources.

More spruce, fir, and pine than you can imagine. Woods are dripping with mosses, crawling with huge, colorful slugs, and populated by elusive new birds.

Robin's egg with large slug behind and small yellow slug in front.

In this moss is a Brown Creeper nest.

 

No road is straight for very far and hills are a constancy. It is easy to get motion sickness on a simple commute in the city.

 

Our daughter rents a house on an abandoned 5 acre nursery property about ten miles west of Portland.

 Bewick's Wrens perch on her brush pile,

Lesser Goldfinch crowd the feeders,

Spotted Towhee walk around like robins,

Chestnut-backed Chickadee flit about periodically, and Western Scub Jay own some of the fir trees.

A family of California Quail clean up under the bird feeders. Anna's and Rufous Hummingbird fight for sugar water rights.

 

At the coast 40 miles away

at Cannon Beach stands one of many large rocks just offshore, reachable at low tide.

Western Gulls patrol the beaches

with a small group of Whimbrel.

The rocks are home to the gulls plus Common Murre, Pigeon Guillemot, Tufted Puffin

and Pelagic Cormorant,

each in their own microniche on the rock.

 

At a nearby county wetland we watched Cinnamon Teal.

 

In town the common parking lot bird is Brewer's Blackbird. Overhead are Vaux's Swift and Violet-Green Swallow.

 

This is an avian summary of species we don't see in the midwest. Though it wasn't a dedicated birding trip, we did see about 65 species without really making any great effort and while doing other things.