Birding at Cheadle Lake

October is looking to be a record setting month for rain, which is driving our desire to head for California in our-new-to-us Serenity motorhome. A forecast for dry contitions for Friday prompted us to make a short overnight stay at Waterloo County Park near Lebanon to get a chance to test out all operating systems on the RV before making a long trip. We left in driving rain on Thursday afternoon with our fingers crossed that the forecast would be correct. It stopped raining just before we arrived at the park.We did discover a number of little things to add or fix, and the biggest supprise to me was that we had neither brake nor tail lights on the right rear. Maybe more on that later.

The second part of our plan was to spend the next day birding at Cheadle Lake in Lebanon.  When I was growing up in Lebanon, Cheadle Lake was the log pond for Cascade Plywood Corporation.  In those days Lebanon was dominated by too large mills, Crown Zellerbach Paper Mill on the north end of town, and Cascade Plywood Corportation on the south end.  My grandfather, Arthur McClain worked for a brief period on the Casacade mill pond, and interesting enough in later years Jeanette's dad, Jim Dye also worked on the pond. Today the old logging pond has be transformed into a great recreation site for fishing, walking, and birding, complete with paved paths, benches, and boat launch. The weather forecast was right on and we had a great morning of sunshine for birding.

Bald Eagle

male Anna's Hummingbird

old photo of Cascade Plywood Corporation