Lacamas Lake Park.

Yesterday afternoon I dragged my friend out to Camas to look for a damn duck.  Never found it.  It was cold but sunny and we ended up spending several entertaining hours exploring Lacamas Lake Park.


The park was filled with the sounds of nuthatches, creepers, kinglets, and chickadees.  Varied Thrushes popped up onto branches as we walked the trails.


Song Sparrows sat around looking chilly...


We came out one end of the park at a school where a group of chickadees were hopping around along with what I think is a Hutton's Vireo:


Right?  We made our way back into the park along a different trail, then hopped through a hole in a fence to walk along the river (along a steep and probably dangerous drop-off).  We made it to an amazing area with small waterfalls and rushing water. 


We found a spot where we could sort of climb down (read: slide on our asses) to the rocks seen on the left.  An American Dipper spooked while I was sliding/screaming and flew upstream to another rock. 


I only had my 300mm lens so I couldn't get any grand photos of the waterfalls, but here's the upstream view...


And the downstream view with my phone camera...


We scrambled back uphill to the trail and made our way back to the main lake to walk the loop trail.


There were several No Swimming signs along the dam but a couple of Mallards were rebelling.


There were lots of cormorants on the lake and my friend worked on mastering digi-binning with his phone.  I just took regular photos.


We ran into a flock of Golden-crowned Kinglets about halfway around the lake.


I started walking without realizing my friend was still looking at something.  For a non-birder he was looking for birder-ish, crouching and using my binoculars to try to find something.  I made my way back and he said he heard something- sure enough he had found a Hairy Woodpecker!  


We kept going along the trail as the sun started to set...


The trail led out of the park onto a side street.  As we were walking my friend said, "what is that?  Is that a bear?"  I thought he was just being a weirdo till I looked up and saw a big brown beast on the hill behind a house. 


Looks like a big raggedy, dreadlocked bison?  This really didn't make any more sense than a bear did, but it was pretty cool.  A strange ending to a fun afternoon!

Comments

  1. Nice adventure. I've walked the loop once and paddled around on the lake. The highlight for me was a Green heron on a log. That bison is cool!

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  2. dread-locked Bison-Ha!good one! That top photo is just picture perfect-I want to be there! I remeber someone did an id game and tricked me with that vireo. I thought it looked like a Ruby-crowed Kinglet and never would have guessed that there was a species that looked so similar.

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  3. Those Mallards are hard core; they should get together with that Bison.
    Nice trip, nice account, Great images.

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  4. A beautiful park JEN! Love the shots of the landscape, and the varied is so cool..and the 4 cormorants is a super shot!!
    Ummm maybe its some sort of sheep?

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    1. It was pretty big, I do think it was a bison. Not sure why it was there though..

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  5. I love the Varied Thrush and the gorgeous scenery! The dreadlock bison is cool. Great bird sightings and photos. Happy Birding, Jen!

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  6. Those damn Mallards do whatever they please. Can't they read? They don't care who's around or who they're bothering, and I'm tired of it!

    Anyhow, while you're trying to tell yourself it was a Bison (understandable), you may have just captured Clark County's first official Sasquatch!

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    1. Oh come on... there's no way this would be the first record of sasquatch there.

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  7. I'm better at identifying feathered things (like that Hutton's Vireo), but it looks like a sheep to me...

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