Slough walking into the new year

January 1, 2025

Before getting to today, let’s look at this photo I just stumbled across by accident while looking for a different one. Look familiar? It’s at Allora, the restaurant we ate at a few nights ago. Don’t the two photos look nearly identical? And we’re even sitting in the same corner nook, her with her back to the door like this time. And in a real surprise to me, it’s our Last Supper - our celebration meal on the last night before we moved out of our condo and went vagabond seven years ago.

February 4, 2018: celebration night at Allora.

We’ve had practice with this. It reminds us of staying at ryokans in Japan.

From my perspective anyway, the new year gets off to about the best start I could hope for when I awaken to see there’s about a four hour break in the weather expected. This is the break I’ve been hoping for, and my chance to catch an Uber ride out to the Columbia River for some birding before catching a lift home. My plan is to get dropped off by the mouth of Kelly Point, and after walking through that park I’ll walk east along the Columbia Slough past Smith and Bybee Lakes before catching a ride home. It will be a splurge, about $25 each direction, but I’m in a mood to celebrate. I’m already building in my head the long list of birds I can hope to see there at this time of year.

It’s a different story with Rachael though. It’s cold out and solidly overcast, not the kind of conditions to tempt her into a walk. She can wait for sunny Tucson for that if need be. Instead she spends the morning indoors, trying to get herself registered for the new year at LA Fitness so she can attend their workouts when it’s too uninviting outside. And she succeeds, and later in the afternoon she heads over to the gym, not returning home until shortly before I return also at around four.

I’ve taken Uber seven times in the last few days now so I’m getting the feeling for how this goes. Some of the drivers are just cabbies putting in the hours and collecting their fares - hi, get in, goodbye, get out - but others are genuinely interesting. This morning’s driver is one of the good ones, an elementary school teacher who half-retired after 33 years in the classroom for health reasons and to spend time with her new grandchild. Now she mixes together some substitute teaching with Uber shifts to fill the gaps.

Time goes quickly on the half-hour drive out to the river, with us talking continuously the whole way in a wide ranging conversation. It makes for a very upbeat start to the new year.

I get dropped off at the trailhead at Kelly Point and start walking the mile and a half trail along the perimeter of the park, with high hopes for what I’ll see this morning. But it’s an absolute bird bust, and I come out having seen exactly four birds and two species: a pair of common mergansers quicklyflying together low across the river too far out for a shot, and soon after a pair of Canadian geese passes by even further out. And that’s it. I hear but don’t see one crow, and I very briefly see a bird that looks like it could be a robin or some other kind of thrush; but that’s it. A big birding disappointment, but at least it’s a pleasant walk.

The view east up the Columbia from Kelly Point.

The next mile and a half or two are even less productive birdwise than Kelly Point was, if that even seems possible; and it’s less pleasant too as I walk a more or less straight line on the sidewalk/bikepath alongside Marine Drive. I’m not certain I see even a single bird near or distant the entire way, and by the time I near the end of this stretch I’m starting to rue my decision to come out here. After over three miles of walking I’ve used up half of the window in the weather I’d been hoping for, a third of the charge on my phone’s battery, and about half of what I think is probably my legs capacity for a second long walk in two days, and I’m thinking maybe I haven’t made one of the better investments in my life today.

I make the best of the situation though, walking briskly to get to the lakes as soon as possible, helped by the brisk, almost march like cadence of Cole Porter’s You’re the Top that I heard for the first time a few days ago and that’s been running through my head incessantly as an earworm ever since. And while I’m marching I make good use of the time by mentally composing a post I anticipate writing.

Finally we’re coming to the end of this long, straight, nearly two mile long pretty uninteresting stretch along Marine Drive.

Finally the end of this long uninteresting stretch approaches ahead when, Bird Alert, a flock of about forty or fifty black birds of some kind flies across the path and comes to ground across the way. I get out the Canon to bring them in closer and get confirmation that they’re starlings, as I expected. So that’s something salvaged from the morning at least.

Finally I come to the end of this, turn off onto the footpath that fronts Bybee Lake and everything abruptly changes. Its time to turn off the Porter sound track and stop, look and listen.

And there’s a lot to stop for as I slowly stroll past the lake for the next quarter mile and collect another four new birds for the year along the way, two of which I won’t realize I’ve seen until I get back home later and look at the distant birds that the new Canon reels in for me. The walk could have ended here and I’d feel like the day was a success, albeit an expensive one..

