From the Contact Station April 2019

Spring is full of changes

We always anticipate change as the seasons move though.  Spring is a time of anticipation.  While most ducks and swans move north to nest while we eagerly await the arrival of Cedar Waxwings, Wood Ducks in the fine breeding feathers, turtles on the stream logs and the Turkey Vultures that float on the updrafts.  This year, with the big projects on the refuge, we will also have to alter our visits to the refuge.  For the Contact Station Volunteers, some of us will double up on weekends while others will move to other ways to help the refuge.  You may see some of us on the trails in our blue vests on both the Carty and the weekend River ‘S’. Our hope is to still find ways to be helpful to the visiting public.

And, we will miss our “regulars”.   One of the benefits of being a volunteer is meeting a lot of

people.  It is so much fun helping folks try to identify an animal they saw.  Whether we are getting an interesting description or a blurry photograph, we do our best to help with the references and knowledge we have.  And, there are always lots of fun stories.  We often pass them on the refuge staff to use in their reports to headquarters.  Some visitors come almost every day to the refuge becoming friends and sharing their love of the refuge.  One such visitor was Ralph Mitchell.  Ralph would come around early in the morning, driving up close to the old contact station to check the sightings board and say hello to the volunteer. In his later years, it was too hard for him to get out of the car, so we would just fill out his pass ticket for him, writing “Ralph” on it so we could count his visit.  We recently found that our old friend Ralph passed away last year at the age of 95.    We miss seeing him; we know he had many hours of enjoyment on our refuge.

With March bringing us some unseasonably beautiful weather, we have already been seeing turtles and snakes sunning on the logs and roads.  The Great Blue Herons have also seen the snakes and are making meals of them.  American Bitterns are being spotted intermittently by visitors.  Time to roll down your windows and listen for their resonant ooooohnk-A-doonk! call.  Ospreys should be around by the time you read this as one was noted at Sauvie Island on March 11^th.  They nest at the Ridgefield Port and can be seen going up and down Lake River.  One of my favorite spring arrivals is always the Yellow-headed Blackbird.  Usually the males set up nest territories between numbers 2 and 3 on the leg of the drive to the hunt gate.  Best way to find them is to listen for their grating mechanical call.  They might be around the first of April but have been noted most often after the 20^th of April.  Sora are in the area and have been heard giving their whinny, downward call.

We have a pair of Bald Eagles on River S that are sitting their nest now.  This is the third year their nest is in deciduous trees across Lake River near the far end of the auto tour, between 13 and 14.  The best view of them is after you pass #13, stop at the small white refuge sign on the left.  Look ahead over the dike between the two white signs along the dike road.  The nest looks like a darkened area just above the dike.  Binoculars are helpful.  You might be able to spot the white head of one adult on the nest.  You can often see the other adult perched in a tree to the left of the nest.  Once the leaves come out, we won’t be able to see the nest.  Egg incubation is 35 days and they have been there a while, so they should have eaglets any time.

There is plenty of information about our various refuge projects on the Friends and the Refuge Websites.  But just so we don’t forget, as the work on the old bridge starts:

-Susan Setterberg, Contact Station Volunteer & Board Past President