Towheeblog

A dozen of us birded the island today in perfect weather, a non-hunting day.
There is one word that explains why you need to bird Sauvie Island in the colder months: CRANES.
All these magnificent photos are from Albert Ryckman:

Above: the dark morph red-tails.

At Raccoon point we saw most of the swans of the day–both species.
Also there were two Canada Geese with necklaces and “banding” codes. One of our group is reporting those sightings to USGS. Here is my transcription of the code on each goose necklace:

No rarities but plenty of the joy of fine birds: cranes, snipe, mergansers, Bald Eagles, Trumpeter Swans, peregrine, more mourning than collared doves, a single Red-shouldered Hawk, a bustling Bushtit flock, skeins of geese overhead adding up to hundreds. We saw one pair of red-tails together–and both were dark morph. They were along NW Sauvie Island Road still inside Multnomah County. Today’s sound track often included bugling cranes.

For an even bigger gallery of great Ryckman shots from Sauvie–click here. Includes Short-billed Gull, geese, swans, heron, Common Merganser, Oregon state bird showing up in afternoon’s glow.

Sauvie Island (Multnomah Co.), Multnomah, Oregon, US
Dec 5, 2022
42 species (+1 other taxa)
Cackling Goose  X
Canada Goose  X
Trumpeter Swan  X
Tundra Swan  X
American Wigeon  X
Mallard  X
Northern Pintail  X
Pied-billed Grebe  X
Eurasian Collared-Dove  X
Mourning Dove  40
American Coot  X
Sandhill Crane  600
Killdeer  X
Wilson’s Snipe  6
Short-billed Gull  X
Ring-billed Gull  X
Herring Gull  1
Glaucous-winged Gull  X
Western x Glaucous-winged Gull (hybrid)  X
Double-crested Cormorant  X
Great Blue Heron  X
Great Egret  X
Northern Harrier  X
Bald Eagle  3
Red-tailed Hawk  7
American Kestrel  12
Peregrine Falcon  1
Steller’s Jay  1
California Scrub-Jay  X
American Crow  X
Common Raven  2
White-breasted Nuthatch  1
European Starling  X
American Robin  120
House Sparrow  X
Dark-eyed Junco  X
White-crowned Sparrow  X
Golden-crowned Sparrow  X
Savannah Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  X
Spotted Towhee  X
Red-winged Blackbird  X
Brewer’s Blackbird  X

Sauvie Island Lower–Columbia Cty, Columbia, Oregon, US
Dec 5, 2022
47 species

Cackling Goose  X
Canada Goose  X
Northern Shoveler  X
American Wigeon  X
Mallard  X
Northern Pintail  X
Canvasback  2
Ring-necked Duck  X
Bufflehead  X
Common Merganser  X
Ruddy Duck  X
Pied-billed Grebe  X
Clark’s Grebe  1
Eurasian Collared-Dove  X
American Coot  X
Sandhill Crane  400
Spotted Sandpiper  1
Short-billed Gull  X
Ring-billed Gull  X
Glaucous-winged Gull  X
Double-crested Cormorant  X
Great Blue Heron  X
Great Egret  X
Northern Harrier  3
Bald Eagle  5
Red-shouldered Hawk  1
Red-tailed Hawk  3
Northern Flicker  3
American Kestrel  5
California Scrub-Jay  X
American Crow  X
Common Raven  X
Bushtit  20
Ruby-crowned Kinglet  1
European Starling  X
American Robin  X
American Goldfinch  X
Fox Sparrow  X
Dark-eyed Junco  X
White-crowned Sparrow  X
Golden-crowned Sparrow  X
Song Sparrow  X
Spotted Towhee  X
Western Meadowlark  1
Red-winged Blackbird  X
Brown-headed Cowbird  1
Brewer’s Blackbird  X

The only wild mammals we saw were nutria and tree squirrel. One estimate I’ve seen is that 96% of Earth’s mammals are humans or domestic animal–from dogs to donkeys, cats to cattle, hamsters to hogs.