Birdathon 2008

Keith and I participated in a fundraising event called the "Birdathon" for the Portland Audubon Society. The goal is to track and count as many bird species as possible within a 24 or 48 hour period. We decided to dedicate all day Saturday and most of the day on Sunday to the Birdathon. We left at 5:30 in the morning on Saturday (we planned to be out the door by 4, but you know how that goes...) and went to Tryon Creek State Park searching for some owls that we knew were nesting there. We heard only the saw-whet owl, but lucked upon a pair of band-tailed pigeons that we did not expect to see. Next stop was the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge, where was clocked a TON of birds, and developed some really good sunburns. Then we drove southwest toward the coastal town of Lincoln City. We chanced upon a prairie falcon (which was totally random and rare) near a quick stop at a small farm for some fresh strawberries.

Our time on the coast wasn't as fruitful as we'd hoped. The day dragged on and we were getting pretty burnt out. Not to mention that we were worried we wouldn't be able to find a place to camp, seeing as how everyone and their dog was at the beach that weekend. It was 90-degrees in the Willamette valley, so the breezy coast was where everyone wanted to be. As sunset came around, we made it to Cannon Beach for dinner. We were so hungry that we missed out on viewing the beautiful ocean sunset for the alternative of a decent meal. Night crept in and we chanced a drive further north up the coast toward Fort Stevens State Park, where we lucked upon an open camp spot.

As we were setting up our tent, we heard loud crunching sounds coming from the neighboring camp spot. We snuck over to investigate the sound and caught, red-handed, a theiving raccoon pigging out shamelessly on the clueless campers' food.

On Sunday morning we stopped over by Cannon Beach one more time to see if we could spot the tufted puffins that nest on Haystack Rock, but the morning fog wouldn't dissapate soon enough, and our Birdathon clock was ticking, so we accepted that loss and headed back inland toward Portland. We did get some really cute pictures of some northern rough-winged swallows just before we left Cannon Beach.

We stopped in Forest Grove at a small city park where we knew there to be Acorn Woodpeckers nesting, and sure enough, after five-minutes, they appeared.

We then went to Fern Hill Wetlands and chalked up a couple more species and deepening our sunburns.

Tualatin Hills Nature Park was our last stop and where we finally threw in the towel. After 333 miles of road travel, and countless miles hiking through parks, we only counted 83 species. For us, that's a good amount, but we hoped for 100. Maybe next year...

If anyone would like to donate, we will be collecting donations until June 1st.

This is a collage of all 83 species we found