Yesterday, 7/14, Don and I took a raft trip from Corvallis to Albany.
In Corvallis, we drifted under the Van Buren Bridge just as many
hundreds of bicyclists were headed east for the day's Cycle Oregon ride.
In a riverbank just outside of east Corvallis, there was a NORTHERN
ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW nest burrow in the bank. In the picture attached,
you can see that one of the parents has its beak and throat filled with
bugs to feed to the babies. The parent waited there for a couple of
minutes, until we drifted away from the bank. There are not all that
many natural "cut banks" between Corvallis and Albany due to the miles
of riprap placed to control erosion, but there are swallow and
kingfisher nests in the eroded banks that do exist.
We watched a TURKEY VULTURE eating an extremely smelly large dead fish
(which appeared to be a CHINOOK SALMON--maybe).
There were plenty of GREEN HERONS, GREAT BLUE HERONS, OSPREYS and
SPOTTED SANDPIPERS along the way, as expected. One of the nicest
experiences along the way was being surrounded by flocks of VIOLET-GREEN
SWALLOWS (including newly-fledged ones), VAUX'S SWIFTS and CEDAR
WAXWINGS, as they caught bugs near the water's surface. The birds just
ignore the rafts, and they'd come to within a few feet of us.
There were young COMMON MERGANSERS on the river, and fledgling
BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAKS calling from the cottonwoods lining the river.
Although YELLOW WARBLERS were very numerous, at one place across from
Colorado Lake, there was one WILSON'S WARBLER singing.
We saw BALD EAGLES at least 10 times, but some of those sightings may
have been repeats. One of them (photo attached) looked kind of homely,
as it seemed to be transitioning between its second- and third-year
plumages, sort of its "awkward teenager" phase. It still had some
random longer juvenile secondaries.
We took a shallow back channel around a gravel island near Riverside
Landing. The island, which is inundated each winter, had an odd mix of
plants that just manage to hang on and grow in the gravel. Many of the
plants are not native, such as a SMARTWEED, POISON HEMLOCK, PRICKLY
LETTUCE, DOG FENNEL, RED-SEPALED EVENING PRIMROSE, etc. But there were
also some natives, including some STINGING NETTLE, SKUNKWEED (Navarretia
squarrosa), and the uncommon BRISTLY PHACELIA (Phacelia nemoralis). We
enjoyed watching a BLACK PHOEBE. Where the back channel reconnected
with the main river, a group of power boaters were shooting clay pigeons
in our general direction, but fortunately, they noticed our bright
yellow rafts and stopped shooting long enough for us to pass by!
The wind picked up in the afternoon, with 25 mph gusts bringing the
rafts to a near-standstill. It took a lot of hard paddling to achieve a
forward speed of only about 1-2 mph.
At Bowers Rock State Park, there were RIVER OTTER slides, droppings and
tracks. The tracks were the biggest we've seen, with the front tracks
being at least 3 inches long. Some of the poop had dried and crumbled
in the sun, and was full of fish scales and bone fragments. A BLACKTAIL
DEER doe and her fawn were wading in the river and nibbling willow
leaves as they walked upstream.
After cramming the rafts, paddles and everything else into our
backpacks, we caught the Linn-Benton Loop bus back to Corvallis at 5 PM.
Lisa Millbank
www.neighborhood-naturalist.com