Powell Butte Nature Park

The entire top of broad Powell Butte is a nature park, criss-crossed with trails, and great views everywhere you look: up, down, or across.

Portland has a number of small, shield volcanoes, like Powell Butte, including Gresham Butte (familiarly called Walters Hill), where Eric grew up, and where his brother lives in the old, family home. Coincidentally, Eric's middle name is Walter, though he was named for his grandfather, not the family that gave the hill the name. 

We spent a couple hours here this morning, after another trip to Kaiser,  where I was told once again that, while the little cyst on my knee is not dangerous, and it is irritating and painful enough to justify removal, today's visit, with yet another doc, this time an orthopedic surgeon, is to happen some other time in the next 3 months. So, lucky enough to have health insurance, and to only have a pretty much minor problem, it's aggravating to be caught in such a bureaucratic maze.

At Powell Butte (thanks for the tip, Dianne!), I looked for, and did spot at least one, Lazuli Bunting. It's a small, sparrow-sized, burst of color (much like a Blue Bird, and member of the largest family (Fringillidae)of North American birds, according to my old copy of Birds of North America, that I ended up carrying in the waist of my pants (no wonder real birders wear vests of many pockets), to leave hands free for the iphone and binoculars.

And, if it wasn't enough to find such a beauty, I heard a familiar cry, and was just beginning to look for it, when a woman caught up to us and said there was a pair of Killdeer just over there. Yes! The cry of a killdeer, familiar, but one I hadn't heard for many years. Soon a male circled all around us, in a wide, slow arc, as if to say, "here, have a good look," which we did.