Author: Susan Iwata

I enjoy sharing my love for nature and encouraging tolerance and gratitude for the wildlife that enriches our everyday urban and suburban lives.

A Walk in the Park

 

Teddy was shaking and whining with excitement when we got out of the car at Cook Park. He knew this wasn’t going to be our usual neighborhood walk. It was cool but not freezing as it had been the day before. The sky was clear but heavy rains had left the ground mucky and Teddy seemed to gravitate to the worst puddles.

We arrived in time to see a huge flock of geese rise from a pond and circle the sky above our heads. I confess that I never get tired of their noise and chaos.

 

The little dog followed his nose from tree to tree, reading pee mail and gathering as many smells as he could. I have to wonder whether he remembers particularly delightful scents the way I remember the the lovely Egret we saw.

 

 

 

 

There are plenty of opportunities to glimpse the Tualatin River as you walk the path through the woods.

 

I stood  near the path,on the “civilized” side and peeked through the bushes into the wildlife area. It was a bit like straddling two different worlds and my favorite moment of the morning.

 

Snowberries always looks like Christmas to me, and we found plenty of them when we followed the path to Durham City Park.

Teddy must have been happy. He trotted along happily beside me on the way back to the car.  At home he had to submit to having his feet washed before he found his favorite soft spot (my favorite chair) an napped for a few hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset on the Pond

The chaos and drama of sunrise at the Tualatin River Refuge a couple of weeks ago (Celebrating the Dawn) inspired me to wonder if sunset would provide equally dramatic moments amidst the masses of water birds wintering there.

It was 3:00 PM when I parked near the highway and hiked up the hill to the visitor center.

From the observation deck overlooking the pond, I watched hundreds of ducks and geese moving about on the water.

I was fascinated by one small duck swimming into the middle of a group of geese, staying there for a few minutes, then moving on to another party of geese, seemingly introducing himself again and again, as though he was making the rounds at a cocktail party

Birds came and went from the pond in bands of four or six and sometimes in groups as large as fifty.

The prehistoric croak of a Great Blue Heron announced his short flight from an overcrowded area of the pond to a quieter spot.  It’s not the first time I’ve observed that the Blue Heron seems irritated with the masses of birds wintering in his home.

I shivered as I watched birds noisily jostling for position  water or gliding quietly on the surface. There didn’t seem to be nearly as many birds as I had seen rise together at dawn only a few weeks ago.

Like the frog in boiling water, I had barely noticed how quickly the temperature was dropping until my cheeks began to sting and my bare hands to ache. I’d left my gloves in the car.

To avoid the cold wind, I backed up under the overhang of the building, held my hood tightly in place, and continued to watch.

I had been so sure there would be some dramatic end to the day for these creatures, something to match their wild dawn awakening of a few weeks ago. The sun gradually dropped behind the hills, the temperature continued to drop, the cold wind grew wilder, and the birds grew quieter. My curiosity and resolve waned.

Shivering and miserable, lacking the fortitude to last five more minutes until sunset, I quit that cold, windblown place.

I was still shivering as I reached the highway, started the car, and waited for circulation to return to my fingers.  On the other side of the highway I saw that many hundreds of birds were gathered on wetlands, more birds than I’d been watching at the pond. As I watched, the sun slipped away and the birds across the highway rose suddenly, and noisily, together. They spread across the sky and flew over my head to the ponds at the refuge. Many of them appeared to be landing at the pond where I had been keeping watch.

This was the main event I’d been waiting for, and I was catching it because I’d given up! There must be a lesson there.

From the warm car, I watched until every last bird appeared to have flown to the refuge. If there were birds left across the highway, it was too dark to tell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating the Dawn

I was at the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge to greet the dawn this Saturday morning. There was no rain, but the air was cold and the dampness from the rains we’d been having seemed to penetrate my warmest jacket and gloves. Trees held plenty of water from the rain and one or two icy drips managed to run down my neck until I wrapped my scarf tighter.

There are not many leaves left on the trees, but there is still a colorful carpet of leaves in some areas, and they serve to soften the sound of the gravel path.

