![\"Cinnamon](\"https:\/\/redmeadow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/0517malheur-cinnamon-teal.jpg\")
<\/a>Cinnamon Teal are just beautiful little ducks, and it seems like they are in every puddle.\u00a0 The grass is just starting to come up; when it gets taller, these little birds will disappear.<\/p><\/div>\n
Cinnamon Teal are the most common of all the teal on the refuge. We also saw Blue-winged Teal, but just briefly as they came in for a fast landing to a pond, behind heavy dead marsh grass.<\/p>\n
I didn’t take any pictures of Mallards, or Coots. But I did get some other duck pictures.<\/p>\n
<\/a>I’ve always thought Gadwall are kind of nondescript. I’m sure they aren’t very impressed by the way humans look either.<\/p><\/div>\n
Shoveler’s are pretty amazing looking. Look at the beaks on those guys and you can see why they have that name!<\/p>\n
<\/a>You can just barely see the hen sitting behind her boyfriend. She totally blends into the background.<\/p><\/div>\n
Northern Pintails are a duck I remember very clearly from Alaska.\u00a0 It was always such a treat to see them come back in the early summer.<\/p>\n
<\/a>The male was being shy, crouching down in the dry grass in front of his sweetie pie.<\/p><\/div>\n
Sandhill Cranes are one of the highlights to see at the refuge and we saw a pair with babies that just hatched. They could barely clamber over the tall grass.\u00a0 It was disappointing not to hear them calling.\u00a0 It’s a very prehistoric sound that gives me goosebumps, in a good way.<\/p>\n
<\/a>A pair of cranes with their just newly hatched babies. One is near the feet of adult on the right and another is peeping up in the grass in the middle.<\/p><\/div>\n
The baby on the right was sort of climbing up the bank of an irrigation ditch.\u00a0 A very scary place to be, though I bet he or she actually would float if they fell in.\u00a0 Still, yikes, climbing back out again might prove fatally difficult!<\/p>\n
<\/a>Same picture as before, just a closer look at the baby. So tiny!!<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>The other adult was staying low in the grass, next to the second baby bird.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>And then poof, the babies completely disappear in the grass.\u00a0 It’s hard to believe they will be the same height as the adults, and flying around the refuge, within a few months.<\/p><\/div>\n
At the Headquarters we saw a Say’s Phoebe that was being cooperative in allowing a picture to be taken.<\/p>\n
<\/a>We have these at home, but they don’t usually sit still long enough to take a picture.<\/p><\/div>\n
Yellow-headed Blackbirds were taking advantage of the feeders.<\/p>\n
<\/a>The first time I saw these was at Malheur, in the fall. We drove past a field of corn which had been harvested, and hundreds of these birds all rose into the air at the same time. It was spectacular. Well either it had been harvested or they had just decimated some farmer’s crop \ud83d\ude42<\/p><\/div>\n
A lone American White Pelican was occupying the pond next to the main offices, and all the rest of his cohorts were no doubt out on the large lake.<\/p>\n
<\/a>This bird’s punk hairstyle was due to the gale force wind blowing him around on the pond.<\/p><\/div>\n
The highlight of the trip was a family of Great-horned Owls nesting in one of the volcanic craters at Diamond Craters. It was spooky walking up to the rim of the crater but we knew they were in there thanks to our friends Casey and Carmen who had been there the weekend before and told us precisely where to look. You can see the upright pale gray cone standing up on a rock? And then if you look closer, the parent is glaring at us from under a rocky outcrop.<\/p>\n
<\/a>This crater is a good 40 to 50 feet deep. If you don’t like heights, standing next to the edge is really frightening.\u00a0 See the little pale bird perched on a rock on the end of the cliff?\u00a0 He looks like an upright cone.<\/p><\/div>\n
We never would have seen these birds, had it not been for Casey and Carmen.\u00a0 Thanks guys!!!.\u00a0 Until we we got around to see this particular wall of the volcanic crater, they were completely hidden from view but then viola!\u00a0 Surprise!<\/p>\n