I spent a beautiful early Spring day revisiting two nearby National Wildlife Refuges in southwest Washington: Ridgefield, and Steigerwald Lake.

Although the driving route is circuitous, Ridgefield is just 5 miles as the crane flies from Frenchman’s Bar (site of my recent Sandhill Crane visit). The seasonal trails had not yet opened, so I drove the Auto Tour, which always provides access to amazing birds and other wildlife. Here are some of the highlights from this visit. (Photos from previous visits are here (Feb. 2022) and here (June 2022)

Steigerwald Lake NWR is on the Washington side of the Columbia River, about 20 miles to the east of Portland. It had been closed since 2020 for a multi-year project to re-connect the Gibbons Creek watershed to the Columbia River, restoring wetland habitats while addressing local flooding and drainage issues. I visited once before, shortly after it re-opened in 2022. (The photoblog from that visit is here.) Here are some highlights from my recent visit.