Grand Island Greenway
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Location
Go to the Oregon Birding Trails Website. Choose the Willamette Valley Birding Trail. Click on the Trail Guide and choose the Yamhill Loop Guide. Section Y-9. Turn east from Hwy 221 and follow Grand Island Road onto Grand Island. Continue on to a four-way junction on the island. At the first junction take the Upper Island Road to your right. In a little over a mile you will see a gate sign (the road is closed during high water), and then a gate, park here (45.163083, -123.387932) and climb over a dirt mound onto a primitive trail which leads through a cottonwood forest. Driving on, continue until you come to Grand Island State Park (Willamette Greenway) on the right (very easy to miss – look for the park sign set well back from the road). A short walk takes you to a channel of the Willameette River. Another trail to your left through some good habitat takes you to another view of the river.
DirectionsHabitat and Birds
A walk back across the bridge can be productive in finding birds. Cliff Swallows nest here in summer. Look and listen for Red-eyed Vireo (June), or Warbling Vireo at the west end of the bridge. In winter going east from the four-way junction along Grand Island Road look for flocks of geese or the large flock of Tundra Swans that can often be found here. Wintering gulls are on this island – check for Short-billed Gulls or Glaucous Gull. In early June walk the track in the cottonwood forest to listen and look for Red Eyed Vireos high in the canopy of trees. In the Greenway Park Bullock’s Orioles nest in the cottonwood trees, and Common Nighthawk can be found at times. Spotted Sandpipers and Osprey, Band-tailed Pigeons, Wilson’s and Yellow Warblers, Western Tanager, Black-headed Grosbeak, Western Wood-Pewee, Cedar Waxwing, and Bushtit are found here.
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