My mother (Olive) and I arrived at the River "S" Unit at Ridgefield NWR Saturday around 6:45 AM. Carol Ledford joined me at 8:30 AM, and the three of us birded together for the balance of the day until about 2:45PM. Carol, Olive and I also walked the Kiwa Trail together. There are still very few duck species there, and what else we found we had to look hard for, or rely on luck.

Ridgefield NWR: (~4mi W of I-5 at Exit 14 in SW Washington; http://www.fws.gov/ridgefieldrefuges/ ).

Highlights:
It was a pleasant day with a nice breeze. Birding was slow. Almost no mosquitoes :-)

I suppose our best sight was a COMMON RAVEN that Carol and I saw flying over Long Lake, and then it dropped to the lake, grabbed something (frog/salamander as best I could tell scoping it) and flew north across the road to the top of a dead tree to eat. It was quickly joined by 2 cautious Crows who clearly wanted to share in the RAVEN'S bounty, but were reluctant to get too close to the RAVEN.

Shorebird species were few, but there were every bit of 300 Western/Least Sandpipers on Rest Lake in the early morning before 9:30AM.

Will Clemons
SW of Portland
willclemons AT Yahoo dot com

Birding:
The best excuse for getting outdoors
And avoiding chores

Complete list of 43 species seen / heard:

Pied-billed Grebe
American Bittern (1 seen on Rest Lake)
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret (1 seen on Rest Lake)
Turkey Vulture
Canada Goose (~ 22 on Rest Lake)
Wood Duck
Gadwall
Mallard
Cinnamon Teal
Green-winged Teal
Osprey
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
American Coot
SEMIPALMATED PLOVER (1 seen on Rest Lake)
Killdeer
Greater Yellowlegs (Long Lake)
Lesser Yellowlegs (Long Lake)
SPOTTED SANDPIPER (seen on bank of Lake River)
Western Sandpiper (several spots)
Least Sandpiper (several spots)
Vaux's Swift
Northern Flicker (entrance canyon)
Western Wood-Pewee
Steller's Jay (entrance canyon)
Western Scrub-Jay
American Crow (2 in snag trying to steal from a RAVEN)
COMMON RAVEN (seen flying at Long Lake and as 2 crows tried to take its frog)
Violet-green Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch (entrance canyon)
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper (entrance canyon)
Bewick's Wren (entrance canyon)
European Starling
Common Yellowthroat
Spotted Towhee (entrance canyon)
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
American Goldfinch

Seen by other but not by me:
Peregrine Falcon (seen over Rest lake - by Bob FLores)
Long-billed Dowitcher (seen over Rest lake - by Bob FLores)