In mid May we made a birding trip to our favorite place for birdwatching, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. It was a really great trip, as always, even though we did get skunked on Snowy Plovers (again!), and no Bitterns. That’s just wrong.
We did see lots of great birds, had great weather, and almost no skeeters! And we got to drive around the Alvord Desert side of the Steens Mountains. We always go too early to be able to drive up the loop road on the Malheur side of the Steens Mountains. The road doesn’t open until early July, after the snow has melted.
Malheur has a nesting population of Sandhill Cranes. Here are two of them, noticing their field has another occupant.
Paying close attention to the pair to his left.
Closing the gap, and everybody was talking about it.
Evidently the topic of discussion was who can get too close to whom, and looking at his girlfriend wasn't allowed. Yikes! I'm moving already!
The pair claims the patch of grass the individual Crane had been standing on previously, and peace was restored for the moment.
We stayed in one of the cabins at the Steens Mountain Resort, on a hillside between Frenchglen and Page Springs campground, overlooking the fields to the north. Going out on the covered deck in the morning and listening to the cranes calling is really almost an indescribable peaceful thing to experience. Their voices are almost prehistoric in sound quality, echoing eerily over the misty fields.
This banded crane was almost certainly born on the refuge.
Another crane feeding in one of the flooded fields.
Besides cranes, which are a highlight of any trip to Malheur, here are some fuzzy bird pictures for other species.
Avocet wading in shallow water, looking for something to eat. This is the northern edge of their range, though some do go a bit farther north into Washington.
This bird is admiring his reflection. Gorgeous birds. So delicate looking.
Cinnamon Teal are common on the refuge; you can see them in pairs or single males in almost every shallow pond or stream.
Black-necked Stilts are another simply beautiful wader. They always look like they are wearing a tuxedo, to me. I could spend hours watching them stalking about in the grass with their long red legs.
Far away from the road, several Stilts were surrounded by a couple hundred Dowitchers. Little fat ruddy colored birds, all poking into the mud looking for something yummy to eat.
Several species of Egrets live on the refuge. One of the most spectacular is a Great Egret, all decked out in their summer finery. These birds were hunted almost to extinction in a lot of areas, to decorate ladies' hats. What a waste.
Graceful and noble looking, these birds are now easily found on the refuge in grassy fields when the water is high.
This male Hooded Merganser was showing off for his mate, acting quite silly.
Standing in a row, a few Black-crowned Night-Herons were enjoying the early morning sunlight.
Too early to get up and moving, a small group of White Pelicans were sharing a rock formation above the waterline, in the shallow water in the Narrows which connects Malheur Lake and Harney Lake. Late in the morning, flocks of the pelicans can be seen floating in formation in the sky, wheeling around and beginning their hunt for fish in the deeper waters.
A Wilson's Phalarope along the edge of the grass. These little guys stir up the shallow water by swimming in small circles and waving their feet around madly.
Several species of grebe make their homes on the refuge, including this small Pied-billed Grebe.
A Willet hunting in the long grass.
We were too late for the Godwits, who move through the refuge earlier in the spring. I didn’t get any good pictures of the numerous White-faced Ibis, nor Curlews. But be that as it may, we liked watching both of those species doing their thing in the grass and in the air. Snipe winnowing in the early morning was another sound that we dearly love to listen to from the deck on the cabin.
Here is a Sage Thrasher perched on a fence wire above a Sage bush.
Dan has called these birds peasants for so long that I have trouble remembering they are called Ring-necked Pheasant. This male is all decked out in his spring finery, standing on the bank above one of the numerous canals in the refuge. Farther down the road we spied a female and told her to keep heading a bit south to meet up with this fellow.
Refuge headquarters has always got an owl or two sleeping in the trees overhead. This Great-horned Owl was ignoring the people walking around under his branch.
The headquarters grassy lawns is home to a large population of Ground Squirrels, and they had babies which were emerging from their burrows. I stood on the sidewalk and watched one hole to see who might emerge. I was not disappointed. One small squirrel head peeped out. Then underneath him, another baby popped up. They both scrambled out onto the ground, inches from my feet. Then another, and another. The four babies all clustered around the hole. And then it was time to play and munch grass. Two scampered away, one to the left and the other two the right. Two babies remained. They faced each other and sat up straight and began boxing each other with their small front feet, and then they rolled around wrestling and playing like kittens or puppies, for a few seconds. They popped up, chased each other a couple of feet, and began their boxing match and wrestling match again, and then more chasing. It was hilarious. They carried on like that until more people approached where I was standing on the sidewalk. All the babies popped back into the closest burrow, and when the people passed by, they emerged again to continue their games.
Dan was watching a man with a massive camera lense laying on the ground, attempting to take a picture of a tiny hare, no more than five inches long from the tip of his nose to the tip of his fluffy bunny tail. The bunny had no trouble outwitting the man with the camera.
There’s always something very neat to see at the refuge headquarters, and we stopped back in several times a day the whole time we were at the refuge.
All in all, it was a great little vacation, and we plan to go back again next spring to see who all is hanging around the refuge. And maybe we’ll get to meet up with some friends there.