I startled a small flock of juncos and sparrows rooting around on the gravel path. They flew into a bush, waited for me to pass, then immediately went back to sorting gravel.

According to the weather service, dawn would be at 7:18. At exactly 7:20, with the sun burning softly through the fog, a roar rose from the refuge ponds. It was the sound of many geese and water birds rising together in response to the dawn. Perhaps there were thousands of them. I can only say there were so many that they didn’t sound like geese. For just few moments, sounded instead like the roar of the crowd in a huge football stadium during Superbowl. I’ve seen huge flocks of geese before, but I’ve never heard anything like the roar they made as they first roused themselves.

The geese seemed to rise in waves, some appearing to fly away from the refuge but many staying overhead, low in the sky, circling, stretching their wings, milling around and around, not minding the fog. There were so many geese overhead I worried about what might drop on my head. In the end, luck was with me.  A noticed a heron who seemed to resent the noisy early morning ritual as he fled for more peaceful territory. After thirty minutes most of the geese had settled back down and quieted. The ceremony of celebrating dawn was over.

The spectacular wakening was the gift I had come for, so was the small herd of deer I nearly stumbled into, and the juncos and the sparrows. I seldom anticipate what I will see when I walk in the refuge. Instead, I wait for the gift I will be given. I am never disappointed.

Home

 

The minute I first saw the huge windows in the back of the little house, I was blinded to the broken down backyard fence and kitchen cabinets, the oversized low-hanging bedroom fan threatening decapitation, an aged dirty carpet covering a plywood floor, and a multitude of smaller sins.

Love, after all, is the ability to look past the warts and treasure the good. I told myself I would fix what I could, when I could.

The windows were old, no longer fit, and couldn’t be locked. I saw them as my year-round access to the outdoors and whatever wildlife I could nurture in my tiny backyard.

Butterflies, bees, tiny green tree frogs, and garter snakes live in my new little yard,
Hummingbirds found the feeder the day I first put it up. A scrub jay and a pair of house wrens frequent the yard and drink from the bird bath. Skunks and squirrels and chipmunks live nearby. I only need to pay attention to enjoy their presence.
The house is close to the wildlife refuge and the autumn skies are often filled
with large flocks of noisy gossiping geese.
Yesterday morning, as I was looking out my back window I saw a tremendous flurry of activity in a neighbor’s large tree. Hundreds of Cedar Waxwings were filling up on the bright orange berries covering that tree. Cedar Waxwings are the most nattily dressed of birds. I was so delighted to see them that I forgot to take a picture.
It’s already beginning to feel like home.
(Photo: Shutterstock)

Early Fall

Teddy and I celebrated the second day of fall  by walking the Gettman Loop around the Chehalem Glenn Golf Course this morning. It had only been two weeks since we were last there yet everything has changed. Cool air and an overcast sky might be tiresome in a few months but they are invigorating this early in fall.

Aside from a dried up Bachelor Button hanging on a brittle stem near the path, the wildflowers are gone. Although many trees have barely begun changing color, the forested path is already accepting a carpet of crisp yellowed leaves.

The bridge showed signs of some repair done after the windstorm earlier this  month and there was plenty of debris in the form of branches and heavy limbs that had been moved to keep the path clear.

The forest was quiet this morning. Teddy curiously nosed a large green Pacific banana slug and a single Gray Squirrel hid behind a fir for a few minutes but the squirrel’s beautiful tail curved around the trunk of the tree and gave him away. He reminded me of my 21-month-old grandson who covers his eyes and believes we can’t see him. After a few minutes, the squirrel came out of hiding in order to scold us. We were probably interrupting winter preparations.

