Just about every school in the Portland-Vancouver area was shut down due to snow/icy conditions yesterday and refuge staff were not asked to be at work. Right now I'm listening to school closures today. While the forecasted additional snow did not materialize, I almost did not get to the gate to close it first thing in the morning due to those weather conditions (that was before the snow started falling heavily), and the staff that did get to work was not on site all morning other than one to answer calls to the office. Traffic might be able to slide down the hill to the River S Unit, but getting back up is a different story in icy conditions, and compacting snow would worsen it. The gate remained closed early afternoon to complete a project that could not be accomplished with traffic going around the loop. Let's hope that when safety and liability are an issue, there will be patience and understanding.

Randy Hill
Ridgefield

-----Original Message-----
From: tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu [mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of jmeredit at bendnet.com
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2011 11:08 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] No Barnacle Goose Thursday - anyone?

I spent about 3 hours around Ridgefield this afternoon. There were several carloads of birders around the area. Apparently no one was on
radios 11-22 as I heard no bird chatter. I did not see the bird around the auto-tour loop nor around Hillhurst or 229th. There were many
large groups of geese in the air and on the ground. Note the disclaimer on the Ridgefield NWR website about their open hours. It was closed
all am. until persistent birders were finally able to get them to open the gate for the tour route at some point in the afternoon. Website
says:

"Periodically, the refuge may be closed for scheduled maintenance or construction projects, or because weather conditions have created
hazardous conditions. Look for updates on this website or Contact Us." Today was a "periodically" day I guess, no reason mentioned on the
website.

Good luck,
Judy Meredith
jmeredit at bendnet.com






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