birding today

My lovely wife Peggy arranged a birding trip for us today, our first, with a group from Tryon Creek State Park. I knew we were off to a good start when i saw a colorful bird about the size of a jay land on a wire next to the road. I stopped the car and out loud i wished it to turn around. It promptly obliged and was happy to see it was an American Kestrel.
We met everyone at the Wapato area of Sauvie Island. We were given an introduction to birding talk, describing where we were going (a 2-mile loop around Virginia Lake) how to focus and use our binoculars, how to identify birds using several different methods, and general safety and common sense rules for the trail. The fifteen of us split into two groups and headed in opposite directions around the lake trail.
The Virginia Lake trail has a nice mix of habitat ranging from the lake, of course, to swampy vegetation, to blackberry thickets to a mix of deciduous and evergreen forest.
The first bird we heard and saw was a Red-Winged Blackbird. We then observed some American Wigeon paddling around the lake. Black-Capped Chickadee were abundant. It took us only about 20 minutes before we reached a spot that was alive with birds in the trees, the best find was the Downy Woodpecker. At about this time several Brown Creepers were seen. When the group reached the Multnomah Channel, we paused and watched the Cormorants dry their wings in the warming morning sun. Not much further down the trail we paused to talk about the time last year when the leader of the group saw a bald eagle in the trees not 30 feet above her head. As we were looking up a group of 5 Tundra Swan flew overhead, calling out their friendly honks. A moment later i caught sight of a large dark bird taking wing from the tops of the trees not 40 yards ahead, and we all watched it soar over the channel. We could only agree that it was a large dark bird that soared, but we were all excited at the prospect of seeing a bald eagle. Only 50 yards down the trail, as i was scanning the far side of the channel, i noticed a large dark bird in the trees and again everyone stopped and the conversations became excited once again. We were not able to identify this bird, but it was exciting to see nonetheless.
We met the other half of our group who reported seeing a large red-tailed hawk and a pair of coyotes. We had heard the hawk but not seen it. One hundred yards later as we emerged from a clearing we had a wonderful fly-by of two hawk-like birds and three of us tried to i.d. them. At the time some agreement was reached that they were Swainson's Hawks, but I'm not sure. They were overhead, squared tailed, light colored under-wings with some spotting but no large dark areas. Large, deep wings that beat regularly as they passed, nearly circling the three of us. We were watching some finch like birds when they arrived, and we promptly forgot about them, absorbed by the raptors.
I heard a woodpecker say peet and thought i would find another Downy, but this one was larger, with a longer bill- it was a Hairy Woodpecker. A pair! It was quite a sight.
Our group had done a lot of studying of the trees and underbrush, and were behind schedule. Some of the not-so-into-it of the group had forged ahead, and it had been four hours since food and bathrooms, so people were beginning to hurry the trip along. We passed some open grassland, more forest, crossed a bridge and the terrain changed again to more of a wide open farm and open pine forest area. There were plenty of birds going back and forth across the trail, but the absolute highlight was when i turned my head to look to where we had been and saw two birds coming out of a tall pine. These two birds were Red-Breasted Sapsuckers and they were just beautiful. Three of us stared for as long as the birds were present in the tree over our heads. They were fantastic to observe.
The last bird the group saw together was a Hooded Merganser. It was paddling on the still lake with the sun behind it, causing its head feathers to create a nimbus both on its head and in its reflection on the water.

The best came last, as if often does, when Peggy saw two Bald Eagles crossing the open fields to our left, headed across the channel on our right. They were very large, very handsome, mature Bald Eagles. What a finish!