Tweets:

This will have a bit of "what I am doing on vacation" except I am not really vacant right now,
but if that sort of post turns you off go ahead to another that interests you.

Last fall, on a trip to Steens Mtn., Clarice and I stopped in at Malheur NWR headquarters and
met staff and started process to come down here to volunteer. We have both volunteered a
lot at refuges-I find it both fun and interesting. The refuge set us up as the first live-in
volunteers at the house at P-Ranch, south end of the refuge, to live here for a month (Clarice
is going back to the rain April 14, I will be here entire month of April). I am set to do planning
for a future visitor contact point here, with interpretive and birding trails. Duties include
maintaining the house, talking to people we meet on the center patrol road, and setting up a
temporary contact station in the house to use during the birding festival held in Burns this
weekend. (note : the festival is usually the first weekend of April but was delayed this year
due to Easter)

We also have started doing driving route type bird surveys in the south end of refuge, During
our driving route we counted something like 1800 birds, mostly waterfowl. Clarice noted a
pair of ravens building a nest, we went back the next day and found a golden eagle shopping
at the ledge, with three ravens fighting back until it decided to leave. Later in month I may be
able to help with spotted frog surveys, and possibly some locating of trumpeter swan nests.

I am not going to describe this place-- I figure most everyone on tweets has either been here
before or knows someone who has, or can look it up on the web. Suffice to say this house is
fairly remote, in that it is a long drive from shopping. It is, however, a pretty nice house. I
have--gasp-- dial up internet and my cell phone sort of works much of the time. There is a
land phone line with an answering machine.

What there is here in spades is peace and quiet. No traffic noise after the dark. Grounds
right now are crawling with common snipe. They perform their trill from evening, through a bit
of the night, and in the morning to mid morning. 80-100 turkey vultures rest quietly in the
cottonwoods every evening, fly to the fire tower in the morning to get some sun, then go
hunting. A pair of kestrels are setting up a home site in one of the cottonwoods, and we saw
copulation yesterday. The flickers are displaying, showing off their red shafts to each other
each morning and evening, and chattering all day. We had a flock of about 50 long billed
curlew, calling near the river. Deer are here some mornings, and this morning we had our
first flock of evening grosbeaks. Since we got here, April 1, the sandhills have been showing
up more and more and have been making a louder, screechier version of their calls from the
pastures. Canadas are nesting near house, and a little north of here we spotted our first
trumpeter pair locked down on what must have been a good spot. First great horned owl
called this morning at the house at sunrise. A short drive away is a burrowing owl nest, and
we drove to the sage grouse lek a couple of mornings ago and watched and listened to about
30 males in full hormonal rush.

Migrant passerines are just starting-- only warbler flocks we are seeing are butterbutts, and
there are quite a few. Of course, the duck population is at peak, and Burns is full of snow and
Ross' geese. I have been seeing a few avocets (including in the hot pool at Crane hot
springs) and we saw our first flock of ibis yesterday. Also had long, close, looks at golden
eagle almost catch a female pheasant, and at rough leg hawks and a short eared owl
perched up next to the road.

Weather has been early spring high desert. Our first full day was 25 degrees with
horizontally blowing snow most of the day. Since then it is slowly warming and calming during
the day, but the last two mornings have been about 15 degrees, but calm and clear. Even
have done a little cold clear night stargazing.

That will do for now. Yesterday fellow Washington birder Burt Guttman (sp??) and family
members happened to show up. If any other tweets are planning on coming down here this
month you could e-mail, with some advance notice, and I could send you the phone number
for this place. If I'm not busy I'll show you what we've found.