#oaks bottom

I took advantage of the last not-rainy day for a while and spent a couple of hours birding and otherwise enjoying nature at Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge in SE Portland. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite close-in nature areas, and was a great place for waterfowl watching! I got to see common mergansers fighting over food, northern shovelers and green-winged teal dabbling in the shallows, American wigeons and gadwalls keeping a more wary distance, and--best of all--I finally got to see my very first western screech owl! Two, actually, though one was basically just visible as the edge of a wing sticking out of a crevice in a tree, but the other one was fully in view while snoozing in a hollow.

Late summer at Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, Portland, Oregon.

February 6, 2018. Today is a good day. I mean, yes, we’re watching the collapse of civilization as we know it, but who said the apocalypse needn’t be fun. 

I dropped my kid off at school then headed over to Sellwood Park for a walkabout, where a grand sight awaited. A juvenile and a mature bald eagle do loop-de-loops in the amphitheater at Oaks Bottom, where the space over the pond and the basin open wide. They meet in flight and do touch & gos, huge animals that command one’s attention and tickle the imagination, more spectacular than any military airshow to these eyes. 

Waterfowl chatter and whistle, corvids complain, red-winged blackbird trill, and passerines of all shape and form provide a musical backdrop that brings the footpath to vibrant life. My walk ends with a skunky bouquet of cottonwood buds and some kind of mushroom that looks for all the world like bleached coral. Cool! 

Meanwhile, on a slow street in a sleepy Portland suburb sits a gem of a spot called the Milwaukie Cafe & Bottle Shop. I’d read about it on Kathleen Bauer’s blog, and given the pedigree of the purveyors (and it’s convenient location right in-between home and my kid’s middle school in Sellwood), i had to give it a try. 

The space is unassuming, far removed from any hipster Portland vibe—there are no man-buns here—and pay no heed to the monster-truck-with-American flag driving down the street; this is some of the best new nosh i’ve had in a while. After discussing the menu briefly with the delightful barista, i opted for a biscuit sandwich. It arrived within minutes. 

Biscuit w/house-smoked pork shoulder, homemade pickles, mustard, and honey. Holy moly... perfectly crusty biscuit, slight chew in the middle with the flakiest exterior ever, the meat melted before it passed my lips, delicate pickles and mustard provide the perfect acidic balance to the sweet golden honey. Mmmm.... 

Field Notes: Oaks Bottom. August 2, 2017. 

A spotted towhee is underbrush absolutely yelling. Is he yelling at me? I’m down under towering cottonwoods at the edge of the pond at Oaks Bottom. Easy there, little fella… i just want to jot down a few notes, I’ll be out of your hair presently. 

The south meadow today has a very high wow quotient. Sure, the dried grass is brown and flat, but the chicory and the sweet pea and the Queen Anne’s lace are having nothing less than a hot-dang hoedown, clearly the life of this party. Do I hear music wafting my way from within the swaying weeds? That’s taking metaphor into the realm of metaphysical. Twenty steps further along I see a path beaten down in the grass and a bicycle tipped over on its side. Then, under a small tree, some dude with his shirt off and a transistor radio on, soaking up the morning sun. 

A dragonfly stumbles by. It's one of those unfamiliar ones I’ve noticed this summer, so different than the normal big bomber blue-eyed darner I’m more familiar with, more delicate. And weird. Glassine wings I can see right through and a thick, rusty-brown stripe running horizontally across the width of the wings. (A later perusal of Insects of the Pacific Northwest is inconclusive.) 

Meanwhile, a second towhee shows up, echoing what sure seems to be displeasure at my presence, even making a strange rising shweep sound heretofore unheard in my wanderings. I’d better scoot on—I don’t want to cause any ruckus. Besides, the ringing bell of the tourist train across the tracks at Oaks Park fun center now draws my attention. A steady ding, ding, ding, ding… 

Then, crunch, crunch, crinkle… the first crunch of leaf underfoot of the year; more the result of trees stressed out from the heat dropping their leaves than any portent of autumn, still months away. The forecast calls for temperatures upwards of 106 degrees today. Ouch. The purple loosestrife [a non-native invasive marsh grass I have a decidedly love/hate relationship with] is quickly losing any ground it had made during an otherwise temperate spring and early summer. 

