Bird Finder — the birds of Oaks Bottom, Portland

Violet-green Swallow, photographed at Oaks Bottom by Jonathan Swanson — Violet-green Swallow *Tachycineta thalassina*

Bald Eagle, photographed at Oaks Bottom by Jonathan Swanson — Bald Eagle *Haliaeetus leucocephalus*

American Robin, photographed at Oaks Bottom by Jonathan Swanson — American Robin *Turdus migratorius*

Tundra Swan, photographed at Oaks Bottom by Jonathan Swanson — Tundra Swan *Cygnus columbianus*

Spotted Towhee, photographed at Oaks Bottom by Jonathan Swanson — Spotted Towhee *Pipilo maculatus*

Wood Duck, photographed at Oaks Bottom by Jonathan Swanson — Wood Duck *Aix sponsa*

Western Meadowlark, photographed at Oaks Bottom by Jonathan Swanson — Western Meadowlark *Sturnella neglecta*

Rufous Hummingbird, photographed at Oaks Bottom by Jonathan Swanson — Rufous Hummingbird *Selasphorus rufus*

I post a lot of bird photographs, and the question that comes back most often is a simple one: what is that bird?

This is my answer to it. Apps like Merlin are excellent and cover the whole continent — but being general is the point of them. This one is the opposite. Every bird here was photographed at Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge in Portland, over more than four years of walking the same trails with the same cameras.

That is the whole difference. A refuge changes season by season, and nobody tracks that without going back week after week. These photographs are the record of doing exactly that.

Oaks Bottom holds a meadow, a forest and a wetland inside one loop of trail, which is why the list runs long for somewhere this size. The same birds turn up right across the area — Tualatin River, Jackson Bottom, Ridgefield, Smith and Bybee, Sauvie Island — so the guide travels a good deal further than its name suggests.

It is free, there is nothing to sign up for and nothing to install. The field guide works with no signal at all once you have opened it, which matters down in the bottom where the reception gives out.