Park hours: 5:00am-midnight. North parking lot closed at 10:00pm.

This area is a birdwatcher's paradise. Hawks, quail, pintails, mallards, coots, woodpeckers, kestrels, and widgeons are just the start of the list of birds that one might encounter in Oaks Bottom. The star of the show, though, is the Great blue heron, the official bird of the City of Portland. Oaks Bottom is one of the favorite places of a score of these impressive birds because of its proximity to one of the rookeries on Ross Island.

Visit Portland Migratory Birds for more info.

Oaks Bottom Bird List

The Friends of Oaks Bottom is a volunteer organization of interested citizens working in partnership with Portland Parks & Recreation for the promotion, preservation, and management of Oaks Bottom. The Friends participate in habitat restoration, trail maintenance, guided hikes, information programs, and the publication of a newsletter. For more information, call 503-823-6131.

The Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge is a 140-acre floodplain wetland located along the east bank of the Willamette River. It is rare for such a natural wetland to exist in the heart of a city. Part of the park is built on a sanitation landfill consisting of 400,000 cubic feet of construction waste material layered with soil. The City of Portland acquired the landfill property from the Donald M. Drake Company at the beginning of 1969 to block its development as an industrial park. The area was believed, at the time, to be one of the few remaining marshland areas in Portland, and local residents were strongly opposed to its development as industrial property.