A Raptor Road Trip on Sauvie Island

An excerpt from the book "Wild in the City - Exploring The Intertwine."

Every winter one of our region's great spectacles begins to unfold. Eagles and other raptors, along with thousands of sandhill cranes, several races of Canada goose, hundreds of thousands of ducks, snow geese, tundra swans, and other birds congregate on Sauvie Island.

While one can reach any of the hot raptor spots on the island by bicycle, during the cold winter months a warm car is preferable for a raptor road trip.

Out of hundreds of field trips, a winter's day afield on Sauvie Island looking for raptors, sandhill cranes, and waterfowl is a favorite. When the sky is clear, or even if it's misty, you can see forever. Using a spotting scope is even better as you can spy birds on distant treetops or far across fields, lakes, and wetlands. The sunrise over Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood isn't too shabby either!

Start the trip at the grocery store, just across the Sauvie Island Bridage. The store will not only supply you with hot coffee and Jo-Jos or wonderfuly unhealthy fried chicken legs, it also sells day or seasonal parking passes, which are required to park on state land on the island.

From the store head due north along NW Sauvie Island road, past Metro's Howell Territorial Park and make a stop at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife headquarters to look at maps and to orient yourself. For wintering songbirds you might stop at Wapato Lake, but to find the big birds strike out for the favorite bald eagle "flyout" stakeout on the Suavie Island dike road at the Columbia-Multnomah County line which is further down Sauvie Island Road. There are very few places to park and it's illegal to park on the side of the road, so look for a couple turnouts on the right-hand side. Try to walk onto the dike road a half hour before sunrise to make sure you're there before the eagles start flying from their old-growth forest roost onto the island.

Around the last week of October, eagles come from as far away as British Columbia to congregate at a variety of sites throughout the West. They are all heading to their favorite winter roost, where they will loaf around and feed on whatever prey is handy. In this case, the winter roost happens to be in federally owned, Bureau of Land Management old-growth forest to the west of the island in the headwaters of Dairy Creek in the Tualatin Basin. In addition to the warmer lodging, the hordes of over-wintering ducks and geese attract them here during the winter.

At dawn, if you look toward the Tualatin Mountains, you will see small dark specks on the horizon. In just a few minutes it's clear you're looking at eagles. With suprising speed they glide, usually without a wing beat, close overhead as they commute to their diurnal roosts on the island. If it's a warm winter, it's not worth taking the dike flyout side trip as the eagles rarely fly back to their roost at night, instead preferring to hang out on the island.

After the flyout, turn around and head back to NW Reeder Road. As you drive, scan the fields to the right for sandhill cranes and the wetlands for waterfowl. Once you've reached the locked gate, look in the treetops for merlin, peregrine falcons, northern harriers, red-tailed hawks, the occasional rough-legged hawk, and bald eagles. While walking back from the gate towards Oak Island, we usually scare up a roost of songbirds, including spotted towhees, golden-crowned sparrows, song sparrows, or white-throated sparrow. But it's raptors we're after and they abound in this area. Oak Island always has large numbers of eagles and other predatory birds.

Once you're through searching the skies from Oak Island, head back to your vehicle and retrace the route back down Oak Island Road and take a left onto Reeder Road heading to Coon Point, where an elevated dike provides an amazing panorama for spotting-scope views of eagles at thier nests in the far distance, a great blue heron colony, flocks of sandhill cranes, and flocks of tundra swans.

Keep an eye on the large fields and you are virtually garanteed to see a northern harrier flying low, harrying prey. Follow one for a minute, and it will invariably pounce on something. If successful, it will often fly to the nearest fence post to enjoy its meal.

For bonus birding, more for waterfowl than raptors, continue north 2.8 miles down Reeder Road to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's birding blind at Gillihan Loop. You can count on a variety of ducks, swans, and oftentimes snow geese on the shallow lake in the front of the blind. Waterfowl include ring-necked ducks, lesser scaup, ruddy ducks, northern shovelers, bufflehead, gadwall, and mallards. Pied-billed grebes and hundreds of American coot use the pond as well.

For an extra treat on your way back home, make a stop at Howell Territorial Park, off Sauvie Island Road on Howell Territorial Park Raod, about a mile before the bridge. The 120-acre park is a nice place for a picnic, and the stand of Douglas fir trees to the north of the historic farmhouse is a great place to look for barn owls. Even if you can't find barn owls, look for their pellets, which can be found all over the ground. Wander to the back of the property to look for more waterfowl on Howell Lake and for red-tailed hawks, harriers, and kestrals hunting over the farm fields.