And to my surprise one of these birds I didn’t know I’d seen was a common goldeneye, a bird I’ve seen only once before and not at all in 2024. I’m briefly tempted to stretch the rules by one day and include the bird in my total for 2024; but rules are rules, it’s the policy and nothing can be done at it, so 2024 stands at 304 species for the year.

Three bagger!!! From the left: American wigeon (#33), Common goldeneye (#34), Bufflehead (#35).

Wigeons again, in case you weren’t sure of your lefts and rights in the photo above.

#36: Ring-necked duck. A really poor shot, and a shock to me. They were just tucked way back in the corner of a shot that’s been severely cropped down.

A zoomed look across Bybee Lake to Skyline Ridge.

We’re not quite done here though, and after I pass Bybee Lake and turn of onto the pedestrian Interlakes Trail that threads between the two lakes. And I come away with two more new birds, after trying to mentally filter out the shovelers that constitute about 90+ percent of today’s birdlife on the lake.

On the pedestrian-only Interlakes Trail. I think I took about fifteen shots of this trail looking for the one I liked best.

There are many ducks spinning around on this end of Bybee Lake. I’m excited by this until I realize about 99% of them are shovelers. I’m getting pretty tired of looking at shovelers, if you really want to know the truth. Isn’t there anybody else out here?

A female shoveler. This is the shot that finally convinced me to quit packing around the Lumix. I was really pleased of the shot I got with that other camera here - same bird, shot from the same position. I took it to show how much detail you get with the right shot with the Lumix. This one though was from the Canon, and I was shocked to see it was better.

Oh, good. Finally something different! #36: Ruddy duck.

When I come back from this side trail to the main path, two things are happening, First, my legs are starting cramping again and I’m walking more slowly, to the cadence of the much slower Galveston by Flenn Campbell that I listened to back in the army and has suddenly popped into my head for reasons I understand but that aren’t worth going into here, and the other thing is that it starts sprinkling, so it’s pretty clear that I should plan on putting my six miles in and hailing another Uber when I come to North Portland Road.

To my surprise though, that’s not how it plays out. The brief shower soon ends, and a check of the weather shows that I can still hope for another two or three dry windows. And as I walk steadily along on a smooth, even paved surface the leg gets stretched out and the limp goes away. When I come to North Portland Road I sit down on a concrete barrier, recheck the weather and then the distance to the next possible stopping point I can get a ride from, and decide I’ve still got three miles in the legs and it’s worth it to me to see the slough and the birdlife it normally holds at this time of year. My decision-making gets influenced here by the thought that it’s probably closer to town if I make it to Denver Way and I might save myself five bucks on the return fare.

Looking west along the Columbia Slough. Usually when I’ve come out here mid-winter this place is rife with birds - egrets, herons, mergansers, geese. It’s pretty empty today though - birdwise, that is. Waterwise though I’ve never seen the slough so deep, in any season. There must be some connection between those two facts.

On the Slough. This is the phone again reminding me of its value. Its great ro have such a quick draw in the holster, a six shooter that lets me grab a shot of the most colorful part of the train. And now that I’ve written that nonsense, it amuses me to look up and read the graffiti for the first time.

And it’s definitely the right decision as over the next three miles I add three more new birds, bringing me up to nine new birds for the day and a respectable tally for the day of twenty, my new high count for the 2025 season*. Furthermore, all three of these last additions are ones I couldn’t have scored without the Canon letting me zoom in to identify them. I spotted their shapes with my eyes, but when I zoomed in with the Lumix I wasn’t even sure of if any of the three was even a bird rather than a stump or snag.

Canada geese, Vanport. Here’s another Canonshot that surprised me. Its no camera, but once you’ve got it out and in your hand it’s got a pretty quick shutter too - much faster than Lumix the Loris.

A great blue heron, too far off on the other side of the slough for a focused shot.

#38: Green-winged teal. Another win for the Canon. This was one of about twenty black ducks, all far enough off that with the Lumix it was impossible to tell if they were even birds instead of snags.

I’ve seen a bald eagle soaring above the slough a few times before, and wondered if that huge mountain of sticks far off in the trees was his home. I’m sure now. #39: Bald eagle.

Even farther off there are a pair of what are presumably raptors, although they look more like just short stubs jutting up from their snag until the Canon reels them in. #40: Red-tailed Hawk.

