Friday the 13th Birding

This week we are participating in a nature blog scavenger hunt. Win prizes! Find new cool blogs about nature in the PNW! Head to Metro Field Guide to find instructions and links to participating blogs.


We left home on Friday morning with two goals: 1. Find a Blue-winged Teal at Brown's Ferry Park and 2. Get our Clackamas County bird species total as close to 100 as possible. At the start of the year, we realized that our Clackamas County list was shamefully short, given how close the county is to our home in southwest Portland.
A few minutes after arriving at Brown's Ferry Park, we realized that, despite the day's date, our luck was running high. The weather was dry, the temperature mild, and we just kept finding great things at this little park in the middle of the city of Tualatin. Here's a sampling:



The teal we were looking for

Some Cinnamon Teals too!

A sleepy grebe

A western painted turtle

A Wood Duck in perfect light

And a pair of Bushtits building a nest (in the branches in front of Sarah)

We made a few more stops, including the industrial chic site of Willamette Falls

And the tranquil Willamette River at Molalla State Park. That night, we tallied our species from the day and found that our Clackamas county list now stands at 101, thanks to the 18 county birds we'd acquired. Apparently, we should bird on every Friday the 13th!