Tweets,

Debbie, Sue and I just returned from our Thanksgiving road/birding trip, the last phase of which was a tour through the Tule Lake NWR on Monday morning. The refuge is well-known for its wintering waterfowl and Bald Eagle population, and it didn't disappoint us. Once on the Auto tour route, we found easily a thousand or more Canvasbacks strung out in a long line in the middle of Sump 1-A, brilliantly white in the sun's rays breaking through the early morning cloud cover. Further along the route, we watched an adult Bald Eagle repeatedly dive at a female Northern Shoveler, which finally escaped the eagle's spectacular low-flying passes. Behind us in another pond, large skeins of Snow Geese wove a pattern of dark and light as they flew into a small reservoir that must have accumulated over two thousand geese while we watched and listened to their high-pitched cacophony.

Did I say that there were waterfowl in abundance? The latest aerial census found nearly one million ducks and geese in the Klamath Basin, and in the course of our short drive, we saw Tundra Swans, Canadian and Cackling Geese, Snow Geese, Mallards, Northern Pintails, American Wigeon, Northern Shoveler, Greater Scaup, Canvasbacks, Hooded Mergansers, Ruddy Ducks and American Coots. Though we missed the Greater Sandhill Cranes wintering in the Klamath Basin, we came across too many Red-tailed Hawks to count, along with Rough-legged Hawks and a Ferruginous Hawk. Time passed too quickly to allow us an extended tour of the rest of the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges, though we skirted the Lower Klamath Refuge and were tantalized by the ducks we saw as we drove on to Klamath Falls and our route home.

It's a long haul to the Klamath Basin, but if you have the time, it's worth a visit, particularly in mid-February, when the basin attracts the largest recorded Bald Eagle populations in the contiguous U.S. The Tule Lake NWR was the last stop on our 10 day trip to Truckee and return, capping a great tour through Malheur NWR, Pyramid Lake and the Klamath Basin. It's nice to be home, with memories of the excellent late fall birding we found along our route.

Jim Owens
Mercer Island