A mob of unruly crows are presiding at the dumpsters at the midway between Oaks Park roller rink and the woods, picking fights with one another, stabbing at plastic bags of garbage. On the Springwater bike path now, I stop and watch a great blue heron, several young mallard ducklings and their mom, and a single crow enthusiastically munching on whatever it is that spills out from the pond’s drain pipe into the Willamette River. Algae, small aquatic plants, fish fry? Whatever the particulars, it’s a veritable banquet at this confluence. They squabble a little over who gets the best spot at the table, but in the end the heron clearly rules this feast. 

The riparian zone here is lush and thick, unbroken only by the occasional foot path or game trail; and the sounds of machinery, traffic, civilization. One of Portland’s more heavily trafficked roads sits just 100 feet up on the west slope, taking me out of my nature reverie. What I see next, though, helps me slip right back into my fugue. Just off of the bike path, I come up on a blacktail fawn, slowly walking parallel to me. I’m mesmerized by her gentle movement, grace, and stunning beauty. Her spots are fading and she’s no longer a wee little baby, but I don’t recall having ever seen a fawn up close and personal before. I’m in awe. Startled by a cyclist, she bounds gracefully behind a huge bank of thistle, their fuzzy seed-heads exploding like cotton ball fireworks across the hill. 

Field Notes: Oaks Bottom. July 21, 2017. 

I've just dropped off my 12-year old at the last day of his last summer camp. I'm presently unemployed and slightly anxious about what the future holds, but ready to take advantage of the free time I have on my hands. A walkabout at Oaks Bottom seems in order. It's early still as I drop down into south meadow, on fire with morning magic. Chicory, sweet pea, and Queen Anne's lace fill the grassland, thistle and teasel, vibrant and rich, exploding up, taller than me.

Pollinators, bees of all shape and size, out in droves and spreading their goodwill. Dragonflies I don't recognize patrol the area, hunting in their sporadic style. Song sparrows, chickadees, bushtits, robins, wrens, and Swainson's thrush. Cedar waxwings, resplendent in their fancy headress, play in the brush. Corvids out too: scrub jays, Stellar's jay, crows of course, and even ravens. The more I learn about this family, the more fascinated I become. I wonder, how do the crows feel when ravens show up from deeper woods? Are they non-plussed by their larger cousins, or are they a threat not to be tolerated? 

Across the pond from the Springwater bike path, the purple loosestrife looks to be coming in. The crazy weather these past couple years had seemed to have quelled its expanse, but this mild summer might give the invasive yet gorgeous wetland grass a new lease. Two wood pallets drift lazily on the still surface. On one, a cormorant stands motionless. Almost if, by his non-motion, he's somehow invisible. I see you, dude. On the other pallet--which looks a raft straight out of a Mark Twain novel--a great blue heron patiently grooms. And high in a towering cottonwood, just 30 meters hence, another great blue sits perched, looking quite sleepy. How the heck can they balance so easily, even in slumber? 

A small gaggle of geese are seen through my field glasses, lounging in the distance. Seems a little late in the season. Maybe they're coming up north from way south? In fact, how far south is their range? Great drifts of fluff float in the air falling in slow-motion and pile up along paved paths and dirt trails, like low-laying clouds, or a dream, gifts from the regal cottonwoods. 

Down along the bluff trail the spring runoff high-waters have receded, revealing the glade in its summer splendor for the first time in months. The brutal winter snowpocalypse took down dozens of trees; windfall--huge limbs and entire trees--is layered around the bottoms like an elephant graveyard. Revealed also: rusted out oil drums, chunks of concrete, and massive timber beams. Reminders that this spot was once an industrial waste dump. Imagine that... a one-time garbage dump, now widely acknowledged as a venerated natural area and part of the Pacific Flyway with countless bird species, right in the heart of Portland. Shows what humans are capable of when they get right with the world and put their mind to it. 