 

 

Tiny Yard/Big Dreams

My new yard in Tigard is small, but large windows  that look out on the back garden are one of the biggest reasons I settled on the little house. When I’m not walking in a refuge or a local park, I still hope to enjoy backyard wildlife.
In a year or two, with new plants replacing the old arbor vitae, my back yard will be a pleasant place for local wildlife – and for me.
Birds haven’t discovered the new bath yet. It can take a while for  them to trust a new source of food and water.  I happy to say that Hummingbirds  have found the feeder by my bedroom window.
I dream of putting in a very small standing pond with a bubbler in the future, and I’m still wondering if feeding sunflower seed will be possible in this tiny yard.
I don’t know if I’ll ever have another relationship with a tree like the bond I felt with a large old oak at my old home, but I hope to be on friendly terms with the baby Crepe Myrtle I put in and perhaps with a small Dogwood I may plant.
It’s a good sign that my brand new garden is already welcoming tiny frogs, honey bees, big fat bumblebees, and butterflies.
On the day I spot a wren or a robin in the bird bath I’ll have a quiet celebration and tell you all about it.

July Afternoon

 

A few days ago I took a short walk in the refuge, just a small break from the digging, planting, and painting I’m doing at the little house I hope to move to one day soon.

Most often I walk in the early morning, when the songbirds are loud and cheerful. On a hot July afternoon they quietly hide from the sun. I only knew the birds were there because of a soft rustling in the bushes and the occasional burst of Chickadee song, though I never saw the singer.

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Tualatin River Wildlife Refuge

The bunnies barely seemed to notice the heat, or my intrusion, as they nibble on the undergrowth.

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The herons didn’t move at all as they napped on their feet at the edge of the pond.

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A couple of large nutria were unfazed by the heat while they dived and played in the pond. They reminded me of a morning two weeks ago when I’d watched a young family exclaiming over a couple of beavers. There are beavers at the refuge, so I didn’t risk disappointing them by telling them they were watching nutria..

Get outside whenever you can, and stay well!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Medicine

How could I have imagined that I was too busy for a walk in the natural world?

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The Tualatin River Wildlife Refuge is also a refuge for me; but lately I’ve been working on my new little “fixer-upper” home and I’ve been preoccupied with the state of the world,  living a little less in the present.

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For the first time in weeks I visited the refuge again yesterday.

Lace

 

It takes a lot to distract me from the birds, the bunnies, and this year’s fawns, but yesterday it was blooming wildflowers that earned my undivided attention.

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We’ve all been dealng with serious issues this year, but we need to take time to do whatever it takes to maintain internal calm and peace despite the chaos. Taking care of ourselves will keep us grounded as we face our issues head on.

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Whatever it is that makes you feel whole, make room for it in this strange year of 2020 – and be well.

 

Morning Gl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Saturday Night Wild

Saturday night I was sitting up in bed writing a few emails and thinking about how how excited I will be to get work started on the little house I recently bought.

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The bedroom window was open about two inches admitting a taste of sweet, cool, night air. Suddenly, the room filled with yips, barks, and howls, the sounds drifting in from somewhere out in the night. I might have been hearing a dozen animals all at once, maybe only three. I couldn’t tell.

Coyote song lifts me, makes me smile, and inspires me to imagine an untamed life even as it sends chills down my spine.

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Mind your cats and small animals. Respect the coyote as a wild, hungry, scavenger and predator. I do.
Even so, I sleep especially well when I hear them at night from my warm bed.

In a Time of Pandemic

On a recent Sunday afternoon the family took a walk trough Graham Oaks Nature Park in Wilsonville. The park was open and there were several small groups enjoying a  beautiful spring day while maintaining social distance and mostly wearing masks.
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We walked in sunshine for quite a while and then we walked in the rain. It was a short but delightful break before returning to home and quarantine.
More than ever I have been conscious that the only thing that matters right now is the moment. Where will we be tomorrow? Will the economy collapse completely?. Will we or our loved ones get sick?
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Though most of us are making sincere efforts to follow health, social, and economic best practices, we have no real control.
We have never had control. We only do our best and after that what happens is what happens.
What we can do is relax our expectations while holding on to our dreams and desires. Life really does happen in the moment and the terrain constantly changes.
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Living life well is doing our best at any given moment, not looking at the good times as the life we are striving for so much as being present for what is and for whatever comes next.
There is nothing new in these thoughts, but being reminded can help.
It really is about the journey, not the destination, and what a joy that is (when we remember), because we spend every moment on the journey – and the destination is the stopping place.