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The river is called Clackamas, an approximation by Lewis and Clark of the tribal name of the indigenous people who lived in the area before American colonization. The name appears as Clark-a-mus most often in the explorer’s journals, their daily logs which are rife with phonetic attempts to record the names of people and places. Clark-a-mus comes from gitláq̀imaš meaning ‘those of the Clackamas River’ according to Michael Silverstein’s Handbook of North American Indians which is something of a tautology. The translation, not the book. A web site called Access Geneology suggests that the origin and significance of the native name is, in fact, unknown.

Willamette is another such name derived from a garbled version of Wallamt meaning still water, a river place name near Oregon City. Multnomah, too, is a derivation. Hood, the name of the mountain that dominates this geography, is not. Lord Samuel Hood was a British vice-admiral. The locals called it Wy’East among other descriptive monikers; but, alas, to the victors go the spoils.

Peregrination is a journey, one that wanders from here to there and there to here with, apparently, no fixed destination. The word is from the Latin peregrinari which means, roughly, to travel abroad especially on foot. The Romans had no buses. Peregrination aptly describes a river’s hydrologic business; and the course of the Clackamas proves to be no exception. It meanders, as we have seen, from the Cascades to the valley, looping here and there and back again.

This essay, too, seems to have meandered. Perhaps a mention of avians is now in order. Along the river’s length lives a healthy population of birds. Eagles, hawks, mallards, egrets, owls, flickers, killdeer and various others all who manage to thrive despite an encroaching population of that most invasive of species, Homo sapiens. Ospreys were once quite common.

In the summer of 2003, I surveyed the river from its mouth to South Fork, some forty miles of shoreline, looking to document the number of nesting pairs on that stretch. Fourteen nests were spotted, from a shopping center’s parking lot light pole in Oregon City to the top of a snag up river from Promontory Point Marina. Not all of the nests, it seemed, were occupied. Ten pairs were identified, but no more. Most of the active nests were clustered near McIver Park and the dams at Timberpark and Faraday. The nests are easy to spot, usually built in an open space atop a tree or tower of some kind. Many are found on the dolphins in the Columbia River.

Osprey are colloquially known as fish eagles, and dive for their meals. Bald eagles, though the proud emblem of nations, are primarily carrion eaters. Osprey feed on fresh caught fish. Eagles may skim the water and dip daintily for a catch; but osprey actually take the plunge. With folded wing they smack the water, on the attack, sometimes submerged entirely, fishing.

Osprey are also a more social creature than most predators. No need to scale some cliff face or penetrate some dark wood. Already mentioned is the nest on a parking lot light pole. A pair occupied that site for years. Near the confluence of the Clackamas with the Willamette, those birds knew a good fishing spot when they saw one.

Smaller than the eagle, Pandion haliaetus was named for a mythical Greek king, Pandion, whose two daughters got into mischief, offended some god or other, and were turned into birds. Halos is Greek for sea and aetos means eagle. White breasted with wings and tail feathers of black and brown hues, the osprey’s most distinctive feature is their black eye band. Biomechanically, the birds are also distinguished by the ability of their rear talons to articulate, not unlike the opposable thumbs of Homo sapiens. This gives osprey the ability to align a caught fish with its body for flying efficiency. Vocalization mark the osprey as well. From the rapid peeping of fledglings to the less urgent peeps of adults, and the angry krees of agitated birds, they seem to have a remarkable vocabulary.

They are aggressive and territorial birds, the osprey. Camped on the beach on the lower Columbia at Skamokawa, another native name, it was a bald eagle that showed us where the osprey nest was located. Obvious once spotted, the large nest of intertwined twigs was right in front of us on a dolphin that marked the edge of shoal water.

The eagle had flown from the woods at river’s edge out over our camp and on to mid channel, then looped back around the dolphin; the nest, apparently, was its objective. Angry krees came immediately from the female in the nest. The eagle continued to circle. Moments later the male osprey appeared answering with a kree a notch lower in tone, a response perhaps rather than a challenge. The male flew directly at the eagle and the larger bird took evasive action, banking away from the nest, the osprey breaking flight to raise talons, the eagle indifferently—so it seemed—gaining height, turning to the shore to return to its perch in the trees. The male osprey took a rising loop around his nest then landed on the edge of the pylon, job done.

Osprey come north to feed and breed. Those seen in the Pacific northwest in spring and summer, travel to southern Mexico and central America in the winter. Apparently, their numbers are on the increase. According to a report by the USGS, the count of nesting pairs on the Willamette River between Eugene and Portland went from a low of 13 pairs in 1976 (pesticides the main culprit in their decline) to 234 pair in 2001. This trend is the same across North America.

Plans are afoot to retrace my steps and do another count on the Clackamas. I get on the river three or four times a year for a paddle, and my impression is that there are fewer osprey now than in 2003. Then I was greeted inevitably by the peep peep of circling osprey. Nowadays, a sighting is more remarkable, the nests unused. Time, I think, to go have another look.