Audubon Birding Day: Willamette Birding: Baskett Slough NWR to Willamette Mission State Park with Dan van den Broek
Join Dan van den Broek to visit Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge and Willamette Mission State Park. We will begin exploring the 1,173 acres Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge, an important place for wintering waterfowl, breeding wetland birds as well as protecting oak woodland and the very threatened Willamette Valley prairie.
In the open water and marshes of Cottonwood Pond and South Slough Pond we can find Blue-winged and Cinnamon Teal, Northern Shoveler, Green-winged Teal, Ruddy Duck and with some luck Black-necked Stilt and Wilson’s Phalarope. A walk through the meadows, prairie grasslands, and oak woodland on Baskett Butte we may find Western Meadowlark, Cassin’s Vireo, Purple Finch and Lazuli Bunting.
Some of the wildflower in bloom throughout June include Winecup Clarkia, Ookow, Brodieae’s, Madia’s, Flax, Globe Gilia, checkermallow and others. This site is known as having the largest population of Fender’s Blue butterfly, which is now increasing at other sites. Once believed to be extinct, conservation efforts have helped this species recover from 3000 in 1993 to 19,000 in 2020.
About 4 miles north of Kaiser is the 1300 acre Willamette Mission State Park where wetlands, fields, farmland and rare Willamette River floodplain forest make an outstanding place to explore nature. At this time of year the forest is filled with breeding birds that just arrived a few weeks earlier and we hope to find a few such as Warbling Vireo, Swainson’s Thrush, Bullock’s Oriole, Black-throated Gray, Orange-crowned, Yellow and Wilson’s Warblers, Western Tanager. Time allowing we can stop to see the largest Black Cottonwood in the U.S. a 270 year old tree, standing an impressive 155 ft.
Along the way, we’ll discuss some of the ongoing conservation issues in these areas.
