Refuge Day

Today started out a bit rocky when, after breakfast in the hotel, Dave discovered that one of his tires was flat. Too flat to drive anywhere. Fortunately, he’s a pro at changing tires on Toyota trucks because this was his second truck of that kind, so he was able to put on the spare in the hotel parking lot. Then we drove a block or so to a Les Schwab Tire store and they found a screw in the tire, removed it and fixed the tire, all in about 45 minutes, for free. So what started out bad ended up quite well at about 10 a.m.

We decided that we wanted to visit the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge that was a short distance away from Battle Ground. We drove to the refuge area that has an “auto tour” route and birded from the car as we drove on the gravel road. It was great birding! The day was mostly sunny and the refuge consisted of many marshy areas, meadows, and deciduous forests. The road wasn’t crowded and had places to pull over, so we could get out, or just sit and look while stopped. We saw or heard about 32 species.

Part of the route
Great egret in a marsh
Pied-billed grebe
Walking path to a hide
Deer near the path
Mangy-looking coyote that ignored us as it looked for prey
Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge (the top two photos are from Dave)

The rain held off for the day, although it was overcast and only in the high 60s. We finished about 2:30 and then used Google to find a Best Western hotel in Vancouver. After resting a while, we went to find a Mediterranean restaurant again for dinner, since we liked last night’s food so much.