Steigerwald NWR
From Hwy 14

TOUR
     We will start this tour at Steamboat Landing Park just east of milepost 16 on the Lewis  and Clark Highway (Highway 14). This park on the Columbia River, with a floating dock, gives you access to the west end of the dike. The pilings remaining from the old paddlewheel boat dock extend across the highway to the Pendeleton Woolen Mills. A floating fishing dock surrounds the pilings that remain in the water. These pilings have Purple Martins nesting in them and the nest boxes there, and all along the dike were built and are tended by Dave Fouts. From the dock scan the river for loons, grebes, diving ducks, and terns that gather over the rocky reef downstream.
     The dike is topped by a road used as a walking, biking, and equestrian pathway that is open to the public for three and a half miles, please do not cross any fences onto the Refuge or private property. You can also access the dike in several other spots to reach the birding areas between Washougal and the Refuge by short walks. If you drive as far to the east side of the industrial park as you can the pathway still goes for another 2 miles until you reach private property and you have to retrace your steps. This is part of the proposed "Chinook Trail" that will extend all the way up the Gorge to Maryhill, in Klickitat County, across the bridge to Oregon and back west to the mouth of the Sandy River.
     To save a mile of walking, return to the Highway and go east to the 32nd Street entrance into the Port of Camas-Washougal. As soon as you enter 32nd Street,  a pull-off on the right side of the road affords views of a remnant channel of Gibbons Creek. The channel on the right is brush and tree lined, check for Wood Ducks and Green Herons on the overhanging branches and floating logs. Across the road the creek goes through a large marsh where Virginia and Sora Rails are common but difficult to see. Continuing south on 32nd Street you will reach the dike where there is a large parking lot and a trail that leads over the dike to Cottonwood Beach. The sandy beach is several hundred feet from the dike through a floodplain forest of Western Cottonwood, Oregon Ash, and willows. This is an excellent area in spring migration for passerines and during the summer Bullock's Orioles are conspicuous nesters. The navigation tower in the Columbia River just off shore from the beach is an Osprey nesting site, and loons, grebes, and terns feed in the shallows.

     To walk the dike you can either leave your vehicle in the beach parking lot or park at one of the two other road accesses to the dike that are farther to the east but please don't block the gates. There are white posts driven into the ground along the dike with mileage marks on them. As you go east along the dike the Columbia River will be on your right, the large island that is just off shore is Reed Island, an undeveloped State Park.

     There were plans to cut down the trees, put in a bridge to the mainland, a marina, an airfield for private planes, and ballfields that was blocked by the Vancouver Audubon to protect a Great Blue Heron Rookery and nesting Bald Eagles.
     The fields on your left as you walk the dike attract thousands of Canada Geese in the winter, you may spot a few Snow or Greater White-fronted Geese among them. Herons from the rookery feed in these fields and raptors should be watched for, hundreds of American Gold-finches feed on the Canadian Thistles in the fall and occasionally a few Lesser Goldfinches may be seen amongst them. The brushy fence rows and fields attract sparrows, a good area to check is around the barns at mileage post 1.25 and in the brush along the river side of the dike from the barns east to the Gibbons Creek Fish Ladder. The aromatic grayish plants growing along the fence line near the barns is Wormwood, a member of the sage family.
     Past the barn the Steigerwald National Wildlife Refuge begins, and there is a shallow pond (mileage post 1.5)that attracts numerous ducks in the winter including Eurasian Wigeon and both the Common Goldeneye and Barrow's Goldeneye. Pied-billed Grebe and American Bittern nest here in the summer and during dry years when the pond nearly dries up shorebirds can be observed. Near mileage post 2 is the Gibbons Creek Fish Ladder which was installed to return salmon, steelhead, and sea run cut-throat trout to the creek. The fish were blocked from access to their spawning grounds for over twenty years by a pumping station in the Industrial Park that lifted the creek over the dike. With the creation of the Wildlife Refuge the creek was re-routed out of the Industrial Park and this fish ladder was installed. The Cottonwood forest along the creek here has nesting House Wrens and Lazuli Buntings. White-breasted Nuthatches are seen and heard here regularly, this is not a normal habitat for a bird that is associated with oak trees on the west side of the Cascades and pines on the east side. The Cottonwoods are in long rows parallel to the river and mark the tops of what were islands when this was still flooded on an annual basis. In a few hundred feet the trees give way to open fields used by Sandhill Cranes, grazing geese, and raptors. In late May look for Western and Eastern Kingbirds on the fence lines. You can go another half a mile further along the dike to the fence marking private land where you turn around and go back to your vehicle.
     Drive east along the dike and follow the road into the Industrial Park, where the pavement ends there is a narrow dirt road that leads to a model airplane landing field. Don't block this road but park and walk up the berm. This berm provides a good vantage point into the marsh and a wetland mitigation site built by the Port of Camas/Washougal. American Bittern, Virginia and Sora Rails nest here and this was part of the area used by a Black Phoebe in the fall of 1997.

     Return back to the dike and travel as far west as the road goes and park at the turnaround and climb the dike where you can look down at the sandbars that are to the west of the pumping station atop the dike. Shorebirds often use this beach during low water. Upstream along the river is a shallow pond in a willow thicket where you may see Green Herons, Wood Ducks or shorebirds. This pumping station is how Gibbons Creek reached the Columbia River before the fish bypass system was built across the Refuge. Looking to the north from the top of the dike you can see part of the old creek channel with the bridge-like wooden weir that keeps debris from reaching the pumps. Green Heron perch on this weir and can sometimes be seen roosting on the crossbeams underneath it. Go back to 32nd Street and north to the highway and turn right.
     At milepost 17.5 are the City of Washougal Sewage Lagoons, you can view the lagoons from the road leading into them or from the Highway shoulder. A wide assortment of ducks and gulls use the ponds and all three phalaropes have been found here. In late summer there are often over a hundred Wood Ducks at the east end of the lagoon next to the highway. Other birds that have been found here are Tufted Duck, White-faced Ibis, Glaucous Gull, Black Phoebe, Palm Warbler, and three Egyptian Geese that had everyone confused. Along the highway as you travel east are five paved pull off spots that you can park at to view the Refuge. The first one is about two hundred yards east of the sewage lagoons, the small field there attracts some geese and the brush patches have flocks of sparrows in winter. The next pull out is on the east side of Gibbons Creek, just past milepost 18, here you can see how Gibbons Creek was put into a raised aqueduct to get it across the wetlands at eight sufficient to clear the dike. The Gateway To the Gorge Visitor's Center will be located here and a trail will go out the raised creek to the dike. What remains of Steigerwald Lake is to the east of this fishway and the fields around it often have thousands of geese feeding upon them. The Fish and Wildlife Service is planning to enlarge the lake and is attempting to remove non-native Reed Canary Grass and plant trees and brush back along the creek and wetlands. In the few years since 1986 when this became a Refuge there has been a marked improvement in the management of this habitat. Watch in the spring and summer for Yellow-headed Blackbirds, a few are seen here yearly. They were formally a common nesting bird until the private landowner ditched the lake bottom to drain it and plowed under the cattails that these blackbirds nested in. Hopefully the re-creation of a lake will allow the cattails to grow and attract their former residents.

Two more spots from which to view the lake and field are along the highway about a quarter of a mile apart. The last stopping spot is just before milepost 19, the First Explorers Historical Marker Parking Lot. A spotting scope is a necessity from this vantage point, the small ponds, field, and fence lines should be carefully scoped for visitors such as American Avocet or Gyrfalcon.

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