Sauvie's Island

This was a ground breaking birding trip for me.  We saw a wide variety of species, several of which I have yet to see since then.  I was into it enough the first trip to buy a bird identification book.  Smithsonian Handbooks Birds of North America Western Region By Fred J. Alsop III.  Not your typical field guide, but I highly recommend it, particularly for beginners.  We bumped into another birder with a scope who said he saw a Golden Eagle up ahead.  My cousin said that can't be.  Well we saw it and took down every detail of it.  During the debrief we explored our books to figure out for sure if this was indeed a Golden Eagle.  It came down to, among several key factors, a detail I found in my book about the flight pattern.  Something clicked with me right then that this is something I liked.

• Bald Eagles, including juveniles
• Sandhill Cranes*
• Ring-Necked Ducks*
• Lesser Scaups*    
• Golden Eagle*
• Northern Harrier*
• Red-Tailed Hawk
• Ring-Necked Pheasant* - male 
• Bufflehead
• Great Blue Heron
• American Coots*
• Mallards*
• Northern Shovelers*
• Spotted Sandpipers*
• Pileated Woodpeckers - male and female

*Lifers

Ring-Necked Pheasant (Digiscope photos)

Golden Eagle

Pileated Woodpecker