The Birds Were in the Parking Lot
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I was coming back from a session at Oaks Bottom when someone asked if I was Jonathan Swanson from Nextdoor. That keeps happening now, and I still do not know
Author: Jonathan Swanson
The Fishers of Oaks Bottom — Part Three: Three Fishers, One Morning
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Three fishers on one morning at Oaks Bottom, and not one of them was doing it the way the book says. The kingfisher and the turtle In Part One I
Continue readingThe Fishers of Oaks Bottom — Part Three: Three Fishers, One Morning
A Field Guide for Oaks Bottom, In Your Pocket
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Most people walk right past. A small bird drops into the willows at Oaks Bottom, flicks its tail once, and is gone. You saw it. You could even describe it
Continue readingA Field Guide for Oaks Bottom, In Your Pocket
The Fern Garden: How We Brought Back a Patch of Dead Ground
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There is a patch of ground at the end of my street that had stopped working. Not overgrown. Not messy. Dead. Bare packed clay under a stand of big leaf
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October at Oaks Bottom: What One Native Aster Was Holding Up
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Go down to Oaks Bottom in October, after the summer crowds have stopped coming and the trail is mostly dog walkers, and look at what is still in flower. It
Continue readingOctober at Oaks Bottom: What One Native Aster Was Holding Up
Honda CR-V Hybrid Trailer Wiring Without the Factory Tow Package
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The plug-and-play harness needs a factory tow package my hybrid didn’t have. Here is the custom 4-way install instead — including the driver’s-side 5V data wire that will lock your dashboard, and where the fuse must go. … Continue readingHonda CR-V Hybrid Trailer Wiring Without the Factory Tow Package
Storm Cloud Waltz and Forest Lullaby — and the Scores Are Yours
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Two original compositions set against Portland, the Oregon coast, and the animals of Oaks Bottom. Somebody said their blood pressure dropped twenty points watching one of them. Somebody else read the score while it played. If you play, both scores are yours. … Continue readingStorm Cloud Waltz and Forest Lullaby — and the Scores Are Yours
My Photographs Are a Revenue Stream — For Nextdoor
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Three of my posts, three advertisements I never approved, and roughly $1,200 of advertising revenue that went to the company hosting them. Then I read Nextdoor’s own documentation and found out the ads had never stopped — I had just stopped seeing them. … Continue readingMy Photographs Are a Revenue Stream — For Nextdoor
The Damselflies of Oaks Bottom
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Five eyes, two sets of genitalia, wings with no pigment in them, and a childhood spent underwater as an ambush predator. Fourteen photographs from the lake shore, and how to tell one from a dragonfly. … Continue readingThe Damselflies of Oaks Bottom
The Ospreys of the Willamette
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The bird that fishes the Willamette by falling out of the sky feet-first — the hover, the dive, the miss, and the climb back out. Photographed from the Sellwood Bridge. … Continue readingThe Ospreys of the Willamette
Herons and Egrets of the Willamette
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Three of them share the same water here, and most people only ever notice one. The great blue heron is unmissable — four feet of gray patience standing in the
The Painted Cedar Waxwings: A Stunning Bird Profile
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Of all the birds that pass through Portland, none looks less real than the cedar waxwing. Its plumage is so sleek it seems airbrushed on. A fawn crest, a black
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A Great Blue Heron, Hiding in Plain Sight
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You would think a four-foot bird would be impossible to miss. You would be wrong. This Great Blue Heron was standing more or less in the open, and I nearly
Lesser Goldfinch in Perfect Light
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Some birds you chase for the drama. This one I chased for the light. The Lesser Goldfinch is the smallest finch in North America — a tiny bird, hardly bigger
A Curious Raccoon
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Not every face at the water’s edge has feathers. Down at Oaks Bottom, this raccoon came ambling along the bank and stopped to size me up — black mask, bright
An Encounter with a Cooper’s Hawk
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After a week of kingfishers and herons down at the water, Sellwood Park handed me something with a very different job description. A predator. I had an encounter with a
Scenes from my Garden
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A few scenes from the garden this season — a rose letting go, roses planted for strangers, and lilies caught in the last good light. Different flowers, one quiet idea:
The Garden’s Smaller Guests — Bushtit, Chickadees, and a Nuthatch
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Some mornings the garden fills up with small, fast birds working the feeder. None of them hold still for long — which is half the fun of trying to photograph
Continue readingThe Garden’s Smaller Guests — Bushtit, Chickadees, and a Nuthatch
Spring Is the Time
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Spring is the season of new life. You can see it everywhere, if you slow down — in the hardhack (Spiraea douglasii) bursting open along the water, pink and soft
Backyard, Street, Refuge: Portland in Bloom
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This year the garden is talking back. Last spring I planted about five new rose bushes along my street — the small, sun-loving variety that you see everywhere in Portland