Corvallis to Albany rafting, 7/14

[Lisa Millbank]

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

[b_g...@comcast.net]

Hi Lisa,

Nice to hear about your adventures.

Hey...I was thinking that down in that section of river, it's more likely the large, dead fish the turkey vulture was eating was a largescale sucker (Catostomus macrocheilus) or a northern pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus oregonensis). Both of these are native fishes that can get quite large, but they don't have as many fans as the salmon do. Did you get a good look at the carcass and see something that would make you think it was a salmon instead of one of these? I'd be interested to know if it was a salmon.

Cheers,
Bill

---

From: "Lisa Millbank" <lisa...@peak.org>
To: "Mid-valley Nature" <mid-vall...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 14, 2013 2:41:29 PM
Subject: [MidValleyNature:2203] Corvallis to Albany rafting, 7/14

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mid-Valley Nature" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mid-valley-nat...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to mid-vall...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mid-valley-nature.

[ronaldjam]

If the fish was in the 10 pound plus range it's likely a spring chinook, which in that stretch, would most likely be heading for the McKenzie river or upper Willamette.  They won't spawn until September or October. It could also be a summer or winter steelhead. Winter fish would be heading back down river, summers heading upstream. 

Ron

Sent from my iPad

[Carol]

Last week, I was wading around in the Willamette by Takena Park and saw 4 small, dead suckers float by over a period of a couple of hours.  The biggest was about 16 inches long.

 

-Carolee

[lisa...@peak.org]

Hi all,

Thanks for the fish suggestions! I need all the help I can get with fish
identification.

The dead fish in question appeared to be as long or longer than the
vulture, making it approximately 30" or more in length. The vulture was
eating chunks of the fish's flank, and the flesh was deep red-orange. Its
mouth wasn't shaped like a Largescale Sucker's mouth, and I didn't think
its head was the right small and "tapered" shape to be a Northern
Pikeminnow's. It looks like the interior of the mouth has dark
coloration, but I don't know if that's just because of decay or the poor
photo quality.

I'll post some (bad) pictures of it later. I don't know if the photos are
good enough to tell even if I sharpen them. We aren't convinced it's a
Chinook Salmon, but it just seemed to be the best match that we knew of.

Lisa Millbank
www.neighborhood-naturalist.com

> If the fish was in the 10 pound plus range it's likely a spring chinook,
> which in that stretch, would most likely be heading for the McKenzie river
> or upper Willamette. They won't spawn until September or October. It
> could also be a summer or winter steelhead. Winter fish would be heading
> back down river, summers heading upstream.
>
> Ron
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jul 15, 2013, at 7:36 AM, b_g...@comcast.net wrote:
>
>> Hi Lisa,
>>
>> Nice to hear about your adventures.
>>
>> Hey...I was thinking that down in that section of river, it's more
>> likely the large, dead fish the turkey vulture was eating was a
>> largescale sucker (Catostomus macrocheilus) or a northern pikeminnow
>> (Ptychocheilus oregonensis). Both of these are native fishes that can
>> get quite large, but they don't have as many fans as the salmon do. Did
>> you get a good look at the carcass and see something that would make you
>> think it was a salmon instead of one of these? I'd be interested to know
>> if it was a salmon.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Bill
>>
>>
>>