We spent two mornings at Lee Metcalf, getting up early to beat the heat. We love this beautiful spot which has several habitats - river, stream, pine and deciduous forest. We met generous and friendly birders on the two mornings and we saw birds we have never before seen.
The ranger recommended that we go to Heritage Market in Stevensville for sandwiches. It is an Amish store where the bread is homemade and each sandwich is made to order. We also got coffee there. (The sandwiches cost less than $7.00 each) The first day we at outside at the store; the second day we took our lunch back to one of the trails at the refuge.
We saw such a wide variety of birds. The ones in the ponds included:
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| Wilson's Phalarope |
Wilson's phalarope (maybe a life bird) Wigeon, ring-necked duck, cinnamon teal and green-winged teal, ruddy ducks, buffle heads, red heads, shovelers, red-winged blackbirds,
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| yellow-headed blackbird |
yellow-headed blackbirds, scaup, bank swallows, tree swallows, spotted sandpipers. We also saw a muskrat and lots and lots of ground squirrels. On the first day, we saw for quite a while in a blind and the birds just floated by.
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| cinnamon teal |
On the river trail we heard birds that we didn't see, but among these we did see were - western peewee (maybe a life bird), Bullock's Oriole (maybe a life bird), lots of yellow warblers, ravens, magpies, white-breasted nuthatch, California Quail, Least flycatcher (maybe a life bird), cedar wax wing. Most exciting, however, was a Lewis's woodpecker, definitely a life bird for us. It was pointed out in the parking lot by a very enthusiastic former professor who has retired to the area and is head of the local Audubon society. She was excited to point out this wonderful bird - with a pink chest and greenish head. The photo does not capture its vibrancy, but...at least we got a photo! Once we saw it from the lot, we were able to find it again.
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| Lewis's woodpecker |
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| tree swallow |
As we drove into the refuge, we also saw osprey, 4 sandhill cranes, a grey heron, 3 kestrels, turkeys and a turkey vulture. I think we also saw a harrier, but I didn't write that one down. I also did not include some of the more common birds like the robins and crows.
We saw at least 8 painted turtles, 2 of them babies.
Getting good photos with our phones was tough. Barbara bought a baseball hat with an osprey on it to take to the hike in Ireland.
On the second day, we ate lunch with a group of school children from nearby Corvallis. They were lovely, well-behaved children, but we were taken aback by their teacher who told us that they were from a White Christian school. It seemed unusual that someone would bring up that they taught only white children in front of strangers.
We are far too polite to say anything as they were very nice, but we also found it quite offensive and jarring given that we are proud of the diversity of our country and of the many children we taught in our career.
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| David's famous butter chicken! |
Every day we went to David and Maura's to let the dogs out and every night we ate dinner with them. Mark made delicious salmon with asparagus and sweet potato fries one night. The next night, we took fruit salad and a Greek salad that we made and Maura made a pesto pasta salad. It is nice to have meals with them.
