Hello tweeters,

Last weekend (Sat-Tue) we drove down to the northern edge of California for
dragonfly observations, but it was a bit early for these sensitive
creatures, so we spent a lot of time birding.

By going that far away from Seattle you can really get into a different
avifauna, with many species common that we don't see around here. We
visited southwestern Oregon and Siskiyou County in California and were
tickled to be in the midst of California Towhees, Lesser Goldfinches, Black
Phoebes, Canyon Wrens, Yellow-breasted Chats, and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers
among many other species. We almost made it to the range of Yellow-billed
Magpies, Nuttall's Woodpeckers, California Thrashers, and other more exotic
species - another 100 miles southward to Redding would have done that. With
four days you can reach the California avifauna easily from the Puget Sound
area.

We spent a morning at the Lower Klamath NWR just south of the Oregon border,
and is that place fabulous! There is a lengthy auto route around the
refuge, and you can stop anywhere along it. It's pretty much continuous
water birds, from all kinds of ducks to the same shorebirds one sees around
Burns, Oregon (although no Long-billed Curlews), to Am. White Pelicans,
White-faced Ibises, Snowy Egrets and the like. Lots of Western, Clark's,
and Eared grebes. At times we were stopped on the road and there were birds
in the air all around us - three terns, Franklin's Gulls, lines of ibises -
just fantastic. Perhaps the experience that I liked best was the huge
colonies of Tricolored Blackbirds right along the road, really a place to
familiarize yourself with that species.

If you've been to Malheur NWR and the marshes around Burns at this time of
year, this farther-south refuge is a great complement, as you can see many
more birds of deeper water than you can at Malheur, especially right now
when Malheur Lake is so low. I had thought they were having water problems
at the Lower Klamath refuge, but there was no indication of that during our
visit. It's definitely a place for water birds, doesn't have the varied
habitats of Malheur, but you can head over to the west and get into great
Siskiyou Mountain habitat for the land birds of the mountains and coastal
lowlands or east a little ways for the birds of the Great Basin.

Sure beats staying home on the weekend!

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