House sparrows. We really saw very few small birds today, so maybe they’re all fluffed up and sheltered somewhere, conserving calories. I’m pretty sure the Canon will be up to the task when the smaller birds start exposing themselves again.

I’ve put in a solid nine miles when I come to Denver Way - a quite long walk for me - and am just reaching for the phone to call Uber when I see a sign for the Delta Park MAX station. MAX comes this way, a fact that hadn’t occurred to me to check for. So I walk another 0.4 miles to the Max stop and get home for a buck instead of another 25. And when I’m hop off by the Union Station there’s another mile to be hoofed before I get home, putting me at a ten mile walk that amazes both me and Rocky when I’m home to brag about it. It’s an outstanding way to bring in the new year.

A final camera review, with conclusions

As I was walking along one of the less interesting connecting stretches of the walk I was mentally composing this review, explaining why the phone was essential but so was the Lumix because it produced the best bird photos. The Canon was of great use too in letting me identify birds farther off that I would miss otherwise, but was more of a nice to have because I couldn’t hold it steady enough to get as clear of an image as I could with the smaller and more manageable Lumix.

When I got home and compared images though, I was startled. The Canon’s images, even with the shakiness, were always as good or better than those from the Lumix. So here’s the unexpected verdict, which I don’t expect to rethink again.

First off, the obvious. The phone is a keeper even though it’s crap as a bird camera because it can’t capture a high enough quality image to show any interesting details, no matter how close the bird is to you. It stays in the bag for its many other excellent features - it’s super fast for capturing a quick and unexpected shot you’d miss otherwise; for its wide angle, it’s generally fine quality landscape shots and such, for the low light characteristics that let you take better indoor or evening shots; and because it really is a pretty effective bird spotter even if you won’t get any useable photos from the phone itself. And as another plus, it really is handy to be able to take a phone call or check the weather or a map when the need arises.

The big surprise though is the Lumix/Canon matchup. I come away concluding that the Lumix has one big advantage over the Canon, and that’s it’s not as big. It’s small enough that it fits in your pocket, and is always at hand when you want it. It loses out to the Canon though on every other standard I can think of: the Canon has a much faster shutter than the Loris, it’s more durable, if it breaks it’s replaceable although painfully more expensive, and it brings in way more birds than the Lumix does with its much more powerful zoom lens. The negative is that its bulkiness and larger zoom make it much harder to hold steadily without a tripod, an accessory I doubt I’d ever include on a bike tour at least. The use of its super fast burst function gives you some chances though. If you fire off a half dozen quick shots there’s more chance that your subject will actually be wholly within the frame and in reasonable focus.

The big surprise to me though was that if a bird is close enough to me to get a high quality shot with the Lumix, it’s close enough for the Canon to also. And in every instance, the image that came back from the Canon was as good as or superior to the one from the Lumix. It’s really not what I’d expected. All of the bird shots in this post were taken with the Canon, not the Lumix. I’m really pretty pleased with what I came back with today, considering especially that gray, low light conditions are poor ones for this camera. I’m anxious to see how it does when the sun shines, such as I suspects happens often when we get to Tucson in only 11 days now.

So that’s definitive. The Lumix is going into the recycle bin for good, and the Canon is going to Tucson of course, but I’ll find a way to fit it in for Europe somehow too. I’m thinking thinking that with the added zoom power 350 birds might be achieveable next year.

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** American crow, Common merganser, Great blue heron, Shoveler, American coot, Double-crested cormorant, Bald eagle, Red-tailed hawk, Bufflehead, Ruddy duck, Mallard, Ring-billed duck, Common goldeneye, Rock pigeon, Canada goose, Western gull, Green winged teal, American wigeon, Hooded merganser, Gadwall (20)

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Karen PoretAND.. ten miles! :)
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2 weeks ago

Scott AndersonTo Karen PoretI am very excited about that, Karen. I really hope to fit more hiking and walking in general in next year - alone when birding, and on some less challenging hikes that Rachael will slow down for me on. It really does seem to help my badly arthritic left knee to be strengthening its support system.
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2 weeks ago

marilyn swettThanks for the camera/phone review. I know you've mentioned it in your journal, but what's the model of your Canon camera?
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2 weeks ago

Scott AndersonIt’s a Powershot SX70. I wouldn’t be surprised if it worked really well for you. Its only negative as far as I’m concerned is the size and bulkiness that don’t work as well biking. Other than that, I like it better each time I’m out with it.
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2 weeks ago