WILDLIFE VIEWING AT THE DELTA PONDS IN EUGENE, OREGON Guest Post by Caroline Hatton at The Intrepid Tourist

52 Places to Go: Week 37

Green Heron (Butorides virescens) with a fish story to tell, at the Eugene Delta Ponds

My friend and fellow children’s book author Caroline Hatton took the photos in this post in July 2021 when she enjoyed this free outdoor activity.

For the first time since my husband and I moved to Eugene, Oregon, our car was due for an oil change. I googled “Eugene Toyota” to see where to go and more importantly, where to take a walk while waiting. On the map, my eyes focused not on the red pin, but on what it partially covered: a sprinkling of blue fragments between a freeway and a bend in the Willamette River!

The Delta Ponds, a wildlife oasis in the city of Eugene

Zooming in revealed Delta Ponds City Park. There, what was once the natural network of water channels of the braided river became disconnected from the main stream by urbanization and gravel extraction. After the City purchased the residual ponds from the gravel company, decades passed. Then eight years of award-winning efforts restored native plants and the connection to the river, offering a haven for American Beaver (Castor canadensis), River Otter (Lontra canadensis), juvenile Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and Western Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata), a place where over 150 bird species have been observed.

Delta Ponds pedestrian bridge over a highway

On July 3, 2021, the temperature was predicted to reach the high 90s F (30s C), but not until 5 p.m. or later, as is usual for the daily maximum in Eugene. At 8 a.m. it was almost chilly at the ponds. The adjacent freeway was invisible from the trail, but traffic was heavy and fast, its whooshing noise inescapable from anywhere around the ponds. Yet the air smelled fresh.

The main trail, around the outside of the ponds, was a wide, flat gravel path. That’s good because it won’t get muddy when it rains, but not so good because footsteps make crunching noises that might scare wildlife away.

Trail spurs allow peeks at busy pond life

Soon the first of several spurs appeared, silent dirt paths leading to the water’s edge. Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) and Canada geese (Branta canadensis) went about their business.

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) keeping his legs crossed, maybe for fishing luck

In the hour we spent there, we saw five lone Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) and three lone Green Herons (Butorides virescens), planted in the landscape like statues or taking flight and landing again.

What was that?

At the end of the second spur, we were scanning the water when a flash of movement left behind some ripples in growing circles. “Beaver?” I wondered out loud, but not too loud.

“No flat tail,” whispered my husband. “Nutria?” (the unwelcome South American swamp rat, Myocastor coypus).

“Too big for that,” I said, buzzing with excitement at the only remaining possibility: a River Otter!

Nutria (Myocastor coypus)

But when it surfaced, its brick-shaped muzzle was thickly whiskered and its round ears rather large. It was a nutria. It dove, its long tail lingering in the air like a tease. It emerged and dove a dozen times. The show wouldn’t end. Yet I tore myself away, hoping that on such a lucky day, I might see a Beaver.

We didn’t see a Beaver, but we saw people who did, a gray-haired couple with binoculars and a lens twice as long as mine. The only other visitors we met were a jogger, a woman with her dog, and a young family.

Green Heron holding a fish out of water

From a peninsula with an info board, I saw a Green Heron catch a fish (see the photo at the top of this blog post), flip it the long way, and swallow it whole, and I got photos to prove it! I couldn’t wait to get back to my laptop, to see them all on a larger screen.

Oops—we forgot to get the oil change. We’ll just have to go back!

All text and photos, copyright Caroline Arnold.  www.theintrepidtourist.blogspot.com