Hi All,

>From July 15th through the 20th, I floated about 40 miles of the Deschutes River in north central Oregon with two friends. This is the 22nd consecutive year we've taken this trip, and on the last several trips I have focused on birding and photography, rather than fishing. The river is in a canyon with only railroad access - it is one of a very few major river systems that does not have a highway running along its banks. It is high desert country, with a narrow but productive riparian area bordering the river, a few agricultural operations (haying, primarily) scattered through the canyon, but mostly it is columnar basalt cliffs and shrub steppe country with sage, juniper and some dry grasslands.

This year I logged 51 species during the float trip, and captured images of about half of them. I was pleased with this total as the habitat diversity is obviously limited in a situation like this. Counting the three day drive down and two day trip back, the species count was 105.

The most noteworthy finds included four WILD TURKEY seen on the Warm Springs Reservation tribal lands side of the river - composed of two adults and two poults. Presumably these birds were of the 'Rio Grande' subspecies which are adapted to drier habitats. A juvenile GREEN HERON flew directly in front of my raft and landed 30 feet away in clear view - unusual because there are no marshes to speak of along the river, and a Central Oregon Audubon bird checklist I had obtained listed this as a very rare sighting in that area. It was a very productive trip for raptors, with TURKEY VULTURE (very common, seen in numbers every day), OSPREY (the Deschutes has an extensive breeding population of this species), BALD EAGLE, RED-TAILED HAWK, GOLDEN EAGLE, AMERICAN KESTREL, PEREGRINE FALCON and PRAIRIE FALCON all being well seen. One morning a GREAT HORNED OWL cruised through our campsite at dawn as I was just crawling out of the sleeping bag .

CANYON WREN were heard every day calling from the canyon cliffs (one was even seen briefly), LEWIS'S WOODPECKER was found in two spots along the river where side canyons held Garry Oak groves. Several EASTERN KINGBIRD active nests were found, with nestlings not yet fledged, and multiple WESTERN KINGBIRD nests were obvious in the riparian zone, though it appeared that the young from those nests had already fledged.

The primary disappointment was missing sparrow species that should have been there. The only sparrow species seen on the river were Song Sparrow and Lark Sparrow. Sage, Vesper, Brewer's and Grasshopper should have all been possible.

A complete list of species seen follows.

Canada Goose
Mallard
CINNAMON TEAL
Lesser Scaup
Common Merganser - everywhere on the river, in numbers, a common nesting species here
Chukar - heard several days calling
WILD TURKEY
California Quail
Great Blue Heron
GREEN HERON
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
BALD EAGLE - one bird seen near famous Whitehorse Rapids, has been seen there multiple years
Red-Tailed Hawk
Golden Eagle
American Kestrel
PEREGRINE FALCON
PRAIRIE FALCON
Spotted Sandpiper - a nesting species on the river, seen every day
California Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl
Common Nighthawk - seen every evening at dusk
Vaux's Swift
CALLIOPE HUMMINGBIRD
Belted Kingfisher
Lewis's Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Western Wood Pewee
Say's Phoebe
Western Kingbird
Eastern Kingbird
Black-billed Magpie
American Crow
Tree Swallow
Violet-green Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Rock Wren
Canyon Wren
American Robin
Yellow Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Western Tanager
Lark Sparrow - the most common sparrow seen on the trip
Song Sparrow
Lazuli Bunting
Red-Winged Blackbird
Brewer's Blackbird
Bullock's Oriole
American Goldfinch


John Tubbs
Snoqualmie, WA
johntubbs at comcast.net
www.tubbsphoto.com