‘I slept but very little last night for the noise kept up during the whole of the night by the swans, geese … brant (and) ducks on a small sand island … They were immensely numerous and their noise horrid.”
Apparently Capt. William Clark was less than pleased about the abundance of wildlife chatter when he wrote in his Nov. 5, 1805, entry in the expedition’s journal.
I’d do a little dance if we had such problems.
Today, the island in the journal is part of the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge on the Columbia River, south of Woodland and west of I-5.
It’s managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to provide wintering and nesting habitat for a diversity of species of waterfowl and other birds and wildlife.
The refuge is not a single entity, but a collection of units strung along the Washington side of the Columbia.
We took the 4.2-mile auto tour on the River S unit, following a long downhill entrance road, over train tracks and a one-lane bridge, out to the flats and marsh and stopping at the small, volunteer-staffed information building.
Pay a parking fee and receive a map, answers to your questions, and maybe suggestions of where to look for particular birds.
We saw wood ducks, cinnamon teal, coots, great blue herons and red-winged blackbirds on one car trip through the refuge. At the second restroom stop along the road, a sweet trail leads to an blind overlooking a marsh, where we were entertained by tree swallows building a nest in a tree about 15 feet away.
A red-shouldered hawk has spent several winters in Unit S, and improved wetlands have attracted black terns, black-necked stilts and yellow-headed blackbirds. Great egrets have been seen into the summer. Short-eared owls live here.
One birder’s list from a walk on the Kiwa Trail included a willow flycatcher, a Virginia rail off to the right of the first bridge on the Kiwa Trail (walking clockwise); two sora in the wetland north of the blind parking lot; a half-dozen flying American bittern; three baby pied-bill grebes; blue-winged teal, three redhead ducks, ruddy ducks (including several displaying) and water-dancing drakes.
The auto tour can be taken year-round, but the 1.5-mile Kiwa Trail (and the roadway) is open to pedestrians only May 1 to Sept. 30. No hiking or pedestrian traffic is allowed anywhere Oct. 1 to April 30.
“The refuge protects wintering waterfowl coming down here to rest and feed. Winter’s a hard time of the year for wild animals. They can’t fatten up, and they can’t store their body reserves if they’re disturbed,” said Lynn Cornelius, coordinator on a refuge partner project to improve the Gee Creek watershed.
“Disturbances cause them to flush off, and people on foot flush birds, and people in cars don’t flush birds most of the time. Sometimes birds as much as a quarter-mile away can be flushed,” Cornelius said.
The recently opened wide Kiwa Trail (kiwa means crooked in the Chinook language) is handicapped accessible, about 1.5 miles of varying surfaces and two boardwalks across wetlands.
It goes through a corridor of ash trees, another forested area, open marshes and floodplain. Partway through is a large viewing platform.
On the nearby Carty Unit, the 2-mile-loop Oaks to Wetlands Trail is a good path open year-round, although not handicapped accessible.
It runs through a special habitat of oak woodlands, remnants of wider oak forests that once populated nearby valleys, and sites where people first settled and eliminated most of the trees.
The trail includes a rock cropping overlook where you can see out to the marsh, oak woodlands and the larger floodplain of the unit.
The Oaks to Woodland Trail also passes the Cathlapotle Plankhouse, a replica of a Chinook culture cedar plankhouse, similar to those here when Lewis &Clark paddled by.
Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge Complex is in Ridgefield; 360-887-4106; ridgefieldrefuges.fws.gov.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be contacted at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com. She’s co-author of “You Know You’re in Washington When …”.
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