50th Anniversary Celebration Program
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Happy Birthday! Willapa Hills celebrates Fifty Years!
Young folks, old folks, current WHAS members, former members, birders, wildlife lovers and conservationists: come and help us celebrate our founding anniversary, Saturday, September 13, 2025 at the Skamokawa Grange just off SR 4 and next to the Wahkiakum County fairgrounds.
All the events are free and the public is welcome. If you can
The Grange will open at 1 pm if you want to arrive early and meet current board
members, volunteers and other early arrivals. We’ll have newsletters, some taxidermy mounts, other memorabilia, and conversation with other members.
From the Grange you can easily walk to and explore Vista Park, bordering the Columbia River and with a nature trail that runs a mile through mature forest. Or, you can walk over to Redmen Hall, that explores the history of the area and also hosts some WHAS taxidermy specimens. Across the highway is the Skamokawa Paddle Center where you can rent kayaks for the day (make sure you check with them in advance), and from there the Julia Butler Hansen NWR is only a short walk away.
At 2 pm Russ Koppendrayer and Becky Kent will lead a field trip to the JBH refuge where there are often many species of ducks and geese, as well as songbirds and maybe some early migrants. Russ has covered the refuge during the CBC here for over 20 years. Meet at the Grange Hall for carpooling.
From 4 pm until 5 pm there will be food and drink (BYO beer and wine) and special entertainment provided by locals Andrew Emlen and Kyleen Austin, both accomplished musicians and birders at the Grange. Andrew is the founder and leader of the Wahkiakum CBC and promises some “bird songs” as part of the repertoire.
Meet some of the founders of our chapter at 5 pm and it's time to introduce Robert Michael Pyle, well known local naturalist and author, who will round out our celebration with his program, “50 Years in the Willapa Hills: A Naturalist’s Reflections in Poetry and Prose.”
We hope that some of you will visit from afar to see old friends and renew acquaintance with the beauty of the Willapa Hills and lower Columbia Estuary. If you do there are many local B & Bs to choose from or you can camp or rent a yurt at Vista Park, conveniently connected to the Grange by a bridge over the creek.
For any information needs contact Steve Puddicombe
See the Fall Migration of Vaux's Swifts in Rainier Ore
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Vaux's Swifts are starting to roost in the Riverside Community Church chimney in Rainier. See a live view into the chimney here (https://vauxhappeningor.click2stream.com/), best view the camera around sunset or sunrise.
Folks wishing to check out this phenomenon for themselves will have the best chance from half an hour before sunset until half an hour after sunset. The southward migration of the swifts starts at the end of August, affording us more opportunities to view thousands of them entering the chimney. You can watch them from the corner of W D St and W 3rd St on the north side of Riverside Community Church.
Check it out and say hi to Carolyn, Juni and Terri.
Cowlitz County Bird List - 2025 June Update
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By Russ Koppendrayer
We've reached the midpoint of 2025 and now have seen wintering, migrating and breeding birds as well as the resident species. At 190 species on our list it is a fine start with six months to find some species that are regular southbound more so than northbound migrants as well as less usual birds. For some reason I failed to submit an end of May report, so this will be for two months.
Among the twenty species added in May and two in June there were no big rarities. One of the June species was the most unlikely however. A well described White-tailed Kite was reported and accepted on eBird as being seen hovering over the median of I-5 in Kelso. Not only is this patch of appropriate habitat quite small, but this species has become quite unusual in Cowlitz County. Through the 1990s and early 2000s the kites made a range expansion up the Oregon Coastal area and into southwest Washington, becoming fairly common in open habitat areas almost to Olympia. A snowstorm in December of 2008 dumped over a foot over the entire area that lasted for about two weeks. Unable to find food through this blanket, they disappeared from the entire area. Since that time we have had only a couple prior records in the county.
As new species will be reported much less frequently I will only be updating every two months for the remainder of the year.
Download the pdf here.
Summer 2025 Whistler is available
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The Summer 2025 Whistler is available now.
Read more of its content:
- WHAS 50th Anniversary Celebration This Fall
- Annual Summer Picnic Invitation
- Membership Form
- NW Birding Events
- Earth Day recap
- Feathered Einsteins: Corvids
- Field trip of St. Rose School to the Children’s Museum
- Swift Camera Drama at Rainier
- Earth day at Children’s Museum
- Reflections on How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature
Cowlitz County Bird List - 2025 April Update
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By Russ Koppendrayer
Here at the end of April we have new species arriving daily to add to our composite Cowlitz County year list as we near the heart of spring migration. Not a lot of unexpected species during the past month were reported. The most interesting was an American Goshawk that was seen chasing Band-tailed Pigeons around a rural yard near Toutle. A regular breeder in the forests on the east slopes of the Cascade Mountains, it is much more uncommon on our side. Records in Cowlitz County seem to occur every few years and have included birds in winter as well as possible breeding birds in June. While a few Goshawks are known to overwinter, most do migrate south. Our April individual was likely a returning migrant that stopped to try for a meal as it passed through.
