Yesterday May 7th Wink Gross and I co-led the Mult Madness Birdathon and
with Jack Hurt and Philip Kline, we found 110 species of birds within
Multnomah county, just missing last year's record of 111 species for the
day. This was a semi-serious big day, birding from 6AM to 7PM so no
owling. During the day we covered the length of the county, from Eagle
Creek at the eastern end to Oak Island on Sauvie Island at the western end
and generated 19 eBird checklists (thanks to Jack for doing all the data
entry).
The best bird of the day was a Solitary Sandpiper. Most surprising misses
included House Sparrow, Rufous Hummingbird and Purple Finch.
We started with a quick stop at Force Lake where we saw our only American
Wigeon and Cinnamon Teal for the day, then went to Smith-Bybee with its
usual assortment of birds, followed by the water treatment plant off N
Portland Rd which had both Western and Least Sandpipers.
Mt Tabor was far from busy, but there wound up being several species that
we saw only there during the day: Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks, Anna's
Hummingbird, Hammond's and Pacific-slope Flycatchers, Chestnut-backed
Chickadee, Orange-crowned and Townsend's Warblers, Western Tanager and
Lesser Goldfinch.
At Zenger Farm we added Virginia Rail. Next stop was Sandy River Delta and
the beautiful weather resulted in it being the most crowded we had ever
seen. There were no parking spaces available so our visit was kept short
but we did find our target species of Lazuli Bunting.
From there we went up Larch Mountain which was very productive with new
birds for the day of Hermit and Macgillivray's Warblers, Northern Pygmy
Owl, and Townsend's Solitaire. Bonneville Dam added Northern Rough-winged
Swallow, Brewer's Blackbird, and Glaucous-winged and California Gulls.
Then Eagle Creek had one American Dipper, a female Common Merganser with 6
young, and Western Grebes.
I had scouted out Powerpole Marsh (off Marine Drive just east of Chinook
Landing) yesterday and found it had been plowed and was mostly dry, but we
decided to still make a quick stop, and this wound up being one of our
better decisions of the day. We saw our best bird of the day there- a
SOLITARY SANDPIPER, and also added Spotted Sandpiper, Greater Yellowlegs,
and our only Cackling Goose of the day.
Mason Wetlands continued our string of adding new birds with every stop
with Belted Kingfisher, and Long-billed Dowitcher.
Vanport Wetlands had the expected Yellow-headed Blackbirds and Redheads
(latter also seen on Force Lake), both Greater and Lesser Scaup and a late
Canvasback was a pleasant surprise.
We finished the day on Sauvie Island. On Oak Island new birds included
Peregrine Falcon and White-breasted Nuthatch, and we finished the day at
Wapato where we added Hooded Merganser, Cedar Waxwing, and then our final
bird of the day- a Hutton's Vireo. The water level was quite high,
resulting in another unexpected miss for the day of Sora.
It was a fun day with a great group, and it was nice to be able to support
Portland Audubon in the process.
Andy Frank
