I Used to Hate Birds

A thick layer of dust had accumulated on my 5-mile radius list this summer and I decided it needed a sprucing, a revival, a brand new 5MR bird to bring it back from the dead.  Conveniently a Rough-legged Hawk has been hanging out by the Portland airport for months, often seen from Broughton Beach.  It didn't dawn on me that this was in my 5MR until Jacob saw it from his work (next to the airport) and I was like WAIT A MINUTE.  I finally made it over there recently to check it out.


Now, a Rough-legged Hawk in Portland in July is pretty wild so I was grateful when Carole Hallett posted the backstory on the bird on OBOL:

"It came from a nest site in Alaska the summer of 2016, spent some time in a rehab facility in Alaska as a result of an injury, and missed the opportunity to migrate south with its cohort.  It was flown to Cascade Raptor Center near Eugene where it spent additional time prior to release.  It was caught at PDX back in April or May of this year and released in Was…

Well.  Blogger decided I did not actually want to write a blog post about the birds I have seen over the last few weeks and deleted the whole thing.  I will take that as a hint and write about the hike I did this week in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest instead.  Perhaps if this gets deleted I will try a post about the various bugs coming to the porch light, or a post about how many times a day Ralph tries to lick Jake's weiner.  I dunno.  Throw some shit on the ceiling and see what sticks, right?

Anyway.  I decided to check out the trail to Grassy Knoll, a 3648 foot hill that once hosted a fire lookout.  My original interest had been in Big Huckleberry Mountain but I decided with time constraints (and my slow flower-poking pace) a 12-mile hike would not work out.  Grassy Knoll is less than five miles round trip which leaves plenty of time to look at stuff. 


I got an early start on the 2-hour drive because I happened to wake up early and the day was supposed to get HOT.  The sk…