Enjoy the on going migration and good birding to all.
Download the pdf here.
See the Vaux's Swifts in Rainier Oregon in 2025
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Vaux's Swifts are starting to roost in the Riverside Community Church chimney in Rainier. See a live view into the chimney here (https://vauxhappeningor.click2stream.com/)
Folks wishing to check out this phenomenon for themselves will have the best chance from half an hour before sunset until half an hour after sunset. The northward migration of the swifts sarts in May, affording us more opportunities to view thousands of them entering the chimney. You can watch them from the lower parking lot accessible from the corner of W D St and W 3rd St on the north side of Riverside Community Church.
Check it out and say hi to Carolyn, Juni and Terri.
Cowlitz PUD Osprey Cam 2025
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The Cowlitz PUD Osprey cam is live again. The first osprey arrived on March 30th for the 2025 season.
Cowlitz PUD provides a free children’s guide (PDF) built around Osprey Migration and Electrical Safety. See the videos on YouTube: Camera one has a view from above, and camera two from the side with the audio.
Cowlitz County Bird List - 2025 March Update
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By Russ Koppendrayer
New species continued to trickle in throughout the month of March as spring migration ramped up. One rare addition to our Cowlitz County year list was a Franklin's Gull found on the log boom at the Kalama Marina. This third ever county record was seen intermittently over a four day period.
Bringing more excitement was a report of an Eyebrowed Thrush from the Woodland Bottoms. This species is in the same turdus genus as our American Robin, but is a native of Asia. There have been numerous records of them from the islands off Alaska and a few from the Alaskan mainland over the years, but a single record from California is the only one from the lower forty-eight states. As with all reports of birds this rare, it must be accepted by the Washington Bird Records Committee to be added to the official state bird list. A report has been filed with them, but we may not know the outcome for some time. As this was a single person, sight only report, without photos or additional data submitted it will likely not be taken up until their only in person meeting in October. Not many state first records are accepted of this type as the bar is high to get on the list, but we'll see. Much effort was made by a group of accomplished birders to refind it on the following day without success.
Download the pdf here.
Spring 2025 Whistler is available
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The Spring 2025 Whistler is available now.
Read more of its content:
- Annual Meeting and Banquet
- Program: Snowy Plovers in the Pacific Northwest: On the Road to Recovery
- 2025 Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey Tallies 22
- Membership Form
- NW Birding Events
- Call for Earth Day volunteers
- Christmas Bird Count Updates
- WHAS Name Change Ballot Introduction with Pro and Contra Discussion
- Black-headed Grosbeak: Flashy Songster with a Pallet for Toxic Butterflies
Cowlitz County Bird List - 2025 February Update
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By Russ Koppendrayer
Early February saw new species trickle in with the last week being a bit more active on that front. We did not find any species that is particularly rare for Cowlitz County however. The only species that the list shows as less than annual here was Western Screech-owl, and that designation is more likely due to lack of people owling and/or not reporting them. If the pattern here is similar to places in western Washington where good surveys have been ongoing we actually are probably losing Screech-owl density. Where good long term data is available the invasion of Barred Owls has had a significant impact on the prevalence of Western Screech-owls. Anecdotal evidence here seems to bear this out as people who used to have them on or near their property no longer encounter them.
On the brighter side we did have all three of the very early migrant arrivals before the first of March. Rufous Hummingbird, Turkey Vulture and Tree Swallow all arrived before that date, and many years we seem to need very early March to get one of them. the arrivals should become more numerous as spring continues to delight those of us who pay attention to them.
Download the pdf here.
- Cowlitz County Bird List - 2025 January Update
- Cowlitz County Bird List - 2024 Final Update
- Winter 2024 Whistler is available
- Cowlitz County Bird List - 2024 October Update
- Vaux's Swifts Fall Migration view and dinner
- Cowlitz County Bird List - August Update
- Fall 2024 Whistler is available
- 2024 Vaux's Swifts Fall Migration is in full swing
- Cowlitz County Bird List - June Update
- Cowlitz County Bird List - May Update