GLOUCESTER POINT, Va. — Stepping onto an old wooden duck blind in the middle of the York River, Bryan Watts looks down at a circle of sticks and pine cones on the weathered, guano-spattered platform.

Ed, who asked KGW News not to use his last name, has walked through Rivervilla Park in Milwaukie for the last several years. He does it quite often to look at the birds and waterfowl that inhabit the ...