I hear what sounds like an upset kingfisher, and the much quieter song of a barred owl. A smattering of mallards, greenwing teal, and a black duck with a white bib (domestic mallard?) gorge on a thick blanket of plankton in the shallows, loudly and audibly feasting. Chow time! Red-winged blackbirds jump around and say dee-doo, and dwee-dee doo, while a downy woodpecker male throws down infectious rhythms. Turn off your device and take out those earbuds, folks, there's music to be heard in these here woods if you but listen. 

Western redcedar flush with ripe, green fans of cones. Fat buds hang heavy on Nutka rose. Big-leaf maples glowing, brighter than neon, telling me in no uncertain terms, Be here now. A gang of squirrels swing like gymnasts through the canopy of a hazelnut tree flush with fuzzy-jacketed shells, gleefully noshing the nut flesh then discarding the remains to the floor below.   

Just twenty feet away, I stop and watch a blacktail doe, part of a larger group hidden behind a thicket of huckleberry and ocean spray. She's one of the most common large wild animals to share space with humans, and also one of the most beautiful creatures I've ever laid eyes on. I am humbled by her stature and her bearing. 

Field Notes: Oaks Bottom, March 22, 2017.

Spring came around finally, after a hard winter. Real hard. Hail had been raining down earlier this afternoon, but the sun is mostly out now as i leave work, a fresh breeze and the bracing smell of negative ions charging the air. A slight chill bites my nose. I do believe today would be a fine day for a walkabout at Oaks Bottom. I’m off! 

I arrive at the north-end parking lot, lace up my boots, grab my field glasses, and drop in on the paved bike path that leads to both the single track trail that follows the base of the bluff as well as the main segment of the Springwater Corridor trail. As per usual I immediately adopt scatter-vision and look down onto the big flats that run parallel to the river, eyes peeled for movement. It's swampier than usual, so I half expect to maybe see a heron. Instead, in the far distance I see three deer casually browsing, a row of scrub brush and young alders the only thing separating the ungulates from joggers and cyclers on the path. 

An above average snowpack in the Cascades, coupled with warmer temps and heavy spring rains have the Willamette River's riverbanks swollen higher than I’ve ever seen them; the resulting flooding and landslides have made stretches of the trail along the bluff’s bottom impassable. I backtrack north on the Springwater towards where i saw those deer. 

In among the cottonwoods on the riverside woodland west of the bike path, normally dry ground has become a swamp, rich with nutrients and filled with hungry waterfowl. Late evening light reflects on the magnificent iridescent collar of a male mallard, as he hurries across the path to meet with his mate. Ubiquitous in these parts, their common status hardly diminishes the handsome beauty of their princely visage. I see you, good sir! 

At the frog pond, bushtits gather almost in arm's reach. Two or three seem almost interested in me, friendly and gregarious, even following me for 20 yards or so. Thank you for your enthusiasm and lyrical song, you delightful little creatures. 

A jumpy female hairy woodpecker—showing very little fear—dances her way to a bird-feeder. The black and white pattern of her coat reminds me of lush Japanese ink and brushwork. Gorgeous. Small cottonwoods, slender and slight, sport buds as sticky and large as any of the mature trees that dwarf them. Cottenwood pollen cones are scattered underfoot like small macabre mammal spines. 

I turn into the woods on the riverside path, make it a couple hundred yards then get trapped again by floodwater and turn back. Then, so may deer. Five, six, seven. I walk twenty more paces, then even more. Eight, then nine. One of them a buck, with just knobs on his forehead. I’ve never seen more deer gathered together so close to the city. I am humbled by their magnificent presence. 

The sky turns neon pink and blue and gray. Two geese low overhead hauling ass and loud. Crows are making their nightly pilgrimage westward across the Willamette to their roost, while the light of the golden hour fades and the sky slowly darkens. In mobs and gangs, in pairs, in bushels the crows gather and fly.