Geer Park expedition closes out Salem’s 2026 bird-watch season
On Saturday morning a small crowd gathered at Geer Park in east Salem. These visitors were not there to jog, skateboard, or walk their dogs. They had binoculars slung around their necks, and some had cameras with long lenses. They were looking forward to having a different kind of park visit—one mapped by branches instead of walking paths. This was the start of another Saturday morning Learn To Bird-watch session in Salem’s city parks.
At first, Geer Park seems like any other rectangle of green in Salem: a creek, a playground, a baseball field still damp with last night’s rain, a walking path circling the park perimeter.
Learn to bird-watch
The city of Salem’s park ranger offers free bird-watching tours on the first Saturday of each month from May to December. For more information, you can contact the Ranger Mike Zieker at [email protected].
A flash of yellow darted through the bare branches and a bird-watching participant tracked it with their binoculars. A yellow rumped warbler bounced from branch to branch in the crabapple tree while everyone got a look. Later on the walk, participants enjoyed red-tailed hawks perched in a tree soaring above the Golden Man statue on the Capitol in the background.
Experienced Audubon birders Tim Johnson and Mike Unger lead the tour that morning. To them, it was an atlas. The cottonwoods on the slight ridge past the baseball fields are reliably good for warblers in spring migration. The willows along the creek and ponds host willow flycatchers and great blue herons in the early spring if you are patient enough. Along the weedy strips by the paths? Sparrows, always sparrows, chattering like a living fence of their own. The stately Douglas firs in the field are a goldmine for ruby crowned kinglets and flocks of bushitits on the rove.
Over 22 birds in total were spotted that day and were dutifully logged by Unger in the Ebird database. Geer Park is actually a Ebird “hotspot.”
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Laura Tesler has lived in Salem, Oregon for 20 years and is originally from Flint, MI. Laura has been an underwater photographer for 15 years, and is an avid scuba diver. Topside, she has been taking photographs since age 12, and currently works on assignment for the Salem Reporter, and full time purchasing land for fish and wildlife habitat in the Willamette Valley. Laura attended Oregon State University, and has traveled extensively all over the world and the United States.
