We wanted to explore. Safe and warm in our car, but engaging in the appreciation of nature that is hard to embrace while cruising down the interstate. On a whim (how did I stumble upon this?) I directed us towards a federal wildlife refuge just half an hour away where we could drive an auto tour and see the waterfowl, maybe get out and go for a little hike if we were feeling it.
The morning rose cool and clammy, a thick layer of fog enveloping everything. Visibility was low. We had initially tossed around the idea of getting up at dawn and heading down there for the "dawn chorus" and the (hopefully) best viewing time. But safety precluded an early morning trip, so we waited. Yellow tinged the edges of the fog as morning sun climbed higher and pulsed through, heat waves pressing against the clouds of vapor that surrounded us. By mid-morning the fog had lifted enough to see what felt like a safe distance for driving. Perhaps there would not be much to see, perhaps the fog would burn off completely by the time we made it to the refuge. Either way, we decided it was now or never and gathered our warm clothes, our water, hand-written directions to the entrance, my spyglass, and the digital camera... wait, where was the digital camera!? Sigh. My smartphone, then.
The wildlife refuge is on the Columbia River, in an area full of sloughs, bottoms, and oxbow lakes. To enter we had to first drive over an incredibly high, 1 1/2 lane bridge with an immense arch to it. The fog and the height of the bridge over the deep ravine below made it look as if we were driving up into an abyss. Luckily the fog opened up as we went along and it turned out to be a bridge after all.
At the entrance was unmanned booth and an iron ranger. I carefully used the community pen to write on the sodden envelope, stuffing it with our $3 vehicle entry fee, pulling away the receipt for our windshield, and pressing it through the opening in the metal cylinder. All this while attempting not to poke through or otherwise dismember the drooping paper sleeve that proved our right to enter.
And then we drove. Down a dirt lane, a generous car-and-a-half wide, between two ditches that were, as promised, full of birds. A kestrel sat atop a sign warning would-be wanderers to stay in their cars, its feathers so puffed up and ruffled as to make all its svelte grace disappear. A heron waded just a few feet away from our car, its long, slow steps contrasting with the fast duck dives of the coot in the ditch on the other side of the road.
A massive creature of R.O.U.S. proportions emerged from the water just beyond the coot. Its yellow teeth and its bulk made us think it a beaver, until we saw it's characteristic rat-like tale. This was a muskrat - that creature which we had both seen gliding along at the edges of lakes so many times. Evidently neither of us had seen one up close - they are MASSIVE creatures. In my minds eyes they had always been something in between a weasel and a river otter, but now I know them to be much more robust, more like something halfway between a beaver and an opossum. Sharing his ditch was a small group of green-winged teals and another of cinnamon teals - my favorite duck!
All this and more we saw within that first stretch of maybe quarter mile of a 4+ mile auto tour loop. Jack drove expertly, creeping along, maneuvering around other vehicles when they were in the midst of changing camera lenses so as not to interrupt, angling towards one side of the road or the other so we could catch a better view of this or that. Shorebirds poked along in the weeds of flood plains; a pair of hooded mergansers posed at a log in the midst of a stillwater pond; dozens of ducks of a variety of species quacked and fed together in a more active section of flowing water.
A red-winged blackbird perched on a cattail just a few feet away from us sang into our ears; pintail ducks tipped upside down to feed, their eponymous pointy tails sticking out sharply from their otherwise fluffy bottoms; a juvenile bald eagle swooped through, causing a melee of confusion in the waterfowl below but on its way to someplace (or something) else this time; a large flock of Canada geese roamed over the grassy hills as if they were a herd of elk.
We were ready to call it a day when we reached the other end of the auto tour and found ourselves back where we had begun. Satisfied by the beauty of the landscape and the variety of the wildlife. It was fun to be a fly on the wall for their behaviors, an experience I've really only had while on vehicle safari in Zambia and in Botswana. I prefer to feel like my presence is in interaction with the other creatures around me, but there is something to be said for feeling inconsequential to everything around you as the world goes about it's business. We returned home, keen to look up all the birds we had seen that day. In particular, I was stoked discover that what I had called during our trip the "doe duck" for its resemblance to the coloring of a deer was actually a Gadwell Duck. I had never even heard of a Gadwell Duck before! All told, we easily saw a dozen species, most of which we were able to identify with grainy, overly zoomed-in smartphone photos once we were home. We didn't do much the rest of that day. We stayed cozy in our home and sipped warm beverages, grateful for what we have been given.
Until next time!
