Hiking William Finley Wildlife Preserve

After Tuesday’s elevation workout, a calmer, tourist-like hike seemed right. Within 60 minutes drive, William Finley National Wildlife Preserve offered opportunities for ~15 mile leisure hike with birding potential. We visited William Finley several years ago later in the summer, and it was hot, dusty and undesirable. This visit in mid-May was sublime. No dust, everything was green, the birds out singing and doing their things, and almost 0 humans.

For a leisure tourist-like hike for scenery and wildlife, Finley is worth the 1.5 hour carbon karma from Eugene. I clocked about 13.5 miles in 4.5 hours with plenty of camera and ‘AH’ time.

The route

Basically, I followed the “Host of Honkers” trail from All Trails (link), though I parked my car at the “Woodpecker Loop” parking lot. I parked and was hiking by 7:00am. My route went counter-clockwise doing the forest and Mill Hill sections first. The only section I skipped was the Pigeon Butte as it was all wet grass going up / down. A couple of times, I checked for ticks, and when returned home – none found.

Trail signage was adequate but a couple of times, GPS was needed to confirm right trail. (Recorded track)

The paths are mixed from single track forest paths, to twin-track forest and field paths, to gravel roads and to boardwalks.

In case you missed it

Everything was so green and the flowers just popping everywhere, like this … these wild iris were plentiful!

Birds

The range of birds sighted went from raptors, geese, ducks, herons, song birds, crows, and jays (at least). One remarkable sighting (though no photo) was an American Bittern – supposedly rare to see though common to hear.

Non feathered residents

Frogs and turtles jumped into the water from shore and logs like those below. Others blocked my path, and one very, very large coyote hunted the marsh (impossible to photo, but astounding to watch); probably the largest coyote I’ve seen in OR.

Best looking up photo