Monday, October 14, 2019
We plan to do a lot of bird watching this fall around Oregon. It is perfect - we love birds and - Oregon is located on the Pacific Flyway and boasts an abundance of birds year round!
One of the best places in the state to bird watch is Sauvie Island, located about 20 minutes from our home! Sauvie Island is the largest island along the Columbia River and lies 10 miles NW of downtown Portland. The island is famous for it's farmland and wildlife refuge and has year round activities making it a very popular destination. It can be crowded on weekends in the fall due to the corn maze, hay rides and pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins - so we stick to mid-week visits.
Today was simply amazing as we drove up to the parking along the Columbia and were met with deafening sounds of thousands of geese, egrets, cranes, swans and pelicans as they would settle and then take flight and then freak out and fly and circle again!
The island claims over 250 bird species including a large number of bald eagles and over 150,000 migrating birds that come from Alaska, Mexico and the Northern Rockies along the Pacific Flyway. It is an interesting place of contrasts - very peaceful and calm and quiet and then wild and outrageous with the sound of thousands of birds almost without warning!!!
Be sure to get your parking pass as you cross the bridge at Cracker Barrel Store (NOT at all connected with the real Cracker Barrel restaurant and store chain) LOL - the websites all say the pass is $7.00 but we are charged $10 and have to pay an extra 25 cents for a Xerox copy of the island map every time we go! At least the proprietors are super unfriendly! All worth it!!! We will be checking out Sauvie Island and the migrating birds weekly - weather permitting!!!
Gabi
