Category: Malheur Wildlife Refuge

Luckily, not everything that happens in life fits into neat categories. So, as much as the English teacher in me likes to retell my trips in thematic units, it always turns out that some of my favorite photos don’t fit any of my preconceived notions.

I’d never seen a Solitary Sandpiper

at Malheur on my many trips, but this one was impossible to miss.

Nearly all the White-Faced Ibis

I saw on this trip were too far away are too deep in foliage to get a decent picture, but this lone ibis flushed right in front of my camera.

I go to Malheur to see birds, but on this trip I fell in love with these

two wildflowers

on my last stop before leaving for Tule wildlife refuge in Northern California.

I’m probably more fascinated by Black Terns than you, but since I spent much time trying to capture these Black Terns in flight I thought I’d at least share a few of my shots. Luckily, it was a sunny day and I was able to get some good in-flight shots, like this one

and this one where the tern started hovering as they typically do.

Of course, even terns have to land occasionally (though not usually when I’m around), and that’s the best time to get a clear shot of them.

I really couldn’t see what they were trying to catch. I’m not even sure what is in this bird’s beak; it looks too big to be a bug and too small to be a fish.

Judging from how hard they hit the water, though, I thought that they had to be fishing. It’s hard to remember that just a few years ago I thought terns only frequented the ocean and I had never heard of a black tern.

Though I’m not sure if the results justify it or not, I spent more time and effort getting these shots of a swan family than any of my other shots. When I first spotted the family, they were on the other side of the pond, too far to get a really good shot with my 400mm lens.

So I hiked around the lake, only to discover in the meantime that the swans had moved to the opposite of the lake next to the road where I had started. So I spent nearly an hour wading through the wetlands when all I had to do was stay put.

Not complaining, though, since this is the first time I’ve ever managed to get a shot of swans with cygnet. In this shot the parent (with the dirty neck) was pulling up roots and feeding them to its offspring.

Photographically speaking, I wish one of the adults didn’t have that ugly green band around its neck,

and it would have been nice if the sun hadn’t been directly behind them the whole time, but this family portrait is better than most group shots I’ve managed to get of all my grandchildren at one time.

If you can’t get shots of American Avocet chicks, I guess the next best thing is to get shots of Swan cygnet.

With the lake about a third of its normal size, there weren’t a lot of ducks at Malheur on this trip, but there were still a variety of ducks offering good photographic opportunities if you were patient enough — a quality I’m not particularly noted for.

I was actually a little surprised to find so many Northern Shovelers there since they’re a wetlands bird, but there were as many of them as any other kind of duck and I like both this shot

and this shot,

though I definitely prefer the action shot.

I was definitely looking for Ruddy Ducks since I seldom see them in the Puget Sound area and because I’d gotten some of my best shots ever at Malheur. There were several in these wetlands as I pulled up, but I only managed a shot of this one

before they all disappeared into the reeds.

I saw a lot more Cinnamon Teal on this trip than I’ve seen in the past, but they always insisted on silently disappearing into the reeds where it was impossible to get a clear shot of them.

This shot of a pair of Northern Pintails bursting out of the water as I drove down the road was my favorite duck shot of the trip, though.