Hello, tweets.

Netta and I just returned from a 3-day trip (9/24-26) to south-central Oregon. We drove down early Saturday by the Seattle - Sandy - Redmond - Bend route, got to Burns/Hines at 1:30, birded around there for a short while, then drove down hwy 205 to Malheur Lake, which is abundantly flooded this year, as you have heard. We spent quite a bit of time driving slowly along the waterside there, then went over to the refuge headquarters, then continued east to Princeton and drove back up the road to Burns.

Second day we headed down hwy 205 again, stopped at a pulloff on the rocky slope of Wrights Point, then went out Ruh-Red Road to the east along the north side of Malheur Lake for the rest of the morning. We came back from that and headed down into the refuge to various ponds, Frenchglen, Page Springs, then back up to Diamond, where we spent the night. On the third day we visited refuge headquarters again and Sodhouse Ranch and then headed home.

We saw/heard 99 species on the trip, tried ever so hard to see a 100th on the drive back but with no luck. Nothing rare to report, but wonderful birding for several reasons. (1) The season is very late, so there were great numbers of birds still around that in most years would have been gone entirely or in much smaller numbers. (2) The season is very late, so there were a surprising number of young birds. (3) Birding is always great down there. Naturally, I especially like it because it furnishes so many good photo ops.

I thank Jerry Broadus for convincing us, by his recent posts, that it would be worth the 8-hour drive down there even this late in the season, and Shep Thorp for his suggestions of places to go, especially Ruh-Red Road, which furnished some of the best birding I have had in the PNW. If anyone goes down that road, watch for a windmill on the right that pumps water into a little cattle tank. This was alive with sparrows coming to the water. You have to drive quite a few miles to get to the marshes, but boy is it worth it! One area quite a ways down the road had both species of rails out in the open in numbers. There were thousands of birds out there, with coots a great majority but many, many ducks and shorebirds, blackbirds and swallows, egrets and ibises. At times the air was full of birds moving among the wetlands.

I am appending a species list (all seen in southern Oregon), as I think people might be interested in knowing what is down there. Obviously the migrants are moving through and pulling out fast, but I think even a week from now it will still be great, longer for at least some species, and many of the migratory waterfowl haven't even arrived yet.

Oh yes, you had better bone up on your female ducks, as most species are still in eclipse plumage.

Canada Goose
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Mallard
Cinnamon Teal - many, all in eclipse plumage; looked in vain for Blue-winged
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Canvasback - at big pond on east side of road south of Burns
Redhead
Ring-necked Duck - refuge HQ pond with Redheads
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Chukar
California Quail - on side streets in Hines first thing in the morning, there were more of these than I have ever seen in my life, huge coveys all over the lawns and streets; what a successful year they have had
Pied-billed Grebe
Eared Grebe - few on Malheur Lake
Western Grebe - dozens of pairs of this and the following species with young, the adults catching small Carp for the young grebes all along the E side of Malheur Lake, right next to the road; a photographer's dream; some young were still quite small this weekend; watch for an enclosed area of water on the W side, which has several families of Clark's Grebes with smallish young, sometimes riding on their backs; of course everything will be a week further along by next weekend
Clark's Grebe
American White Pelican - many all over the lake
Double-crested Cormorant - many young still on nests at Sodhouse Ranch; you can only visit there at this time of year
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret - amazingly common around the lake, also young on nests at Sodhouse (should still be some in a week)
Snowy Egret - a few mixed in with the egret/ibis/pelican/cormorant feeding flocks
Black-crowned Night-Heron
White-faced Ibis - abundant, large numbers much later than usual according to Alan Contreras, who we met down there
Turkey Vulture
Osprey - one late individual flew over Page Springs
Northern Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk - migrant way out in the sagebrush
Swainson's Hawk - few on "raptor alley," the road from Princeton to Crane to Burns
Red-tailed Hawk
Ferruginous Hawk - one on "raptor alley"
Golden Eagle - one perched right next to the road just west of Hampton Station
American Kestrel
Merlin - one flying south on Ruh-Red Road
Prairie Falcon - ditto
Virginia Rail - common on mudflats along parts of Ruh-Red Road
Sora - even more common
American Coot - by far the most abundant bird, thousands everywhere, including many juveniles
Sandhill Crane - few pairs scattered around, can't miss them
Killdeer
Black-necked Stilt - surprising numbers around the lake border, both adults and juveniles, yet most of the other breeding shorebirds have departed
American Avocet - two on Ruh-Red Road
Greater Yellowlegs - scattered everywhere
Lesser Yellowlegs - Ruh-Red Road
Spotted Sandpiper - ditto
Marbled Godwit - ditto
Least Sandpiper - ditto, many probably finishing up their wing molt
Pectoral Sandpiper - few juveniles on Malheur Lake on 205
Long-billed Dowitcher - one big flock on Ruh-Red Road, also undergo wing molt while in migration
Wilson's Snipe - flushed them everywhere there was water (many of their shallow breeding marshes have dried up)
Ring-billed Gull
California Gull - only one among many ring-bills
Caspian Tern
Forster's Tern - lots along Ruh-Red Road, including wing-molting adults and juveniles
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove - saw more of these than Mourning Doves, especially in Hines
Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl - one at Wrights Point, one calling at Diamond
Northern Flicker - widespread, presumably many migrants
Western Scrub-Jay - one in Bend, one in Burns, apparently doing well on the east side of the Cascades
Black-billed Magpie
American Crow
Common Raven
Horned Lark
Tree Swallow - great numbers along Ruh-Red Road; all seemed to be immatures in wing molt, so this must be a staging area for migrants
Barn Swallow - great numbers along R-R R, also elsewhere, immatures but not in wing molt
Rock Wren - one at Wrights Point with overextended upper mandible, as in the hawk/crow/chickadee syndrome
Bewick's Wren - one at refuge HQ
House Wren - one at Page Springs
Marsh Wren
Mountain Bluebird - common at rest area 16 miles W of Burns on hwy 20
Townsend's Solitaire - common at same rest area, more solitaires (about 15) than I have ever seen in one place; presumably there because of abundant berry crop on junipers
American Robin
Sage Thrasher - shockingly common for a bird that I thought would have been heading south already
European Starling
American Pipit
Cedar Waxwing
Orange-crowned Warbler - few
Yellow Warbler - few
Yellow-rumped Warbler - few
Spotted Towhee
Brewer's Sparrow - few along Ruh-Red Road
Vesper Sparrow - one ditto
Savannah Sparrow - thousands obviously going through in migration, flushing from road edge everywhere through grassland and sagebrush
Fox Sparrow - one at HQ
Song Sparrow - one at Sodhouse, only one we could find
Lincoln's Sparrow - one at P Ranch, another near Diamond, probably many more; if you are a sparrow hunter, the thickets are full of them
White-crowned Sparrow - exactly as Savannah, more common in the thickets
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Yellow-headed Blackbird - still lots around in mixed blackbird flocks
Brewer's Blackbird - thousands in flocks, far and away the most Brewer's I have ever seen
Brown-headed Cowbird - just two females in all the blackbird flocks we checked
House Finch
House Sparrow

Other vertebrates included abundant Pronghorn (mostly in green alfalfa fields near Hampton Station) and Mule Deer, a few Coyotes and Nuttall's Cottontails. Two Gopher Snakes, and many Carp in Malheur Lake.

I hope some of you reading this can take a trip down there. It was really spectacular birding, much more than I expected in late September.

Dennis
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Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net