Wild animals we sometimes see on our commute

• Raccoons
• Skunks
• Coyotes
• Great horned owls
• Great blue herons
• Snowy egrets
• River otters
• Muskrats
• Nutria*
• Beavers*
• Cormorants
• White tail deer
• Red tail hawks
• Mandarin ducks
• Bald eagles
• Canada geese
• Mallard ducks
• Small fry of many species, so frequent they generally pass without comment:
  • Squirrels (Dougie and Fox)
  • Jays (Steller and scrub)
  • Red-wing blackbirds
  • Thrushes
  • Towhees
  • Robins
  • Woodpeckers
  • Pigeons (rock doves)
  • Mourning doves
  • Crows
  • Starlings or grackles
  • Small brown sparrowy birds, you know the kind

*Might be muskrats

Rare is the day in which we don’t see some interesting animal while riding our bikes to school. (Today: raccoons. Tuesday: owls. Monday and yesterday: bald eagle.) We see so many bald eagles in fact that the kids are kind of blasé about them, which feels a little like Christmas Every Day to me. In the spring we get the treat of traveling past baby ducks and geese.

Over the years our various school routes have taken us over or through:

• Tryon Creek State Park
• Riverview Cemetery
• lightly-wooded parts of the west hills (e.g. along Terwilliger Drive)
• Council Crest Park
• either side of the Willamette River
• Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge
• Johnson Creek
• Crystal Springs
• Mt. Tabor

We have always lived entirely within the Portland City limits. These are not especially wild or inaccessible places. In particular: they are surrounded by roads and highways. How many times, while driving along these routes, have I spotted an owl or otter? (Answer: zero.)