Month: June 2017

A Little Bit of Everything

With water levels high at Malheur, I wondered if there would be as many birds on Ruh Red Lane as there had been in years before the recent drought. I’ve gotten some of my best pictures of Avocets and Black-necked Stilts there. It certainly didn’t look very promising as we headed out the road; all we saw for quite a while was this Western Kingbird perched on the barbed wire fence.

With prospects looking a little dim, I was relieved when we actually ran into some water along side the road. There weren’t too many birds in sight, but there was a Black-necked Stilt,

one of the two birds I’d gone looking for.

A little ways down the road Leslie got this shot of as Snowy Egret foraging next to a White-Faced Ibis.

On our way back I managed to get a shot of this male Curlew (or is it a Whimbrel?) that Leslie sighted.

While at the refuge headquarters I read that someone had spotted Golden eaglet, so I decided to check out the nest that I had seen several years before without ever spotting any Golden Eagles. Sure enough, we spotted two eaglet stretching their wings and peering over the nest, a first-ever for me.

I knew that we were too late to see large numbers of migrating birds, but I’m never disappointed by the wide variety of birds I see at Malheur.

Willets in Action

Although I’ve seen many Willets on the ocean shore in both Washington and California, I didn’t have any idea what it was when first confronted by one in Malheur. When I saw one flying by, I got out of the car and tried to capture it in flight.

That turned out to be a lot easier to do than expected because instead of flying away as most birds do, “it,” and as it turned out, “they,” flew directly over my head several times,

protesting constantly

until the first one landed nearby and glared at me.

I lost track of the first bird when a second Willet appeared,

flying even closer

than the first had flown and complained even louder

until it, too, landed on nearby sagebrush.

At that point it took off to join the first bird as they retreated into the heavy brush.

A little online research indicates that Willets spend the winter on the coastline but nest in grasslands and prairies near fresh water.

Expect the Unexpected

Although I go to places like Malheur National Wildlife Refuge expecting to see certain birds that I don’t see locally in the Puget Sound area, it’s always a thrill when I see something unexpected. I actually saw several unexpected birds the two days I was there, but I think this male Canvasback was a “lifer.”

I was totally frustrated trying to get the camera to focus because of the grass and reeds, so I was thrilled when it took off right in front of me.

I even managed to snap off more than one

shot while keeping it in focus and in the frame.

I’ll have to admit that when I originally saw this bird I thought it was a Redhead Duck because I couldn’t remember ever seeing a Canvasback before and the two look quite similar.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t much further up the road when I snapped this shot of what I thought was probably the same bird.

Comparing the two on the screen, it was clear that they definitely weren’t the same bird. It was the white back on the first duck that made me question my original identification. In the end, though, it was the shape of the head that convinced me that the first duck was a Canvasback and this second one is a Redhead, a bird I’ve only seen in Colorado before.

Think Green

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is much greener this year than it has been for years due to an unusually wet Winter. Still, I wasn’t ready for what we saw on the two days we were there. Page Springs Campground was almost tropical. Red-wing Blackbirds

staked their claim to the ponds at the entrance to the campground.

This fawn nearly disappeared in the tall grass lining the creek at the south end of the refuge,

though I suspect it might have been harder to spot if the grass was its usual brown color.

I’m not sure I would have ever been able to spot this Nighthawk if it hadn’t been for the tall green grass lining the main road.

The creeks that lined the road were emerald-green, reflecting the vivid green reeds and grasses that lined them. This Cinnamon Teal seemed even more striking than usual by contrast.

It wasn’t as green on the northern end of the refuge, though this is the first time in several years there’s been any water there. Like the fawn, this Meadowlark stood out against the green background.

It appeared that the refuge managers haven’t flooded parts of the refuge that are usually flooded, making it harder to predict where to find birds you’ve seen in the past. I wondered if managers were intentionally draining some ponds to help eradicate the carp that damage the habitat. Whatever the reason, wildlife seemed more dispersed than in the previous two or three years because there is more water available, a good thing for the wildlife even if not quite so good for photographers and bird watchers.