Fernhill Wetlands

Here I go again, posting a week late.  

Oh well.

Last week, on one of those super lovely days here in Oregon, we visited Fernhill Wetlands in Forest Grove.

And guess what?? We saw a Black Tern, which ended up being listed on the Portland Audubon's Rare Bird Alert posting.  How about that?  

Not the best picture in the world, I admit.  But this guy was such an acrobatic flier, I'm amazed that any pictures came out!

Another unusual bird for this wetlands that we saw were Yellow-headed Blackbirds.

Doug took this picture of a nice female.

The pond also had this lovely group of Greater White-fronted Geese.

Lovely, aren't they?

We spent a nice amount of time in Dabbler's Marsh...home to many Tree Swallow boxes and thus, lots of Tree Swallows!

Nice one right above the sign.

Hello cutie!

Also saw a good dozen of these little lovely American Goldfinches.

We'll finish up with an overview picture of Dabbler Marsh.  Beautiful place and well worth a visit to Fernhill Wetlands.

St. Paul, Oregon

Still trying to catch up on posting pics of our times out and about.  This was last weekend.  We stopped in the little (and I mean LITTLE) town of St. Paul, Oregon.  

Biggest building there is the Catholic Church.  

Nice looking church.

Apparently, the first Catholic Church built in Oregon was built right here in little St. Paul.

And it looked like the little replica they have on the church grounds.

They also have a well groomed cemetery at edge of town.  I took several cool pics of old head stones and such, but then somehow I deleted all those pictures except the one of the main gate.  Oops.

Main gate, nice crosses, nice lawn.  

Lastly, I took a pic of what appears to be a bird house on the side of the St. Paul Telephone Co-op.  Really, they had a telephone co-op.  I said it was a small town.

I added a little birdie from Be Funky to go with the Bird Call bird house.  

Nice stop at this little town.

Baby Time!

No, not me...the Virginia Rail! At the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge.

Doug had seen some chicks not too long ago, cute fuzzy babes that would run through the grasses like a water bug.

We went to the observation deck and waited.  And waited.  And...well, yes, we waited.  About 30 minutes.  Then the parent Virginia Rail came out of the grasses.  That is cool enough but then a baby appeared - a tiny little black fluff just at the grass edge.  Then ZOOM!  Baby was running and across the opening and into the grasses again before you could even think about saying "Jack Robinson" or even ... "hey, there's the baby!"

Somehow though, in that second of hesitation before baby took off a running, I snapped this picture.

Cute little thing, isn't it? Soon after this, the other parent came out, and at least 4 more chicks made the mad dash across to the grasses.  Doug got a couple shots off of them, but I only got this one.  Fast little stinkers.

Well, that is how it is some days, you get one decent shot of a bird and then, you take pictures of flowers.  I found a new photo "tweaking" tool called Be Funky. It is a freebie one at the Chrome app store.  I like how you can frame pictures like a postage stamp, so here are a couple I played with.

White Flowers.

Purple-blue flowers.  OK, yeah, one day I'll figure out the name of flowers.














It's May now so all the trails at the refuges are open so get out there and see some birds and blooms, y'all!!

Leach Botanical Gardens

Last posting of our weekend in the sun, just in time for it to be another weekend!  Hopefully, the rains that have returned this week will go away again.

Leach Botanical Gardens in Portland is a nice place to visit on a warm day to enjoy the beauty of the plants, and get in their cooling environment.  We see some birds now and again here, but mainly we go to see the plants and find a cool and quiet place in the busy city to find peace and quiet.

First up a collage of the buildings on the grounds, and a couple of the pretty Camilla flowers that were blowing so nicely.

The next collage is of several of the different paths and stairways on the grounds.  Very interesting to see all these.

Lastly, a little surprise we found in one of the fields.

A painted dinosaur!  Pretty nifty guy, if you ask me.  I don't know what's up with that small figure in front of it.













So that wraps up our sunny weekend.  I'll leave you with this parting smile.

See you soon!

Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge

Second set of photos from our sunny weekend excursions.  This time to the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge, which is a treasure of a place not too far from home.

We've been here many times, but the main reason we went on this foggy Saturday morning (the fog did burn off to be a great sunny day) was to see this bird...

Drumroll please.....................

A Virginia Rail!! Yes Virginia, this is a Rail. Gosh, wonder how many times that has been said...

Had to post a couple pictures.  Nice looking birdie. Doug went back on Monday and said the bird has about 6 babies!!  Hopefully I can get out there this weekend to see those chicks.

Next up - "polaroids" of some other birds we saw:

White-breasted Nuthatch

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Common Yellowthroat

Also seen:

A Rough Skinned Newt.  This guy looks big but he's like only 3 inches long.  Tiny little thing.  I went all Macro on him to get this picture.  Funky dude.

And now we move into the "art" projects:

A spider web with the "Michael Orton" treatment from Picasa. Whatever that means.

A 1960s feel to the pathway.

A Cinemascope treatment to the fog and snags.

Overall another great day in nature. 

Tualatin Wetlands...or whatever they are called

A perfectly lovely weekend around the Portland area.  Finally stopped raining and we had temps in the 70s!  Ahhhh....

Doug and I went birding at a few places, so I'll be making a few postings on what we saw.

Today the posting is about the happenings at the Tualatin Wetlands, or whatever these wetlands are officially called. They are the ones across from the post office.  Yeah, those wetlands. 

Anyway, saw some nice birdies including:

A lovely Green Winged Teal pair.

This Gadwall pair.  You'll see that Mr. Gadwall is giving the Missus some lip. And yes, I'm still messing around with my pictures in Picasa, hence the nice frame on this shot.

Goose and goslings.  Hard to believe it is already baby waterfowl time.  Also saw a brood of Mallard ducklings but didn't get a picture.

This fun shot of two Barn Swallows. Used the Vignetting tool on Picasa.  Anyway, the "Barneys" as we call them, are gathering mud to build their nest.

Getting ready for take off!  The Barney does seem to have a smudge of mud in it's beak. This sweet bird will make hundreds of trips to this mud flat to gather nesting material.  Amazing.

Peeps!!  

Honestly, I'm not sure if these are Western Sandpipers or Least Sandpipers...maybe some of each.  Either way, very nice to have peeps around again.

And lastly, this shot of some mushrooms growing next to the sidewalk. They were shiny and strangely colored enough, and then I gave them the Picasa treatment..just for fun.

Beautiful day and some fun picture taking.  Pics from other excursions we took this weekend to follow soon!

Steigerwald Wildlife Area

We took a 3 hour birding walk to Steigerwald wildlife area in Washougal, Washington in the warm spring sunshine yesterday.  Took a few pics of wildlife, and some pics of the near by barn and factory.  Had fun messing with them in Picasa.

Gave the picture of the factory a 1960s feel.












Yoga Goose.

Great Blue Heron in the blowing grasses.

Northern Shovelers - not often you see them with their heads out of the water.  And not sure why blogger wouldn't let me to type right next to the photo...quirky program.

Lots of turtles out today.  This is small sampling.

Lastly, the barn near the wildlife area.  Also gave it the funky 1960s look.

Great day overall with Doug out in the sun!