Hi tweets,

Just returned from a 4-day trip to southern Oregon, and I felt like sharing
it. When it comes to birds, the area around Burns is beyond wonderful.
There has been so much rainfall that the deserts have become grasslands and
the grasslands have become marshes. There are so many birds that they
bedazzle you with sight and sound as you drive down the side roads. The air
rings with Willet and curlew songs and snipe winnows, these mellow tunes
offset by the rasp of the computer-generated sounds of Yellow-headed
Blackbirds on all sides. You have to see/hear it to believe it. Numerous
flocks of Franklin's Gulls and White-faced Ibises passed overhead, perhaps
birds that hadn't been able to occupy breeding colonies because of
widespread flooding. Or maybe they just breed late.

Malheur NWR itself had lots of great birds--White Pelicans, Sandhill
Cranes, Clark's and Eared grebes--but was not nearly as exciting as the
marshes and fields around Burns.

Because of the very bad weather for weeks, the spring is very retarded in
that region, and we struck out on dragonflies, one of the reasons for the
trip. However, the birding made up for it, as the oases at Malheur and
farther south were alive with migrant birds on the last few days of May.
Hundreds of Wilson's Warblers led the pack, with dozens of Western
Wood-Pewees, Warbling Vireos, Black-headed Grosbeaks, and Yellow Warblers,
and smaller numbers of many other species. I've never seen so many
Olive-sided Flycatchers spread through the countryside!

There were a few eastern vagrants at the headquarters at Malheur (Blackpoll
Warbler, E. Wood-Pewee), but we failed to find them, and I realized that
not seeing rarities that had been reported only hours before contributed to
a bit of a disappointment, I guess another reason why I'm not keen on
stake-out birds. If we hadn't known about the rarities, we would have
considered the 2+ hours spent there a smashing success. We also failed to
find a Yellow-billed Cuckoo near P Ranch, even though we searched the exact
tree grove less than an hour after it had been reported. Oh well....

We did find our own minor rarity, a female Black-and-white Warbler in a
little grove at Roaring Springs Ranch, S of Frenchglen (31 May), and I
realized that if you like making discoveries, just go where the masses of
birders aren't! At Fields, another famous "vagrant trap," we found no
vagrants, although anticipation was high. It didn't matter that much, as
the tiny oasis of willows surrounding the pond furnished a peak experience.
There was a higher density of migrants than I've ever seen in the NW, well
in excess of 100 birds, probably closer to 200. We could stand on the edge
of the pond and see 10-20 migrants at once at any time, and the activity
was almost overwhelming, as so many of the birds were flycatching.

Most of the birds were Wilson's Warblers and Warbling Vireos, but many
other species were present, including many Western Tanagers, always a treat
for the eyes. Imagine 3-5 WETAs in the air at once overhead, mingling with
wood-pewees and Cedar Waxwings. Lots of Empidonax to get practice with this
group, and a guy we met there said he had seen a Least that morning (of
course, we didn't see that bird either). The most surprising birds were
several Lesser Goldfinches, a recent colonizer. BTW, the hamburgers and
milkshakes in the little cafe there are great rewards for spending a couple
of hours beating the bushes in the heat.

We drove from Fields north around the Alvord Desert, an area with fauna and
flora quite different from that of the shrub steppe farther north, and were
thrilled to see snakes all over the road, including 7 striped whipsnakes, a
species I'd never seen alive before. Mickey Springs, a fairly dramatic hot
springs north of the desert (see the Oregon DeLorme, p. 74 B3), is worth a
visit, although the dragonflies we sought there hadn't yet put in an
appearance in this late spring. Lots of pronghorns in this area, and we saw
families of coyotes and long-tailed weasels.

The plants are also of great interest. Species in flower were very patchy,
and as we drove, we passed species after species that we saw briefly and
then nowhere else. Understanding the ecology of those species seemed
hopeless, as they were so patchy in what otherwise seemed like fairly
uniform landscapes. We saw many species that I haven't seen in Washington.

Our other really exciting bird find was on US 395 in northern Grant County,
just 50 yards south of mile marker 71 on the west side of the road. We
stopped to look at a road-killed bird, which turned out to be a baby owl. I
was puzzling over what species it was when we heard a funny whistled call
from the dense forest adjacent, and we finally found the bird, an adult
Great Gray Owl just 30' away and 15' up. As we both focused on it, it
launched itself from the tree and, as floppily as only a Great Gray can,
flew almost straight up into the top of a very tall larch. It disappeared
into the tree, not to be seen again, but as we scanned for it, we
discovered a half-grown young peering down at us from high in the tree. I
suspect the dead baby had fallen out of the tree, and perhaps one of the
parents was perched nearby watching it. Sad, but we rationalized by
thinking that the surviving young had an even better chance of survival
with one sibling less to feed. We saved some feathers, in case the record
needed documentation.

I looked in Birds of Oregon and discovered this breeding site to be right
at the edge of the known range of the NE Oregon population. Needless to
say, it was totally unexpected. The high plateau country, mostly wooded
with ponderosa pines, that covers so much of NE Oregon is rather different
from anything accessible in Washington, and I can see why GGOWs are
relatively rare in our state.

Another interesting thing about US 395 is the very extensive high
grasslands, which look as if there should be Upland Sandpipers all over the
place--but there aren't. There aren't even Long-billed Curlews there, which
surprised me, as that species is so abundant in the lower-elevation
grasslands around Burns.

Much of eastern Oregon is a fantastic wonderland of wildlife, sparsely
settled by people and--so special in contrast with eastern Washington--with
no trace of Big Agriculture (except some areas adjacent to WA). I suppose
the Bureau of Reclamation will bring water to those high plateaus some day,
but perhaps it won't happen as long as they've still got a few acres of
sagebrush left in Washington to "reclaim." Oregonians ought to thank us for
keeping the BLM's attention, with our low-elevation Columbia Basin and
abundant Columbia River water!

Check it out!

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html