I spent about three hours wandering through a portion of Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. My goal was to walk at a slower pace and carefully observe and absorb the web of life that makes this place special. The Refuge is a quiet corner of western Washington state; a place composed of wetlands, small lakes, ponds, and waterways.
The Refuge lies in the southwestern portion of Washington state next to the Columbia River where the river’s reach having flowed west for many miles through the Gorge, turns north before bending west again to discharge to the Pacific Ocean. For physiographic perspective, the Refuge is west of the Cascade Range, i.e., the Pacific side of the Cascades, the wet side.
THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS
ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS.
WE INVITE YOU TO NOTE WHAT YOU ARE SEEING AROUND YOU IN YOUR OWN PART OF THE WORLD,
AND TO SHARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.
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As a preface, this Bucket is very photo heavy with lots of details, covering everything from earth to birds, the big to small, the common to the overlooked. It’s everything I could jam in over a three hour walk. The season is midsummer: July 25, 2023. It’s dry. No appreciable rain has fallen for several weeks, which is not terribly unusual for this part of the country at this time of year. But this has been an unusually dry summer, so far.
The walk I did is very well described in the following links from OregonHikers.org. Check out these links because they’re crammed with some good information and include trail maps.
Oaks to Wetlands Loop Hike
Carty Lake Hike
I walked both of these hikes, starting with Oaks to Wetlands and finishing with Carty Lake.
Physical Setting
Let’s start from the ground and work our way up. We’ll take a trip back in time. The biggest influence on the landscape here is the Columbia River that forms the western margin of the Refuge. Let’s look at a couple maps and then I’ll briefly explain.
About 16 million years ago, lava erupted from fissures in eastern Washington over a timeframe of several million years. These lava flows, layer upon layer, covered a vast area that we now call the Columbia Plateau. The lava flowed all the way down the ancestral Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. The brown blob on the geologic map above is part of this lava flow. The rock is basalt, i.e. cooled and solidified lava. Now advance forward in time to the last Ice Age and the Missoula Floods. Between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago, whenever the ice dam on Lake Missoula gave way, a vast torrent was unleashed that swept across the Columbia Plateau and down the Columbia River out to the Pacific right through the Refuge area. The floods created the Channeled Scablands in eastern Washington, scouring away the soil and carving relict flood channels in the layers of basalt. That brown blob on the above geologic map is like a mini channeled scabland right here in southwest Washington, all scoured and carved by the floods as evidenced by its hummocky surface with interconnected waterways. The trace of the Columbia River was historically a conduit for both fire and ice.
The basalt rock was once quarried here for use as pavement blocks on the streets of Portland. The interpretive sign below explains.
Landscape
Let’s go walking now through the landscape so you get a big picture view of the area. Later we will burrow down.
Oaks
Oak woodland characterizes the landscape of the upland areas of the refuge and especially so of that hummocky area underlain by basalt described earlier. The native oak, Oregon Oak (Quercus garryana), reaches magnificent proportions where it’s allowed to spread its branches unimpeded by competing trees, like Douglas fir.
In 2019, about 600 Douglas firs were felled and removed from the Oaks to Wetlands area to help restore the oak woodland to what it was before European settlement and fire suppression. These practices had encouraged Douglas firs to take over and crowd out the oaks. Article in The Columbian (Vancouver, WA) here: Oak restoration on track at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge
Plants and Flowers
Conditions were dry and had been for several weeks. Spring wildflowers had long passed. The remaining flowering plants were mostly nonnatives, many considered invasive. Nonetheless they were providing for the pollinators: bees, butterflies, beetles, and probably certain moths at nighttime. Let’s look at a few plants and flowers.
Insects
Insects, mainly bees, were very active on all the nonnative and native flowers.
The following is for mature audiences. Parental discretion is advised. A sequence.
Whew! More bugs.
Birds
Okay, we finally get to the birds. Yeh! I’ll bet you thought we weren’t gonna do birds. Well, we are. To be honest, there weren’t many birds out, being midafternoon and seasonally disadvantaged for migrants. First, some not so great bird photos, then we have a surprise guest appearance.
Despite the midafternoon timeframe and the offseason, my walk along Carty Lake revealed a few water birds and our smallest raptor. All were relatively distant from my vantage point.
The most enjoyable finding of the day occurred as I was walking along the pond called Duck Lake as I was on my way out of the Refuge. It was an Osprey! The Osprey spent a long time circling over the pond, hovered at times with outstretched talons in preparation for a dive. The Osprey never did plunge and eventually gave up and moved on. It was a thrilling moment for me, a great way to cap off my three hour tour.
Built Environment
A replica of a plankhouse modeled after houses of the local indigenous peoples is located at the Refuge. More about it here: Cathlapotle Plankhouse
The Refuge has a brand new administrative and multipurpose building.
The new administrative and multipurpose building has offices for refuge staff, and a meeting room that staff, volunteers and nature-based community groups can use. It also provides a place for the public to stop and ask questions, buy national passes, learn about the refuge and pick up materials. The new building is open to the public Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
When I first arrived at the Refuge, I stopped in at the new admin building. I asked the ranger at the front desk, “Is there anything special to see today?” Her reply was “Come back and tell us.” In a way, this Bucket is my reply.
That’s all I have from my three hour tour. This turned out longer than I expected but I had fun preparing it. I hope that you all will get a chance to visit this Refuge, linger there, and would find this Bucket helpful. I included many links about the plants and bugs in case you wanted to take a deeper dive.
What’s going on in everyone’s worlds? It’s midsummer, so most places are hot and critters are looking for water.
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