Getting outside in the fresh air is important even as we’re practicing social distancing. The Bear Creek Bike Path is a great place to go close to home for a nice walk. It stretches for miles and is quite a wide path in many areas so you can easily keep your distance from others while enjoying the coming of spring. Seeing all of the new leaves unfurling, the flowers blooming, and the birds singing reinvigorates me every time. That life continues to burst forth in nature is a comforting thing.

Bear Creek, Lynn Newbry Park in Talent OR

My partner Jon and I like to walk down to Lynn Newbry Park on the bike path from our home in Talent, but there is a parking lot there if you need to drive, or you can bike! We like to walk south from the park toward Ashland. I’ve been learning to recognize the sights and sounds of our local birds from Jon, who is an avid birder, so we often make bird lists on our walks to the creek. Before we enter the park we stop and look down at the water from the road to enjoy the view and try to spot American dippers, but so far we haven’t had any luck. Dippers are one of our favorite birds. You can often spot them bopping up and down on the rocks in Ashland Creek in Lithia Park.

Lynn Newbry Park, Talent, OR

Right as we entered the park, I noticed the beautiful willow trees with their fuzzy flowering heads shining in the sun.

Willow Tree

While admiring the willows, we noticed a bird flitting about among the branches. Jon informed me that it was an orange-crowned warbler, a beautiful greenish-yellow bird with a little orange crown on its head that is hard to see unless the bird flashes it. I took some photos through my binoculars.

Orange-crowned warbler 

We admired the warbler for a while and then walked on, noticing a black phoebe loudly announcing its presence in another nearby tree. There were many red-winged blackbirds flying about and making their exuberant calls as well. We also noticed some tree swallows flying catching insects about above us.

I didn’t notice many flowers blooming, but I did see some dead nettle, or Lamium purpureum, which is not native, but has great medicinal qualities. It is antiviral and antibacterial so you can mash it up into a poultice to use on wounds. It is also edible and is full of vitamins. Mix its leaves into a salad or smoothie, or make a tea, but be aware that the leaves are quite fuzzy and if you ingest too much the plant can act as a laxative. The dead nettle was growing amongst poison hemlock, which can be deadly to humans and animals if ingested, so be careful not to harvest it. It’s foliage looks similar to that of a carrot (it is in the carrot family) and it has green stems dappled with dark purple spots.

Dead nettle growing along bear creek, Talent, OR

I also noticed some lovely maple trees flowering and beginning to grow their leaves for the season. Maple tree flowers are edible and have a mild, sweet taste. You can use them as garnishes, in salads, and you can even make them into fritters!

Continuing along the path, we saw a downy woodpecker, yellow-rumped warblers, black-capped chickadees, and red-tailed hawks flying overhead. The shadows of the towering cottonwood trees dappled the pathway.

Next we come to a little pond to the left of the path filled with cattails, where we often see many red-winged blackbirds. We also saw a couple mallards floating quietly in the water, and a little song sparrow hopping about in the brush near the shore.

Up ahead a short way, we stop at a couple of different viewpoints of a larger pond on the left where we often see geese and a few different kinds of ducks. Today we only saw a couple of ring-necked ducks floating by and some geese, as well as many tiny young fish swimming about along the shore. Once we saw an interesting bird called the Virginia rail among the roots of the trees growing into the pond.

Our last stop is usually a little bridge overlooking the creek, up from the pond a short way, but we had to get back soon to Facetime my family and find out how their quarantining was going, so we turned back down the sunny pathway toward home. We usually do a 2 mile round trip, but you can walk or ride as far as you like down this path that stretches from Ashland to Central Point. In total, we recorded 29 bird species on our list for this walk. Here is the full list.

Spotted towee

Black phoebe

Common raven

American crow

European starling

Canada goose

Orange-crowned warbler

Black-capped chickadee

Acorn woodpecker

Red-winged blackbird

Lesser goldfinch

Anna’s hummingbird

Yellow-rumped warbler

Eurasian collared dove

Northern flicker

Downy woodpecker

Red-shouldered hawk

Tree swallow

Mallard

White-breasted nuthatch

California quail

Turkey vulture

Red-tailed hawk

American goldfinch

Ring-necked duck

American wigeon

Song sparrow

House finch

Rock pigeon

It was lovely to get out to look at some birds and plants and soak up the bright spring sunshine. I encourage you all to go outside and explore! Even if its right in your backyard.

~Leela Hickman