March 27, 2021

We Saw No Cascades

By roads-rus

Meet Bodhi. Bodhi is a barred owl. He was blown from his nest in a Texas storm and broke his right wing. For now he is a resident of the Cascades Raptor Center in Eugene, OR. Ruth & I learned about this little-known-outside-of -Eugene raptor center last year. On our way to California on our first post-pandemic adventure, we stopped to see it and really liked it despite a few negatives. Seeing Bodhi was not one of them.

For more than 25 years this unassuming raptor center with no major affiliation to other centers of its type has rehabilitated a couple of thousand wounded birds. The Cascades Raptor Center is one of the Northwest’s largest collection of native raptors. Its current collection, which we saw in many spread-out cages in basically 2 compact areas, contained eagles, hawks, vultures, owls like Bodhi, falcons, Northern Harriers, kites, and more. This non-profit, woodsy center outside Eugene that has an entry fee maintains a wildlife hospital that specializes in birds of prey. Its summer hours that begin in April will see it opening at 10 am and closing at 6 pm.

Ruth and I also enjoyed seeing Jake. Jake is the Cascades Raptor Center’s newest display bird. He’s a peregrine falcon from Montana where he was in a facility that breeds raptors for the sport of falconry. We saw the peregrine falcon and vulture pictured above and below on this blog, however, in Boise Idaho’s excellent World Center for Birds of Prey that is not associated with Cascades in any way.

Cascades’ negatives include the temporary lack of toilet facilities. COVID has made it necessary to leave it and go down the hill to a Porta Potty also used by other travelers. It’s in a hilly location that makes climbing to see inside the cages sometimes difficult. The birds are behind wire that makes it often hard to see them. Other negatives are temporary. I do not recommend seeing Cascades on a rainy day that make photography difficult. We got lost trying to find and then get away from the Cascades Raptor Center due to its out-of-the city, hillside location. Other than these, a visit to Cascades is a joyous travel experience. If you like looking at birds of prey is a protected environment, this is a place for you to experience if in the Eugene area.

Hank

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
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