Date: 11/5/25 5:32 pm From: Jesse Ellis <calocitta8...> Subject: [ia-bird] RUFF juvenile Linn County - Powerplant Road marsh
Hey all-
I found a juvenile RUFF this evening at Power Plant Road and Hollenbeck Road. The bird was on the SE side of the marsh and most easily seen from a little hill on Linn County Learning Farm land to the west of that intersection.
It was mostly foraging and only once in a while flew from one spot to another, and only spooked once, doing a circuit of the pond and returning, mostly startled by Rusty Blackbirds, I think. So I'm hoping it sticks until tomorrow. A few other folks from Linn Co made it in time to see it before the light got too low.
As I was leaving (well after sunsut) I stopped to chat with a kid who was watching the geese come in to roost, and in one flock were three Cackling Geese. There may have been another or two in other flocks but it's possible they were repeat sightings of some of the first three.
THEN, the boy says "what's that?" and points up - high in the air was a heron, of some kind... Not big enough to be a Great Blue, and much more compact, but far too big to be a Green Heron, and had too long of a bill and legs to be a night-heron... a migrating American Bittern!
