Birdwatching at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

We spent the morning driving around the Ridgefield NWR
It was beautiful spring-like weather and we saw ducks, coots, hawks, nuthatches, eagles and herons. We also saw nutria, which are ugly and stupid ROUS.

birds

In the past few days, we've had several nice and strange bird encounters (weird subject, I know!).

On Valentine's Day, when I arrived home, our next door neighbor Maurice was in his front yard looking a bit perplexed. He hesitated, but then asked "do you know anything about birds?" to which I said "YES." He pointed out this funny looking quail-ish bird laying by his garage. He was worried that it was hurt and would be found by cats, but the Audubon Society didn't have much info in the evening besides telling him to put a box over it to protect it if it seemed hurt. Anyway, from my bird book, I found out it was a Chukar, a bird not from this area, more from Eastern Oregon. We think it must be someone's odd pet that got away. Fortunately, it seemed to recover, and soon it was walking around. It spent the night on his fence, and we haven't seen it since.

This experience and the ensuing internet searches led me to discover that this weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count, a bird-identification event supported by the Cornell Lab or Ornithology and the Audubon Society. It helps raise awareness and appreciation of birds: their locations, numbers, habitat. Since I'm a fan of backyard birds, and that interest is rubbing off on Dave, I decided to contribute to this count.

On Saturday morning, it was easy to count our backyard birds within a 15 minutes timespan: 3 Anna's Hummingbirds, 2 robins, a scrub jay, and a Junco. Nothing too new, but it is nice to notice, especially on a sunny and beautiful morning! Dave watched our hummingbirds fighting with each other - so feisty! As my mom pointed out later, they are like the Chihuahuas of the bird world.

After breakfast out, we enjoyed the morning sunshine by watching for birds at Smith and Bybee lakes, a nature preserve and wetlands in North Portland. We saw 5 Great Blue Herons, a Red Tailed Hawk (we think), 2 Double-crested cormorant, lots of American coots, and various ducks and little brown birds. Beyond birds, we were amazed at the tenacity of the beavers have chew down scores of trees for their dam. Between the lakes, we spotted their dam which seemed to reach ~5 feet above the water level. Although this place is site is in the middle of industrial North Portland, it is a beautiful place to experience nature.

That's a bit about our bird-geek weekend~
C*

More six word biographies...

More of these little sub-haiku gems. Still haven't written one for me--maybe tomorrow. Thanks to Mike for leaving us a little something something in the comments.

Denver trip for Grandma's birthday!

As per Heidi's request (it's good to know a few people check this blog:), we are finally posting again! We were in Denver last weekend for Dave's grandma's 80th birthday. Dave stayed around CO to ski with his fam, and those pictures will come later, but first, here are some family/birthday pictures! We ate dinner at the White Fence Farm, an old chicken farm that does big family-style dinner and specializes in fried chicken and Americana farm kitsch. They did groups very well, and it was an enjoyable family outing~
C**

Skiing at Keystone

Last week my dad, sister and I enjoyed three days at Keystone in Colorado. Here are the pics--we had a great time. Perfect conditions...we're a lucky bunch.

Keystone Trail Map
A-Basin Trail Map

Keystone 2008