Hello tweeters,

We've just returned from a 4-day trip to Malheur NWR, Oregon. We came back
through northeastern OR, Burns - John Day - Ukiah - La Grande - Ukiah -
Umatilla and back.

Birding is fantastic in the Malheur area, not only because there are so many
species there that we see rarely in Washington but especially because birds
are so abundant there.

On this trip I saw more Yellow-headed Blackbirds than I've ever seen before
in the breeding season, certainly well in excess of 500. We found a nesting
colony of White-faced Ibis (ca 2000) and Franklin's Gulls (ca 400) on the
road to Diamond, watched both feeding in flooded fields near their colony
and watched flocks of the gulls the day before feeding high in the air on
small insects. We saw at least 250 Wilson's Phalaropes, including probably
70 at one pond on that same road. Dozens each of Long-billed Curlews,
Willets, avocets, and stilts, snipes and Black Terns. Sandhill Crane pairs
scattered all along the roads. Waterfowl everywhere, including all the
species that nest in Oregon (missed Harlequin, Hooded Merganser and Lesser
Scaup and weren't in the range of Barrow's Goldeneye). The area around
Burns is actually birdier than many parts of the refuge, and amply repays
several hours of cruising the roads. You get to see a lot of behavior at
close range, as many birds are in marshes and flooded fields right at road's
edge.

And this is in a drought year. Sadly, many extensives marshes are dry this
year. In some cases it surely concentrated the birds more, in others the
birds are in smaller than usual numbers and have presumably gone elsewhere.

The refuge headquarters is a wonderful place for birding during migration.
We visited it twice, and the trees were full of Western Tanagers,
Black-headed Grosbeaks, and Warbling and Cassin's vireos, with smaller
numbers of a whole host of species. A male Indigo Bunting had been there for
several days, and we got to see it. Almost every time I spend a few days in
southern Oregon I find something rare (in sharp contrast with my birding in
Washington), and on this trip we found a Northern Mockingbird singing at a
ranch just south of Malheur Lake (where we stopped to watch a couple hundred
Red-necked Phalaropes) and a Harris's Sparrow at P Ranch; neither is cosmic,
but both were surprising to me (my definition of a rare bird is that I get
excited when I find it) and were unusual enough to warrant excitement in
other birders we ran into. And you really do run into birders at Malheur
on Memorial Day weekend; it's a traditional destination.

Oh yes, almost any time we looked up at refuge headquarters, White Pelicans
were overhead.

Lesser Goldfinches were one of the stars of this trip. Almost anywhere we
went at the south end of the refuge, there they were - headquarters,
Frenchglen, P Ranch, and Page Springs Campground. I had never seen the
species there before, but there is a population explosion of them for some
reason. We also saw a pair at Warm Springs, somewhat peripheral to their
usual range in the state.

Another star was the Yellow Warbler. I have never seen that species so
common in my life; it literally dripped out of the trees everywhere we went,
and as so many males were singing, I assume the species attains very high
breeding densities there. I was also surprised at how common Common
Yellowthroats were in the marshes there.

Bobolinks were common on the road north of P Ranch and the road to Diamond,
a few even on fence wires right next to the road (finally got a good photo
of one, I think).

ON the road from Bend to Burns, we saw 7 Golden Eagles in less than a mile
of road, and I have no idea why they concentrated there. Just before that,
we watched a pair of Red-tailed Hawks drive a Ferruginous Hawk out of their
territory, bombing over the road right over our heads. We saw Ash-throated
and Gray flycatchers in the junipers, where they belong (the former is in
oaks, the latter in pines, in WA).

Our bird list was 152 species Seattle to Seattle, and this was not hard-core
birding (defined as being out from dawn to dusk and then going out owling
before you fall into bed exhausted). Our owling was serendipitous and
diurnal, with a Long-eared nest at Page Springs Campground (and pointblank
photo opportunities on an adult roosting *in the sun* near the nest), a
Short-eared flying over a marsh, and a Great Gray in the Starkey
Experimental Forest east of Ukiah. The latter answered me when I tooted
like a pygmy-owl and gave us wonderful views perched in the open and flying
around us.

Not only is there a drought down there, but it has been a very cold spring,
and apparently a late spring. Most birds were just going through courtship,
and I think very few were nesting, unlike some other years when we've been
there at the same time. I was surprised not to hear more birds singing up in
the mountains, and it may well have been too early for some of them to be
established. So any time in the next few weeks should still feature spring
conditions.

There is a lot of gorgeous scenery north of Burns, and I hope anyone who
goes to Malheur uses that route at least occasionally. There are huge
stretches of grassland interspersed with junipers, ponderosa pines, and
moister mountain conifer forest. This is the area that used to support
Upland Sandpipers, but I think they're extirpated there. Any direction from
John Day is scenic, same for Ukiah. We especially liked the road between
Ukiah and La Grande, although it wasn't quite as birdy as I would have
expected.

Mammal watching can be exciting down there. Belding's ground squirrels are
the little "picket pins" that are everywhere, often very tame, in the
grasslands of eastern Oregon. The larger Columbian ground squirrels are
equally common when you get into the open conifer forests to the north, and
both of them and golden-mantled ground squirrels were common in Starkey
forest - no wonder Great Gray Owls like it there. Pronghorn (antelope) can
be seen all along the roads out of Burns if you keep a sharp lookout for
them, and we saw the strangest thing, a pregnant female launch herself into
a shallow alkaline lake and swim half way across it, then turn at right
angles and head for the shore near us. We couldn't see that anything had
disturbed her and wondered if she were trying to camouflage her scent as she
was about to give birth. Most of the ones we saw at closer range were
solitary pregnant females.

The most exciting mammal encounter was watching a coyote stalk a very tiny
mule deer fawn on the Diamond road. The mother had a young from the year
before, and I think she told it something like "stand over there and be
still until I come back for you." She then started chasing the coyote and
ran it away from the tiny fawn, which, amazingly, kept following her as she
pursued the predator. She would run at the coyote full speed, and although
it seemed to escape her easily, she kept chasing it farther each time, then
would take the fawn back away from the spot, until the coyote was quite a
way from her vulnerable young. We watched with a spotting scope from a hill
above this tableau and were mesmerized. I'll admit we were rooting for the
fawn - just human nature, I guess, as the ecologist in me knows that coyotes
are much rarer than deer, especially mule deer at Malheur!

Anyway, those are some of my impressions from a very neat part of the world.

Dennis Paulson
--
Netta Smith and Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115