Tualatin National Wildlife Refuge

We headed out to the wildlife refuge again this morning. An Emperor Goose has been sighted there several times in the past few days, usually in the mornings.

No sign of it today, but nice collection of waterfowl on the ponds. we saw at least one and possibly more Eurasian wigeons mixed in with American Wigeons. Hundreds of Pintails and a nice mix of scaups, ruddy and bufflehead ducks mixed in.

Most of the birds were at binoc and scope distances so not many pics and no real good ones.

Conditions: 45 degrees high haze and partial sun.

Yesterday we headed up to PDX (international airport) and the Broughton Beach area along the Columbia in an attempt to see a snow bunting that has been frequenting the area. We missed it by 5 minutes, but saw pics and talked with folks who did see it. We hung around for a bit, then the police stopped in to check out why we were sitting around with spotting scopes near the end of the runway. He had heard about he bird and was very polite, but seemed a little incredulous that people would stand around a manky parking lot at an abandoned fire station near the end of a runway looking for bird.

Every few years, conditions are right (or wrong) and a bunch of arctic birds make it down this far. A few years back there were a number of Snowy Owls in the area and we saw a King Eider, Northern Hawk Owl and there were Emperor geese reported in several locations. This year is shaping up similarly with reports of Snowy owls in several places, the snow bunting and Emperor goose, and a Bewick’s Eurasian Tundra swan in the area.

Conditions: 45 degrees, extremely windy, overcast and occasional
showers.

Posted on January 3, 2012 06:50 PM by loren