Our back yard is looking more wild now. Not everything we planted has filled in exactly as planned, but all of the plants and shrubs provide considerable concealment for the birds scavenging on the ground.
There were about a half dozen song sparrows scurrying around today and they seemed to be using the ground cover to hide from me. They were looking out, but they to stuck to their cozy little spots under the leaves. They weren’t singing, just quietly chattering with each other.
I am sitting outside working and a female Anna’s Hummingbird came along. She did not appear to notice me. She buzzed around my head and eventually went over to the Honeysuckle and delicately checked out every little flower petal. For a few moments there was some jousting with a bee (bombus perplexus) and then she sat for a minute on a tiny stem with some blossoms on the end.
She was a very good looking hummingbird with not a feather out of place. What a nice visit.
I was doing a little yard work today. I know, it’s Father’s Day and my orders were to relax and take it easy, but I wasn’t exactly slaving away.
Within a couple of minutes of starting work, I found the biggest frog I had ever seen. Some water accumulated in the tarp I was using and the frog apparently was attracted to the bugs in the dirt along with the water.
Even all scrunched up, the bullfrog was bigger than my fist. I caught him and put him in a bucket so that I could take his picture. Once we had that out of the way, I put him back and there he stayed until I tried to move the tarp back over the soil.
That move spooked him and away he hopped.
So I had an extra photo of this Wilson’s warbler that I printed and thought it would be fun to make a little shadow box out of it.
I still have a ton of real work to do, but maybe that’s what inspires me to do little things like this on the side.
At my last place of employment, there was an enormous amount of time spent on training. One thing I noticed was that getting actual work done generally seemed more fun than doing the training… maybe that was the business being smart. 😉
Yesterday began with the usual unexpectedness that I have enjoyed here at the refuge. We decided to walk along part of the closed central patrol road over to Benson Pond. This was a productive birding spot last year and we were looking forward to what might be waiting for us this time.
As soon as we pulled out of the cabin area, I caught a glimpse of a weasel not much bigger than my fist carrying some furry gray ball. We stopped and got some pictures. To my surprise, the weasel’s prey was still alive and needed to be subdued a couple more times while the pair posed for photos.
Storm clouds patrolled the whole valley as we made our way up to the point where we would start our hike. They could be seen with wispy tentacles of rain falling on the sage below. We knew we were taking a risk, but we had enough rain gear and warm clothes to get through a pretty mean squall. When we arrived at the closed gate, we could see one of the larger storm clouds headed right for us and so we waited it out. I remember commenting that if I weren’t such a lazy ass, we’d have been half way to Benson Pond when it hit us.
There were no other humans, but mosquitoes and fly catchers, two other levels of the food chain were abundant along the way. There were so many mosquitoes that I started to doubt my place in the natural order. If we were bitten enough times, would they find our dessicated, bones in the summer after the road reopened?
We survived, and we enjoyed the hike. We even saw a Great Horned Owl and a couple of owlets in a lofty nest.
In the evening, we took another hike up the river trail that started near the P Ranch. Along the way, there were Bobolinks, which I’ve never seen anywhere but here. Their call has kind of a metallic tinkling quality that I love. I also saw a pair of Red Winged Blackbirds antagonizing a pair of Sandhill Cranes. At one point, one of the large Cranes Lashed out in frustration at his tormentors. I almost felt sorry for it even though he was likely threatening a nearby nest.
We’re driving towards Burns now and will be leaving the area after we get some breakfast. I have really enjoyed myself here and it was good to let go of work for a bit. I’ll be back to the grind tomorrow, for now, I’m taking in the amazing scenery and looking for wildlife darting in and out of the sagebrush that lines the highway.
This is where I have started each day this week. My wife and I have a cup of coffee or two, or three (the cups are small) and a little breakfast. I sleep later than she does and so she’s typically ready to head out much earlier than I am. I haven’t shaved since Saturday and I’m beginning to look a little grizzly. She took this picture of the cabin. The notebook computer on the ancient sofa-bed is the one I am typing at right now.
Apart from the computer, we brought a little connectivity technology with us. It’s a Samsung wireless hotspot that works on the Verizon network. I do get an AT&T wireless signal here (which is better than what I get at home), but I have found the Verizon network to be much more complete. We don’t get into many patches where we can’t post an e-mail or check Google for the answer to a question, or get directions, etc, etc. Is that a good thing? Well, I think it’s kind of a security blanket.
I was under the illusion that I would be getting a little work done while on vacation. Well, I must say that this hasn’t exactly panned out. We are out watching birds all day and then at night we are going through maybe 300 photos and picking the ones we like the best. Then I have tried to make at least a short blog post before going to bed… and I am tired here much earlier thanks to all the activity.
Today, I thought about Pete French. He was a successful rancher who founded Frenchglen. I wondered aloud whether I would have been the kind of rancher that he was. He had a lot of innovative ideas inspired by the challenges of the job. I imagine he was easily distracted from the traditional work of ranching as his attention went to irrigation and designing barns that allowed horses to be exercised indoors during bad weather.
I didn’t take many pictures today. One thing I did capture, was a shot of this American Avocet who decided to land near our car. We were parked beside Pete French’s round barn near a small inland sea which wasn’t there last year (the sea, not the barn). Did I mention that there has been quite a bit of flooding this year?
I also got a shot of a hail storm approaching us as we walked around a huge volcanic crater. Can you see our vehicle outside the crater rim at its lowest point?
I wanted to mention, that my wife is getting a lot more comfortable with the camera now and I think she is starting to have a lot more fun. She’ll probably tell the story of the frustrating Horned Lark that nearly broke up our marriage, but I have to say, she has taken some impressive shots over the past few days including birds in flight.
Capturing a bird on the wing is extremely difficult unless it is hovering right in front of you like a hummingbird. If it’s a raptor or a tern, for example, you need the long lens or you won’t get the detail you want. This just makes it really difficult to aim, focus and hold it all steady so that is isn’t just a blurry smudge when the shutter opens.
While she is focusing her attention on one of the glamorous, winged creatures fluttering around us, I still use my point-and-shoot camera to take in a few close-ups or some scenery shots. The little Panasonic still takes brilliant pictures. It imparts some character to the pictures it takes that make it special to me. The way it handles light sources, for example is really compelling. It gives them a soft, warm glow. The short focal length is also well suited for shots like this one.
I should get ready for bed. Tomorrow is our last full day here and I know we are going to try to make the most of the time we have.
I got sunburned yesterday. It wasn’t unbearably hot, but it was sunny with a few fluffy clouds floating around. Today started with a gray looking sky and it sort of went downhill from there. It was overcast all morning and while we were walking out along the highway, in a cloud of mosquitoes, looking around for the site of a reported burrowing owl, the rain started to fall.
On the bright side, that seemed to take care of the bugs, but we never found the owl we were looking for, and we ate lunch in the car alongside the road south of Burns. Scanning all the while for little flashes of colorful or interesting birds along the side of the road and out to the horizon.
One thing we did see along that highway, was a small body of water that was buzzing with acrobatic birds. I don’t know why they had concentrated on this tiny, temporary lake, but swallows and black terns were zipping around snapping up insects. They were amazing to watch and didn’t seem to be bothered by the rain at all.
After we headed further south, we pulled off near Buena Vista Viewpoint and it was as if we had the entire refuge to ourselves. We could only take pictures out of the leeward side of the car because the other side was being pelted with horizontal raindrops. We did get to see an American Bittern which was a first for us. My wife photographed it. We were both looking at it and thinking “oh my… um… um.. ” and then she says “Give me the picture… taking… thingy!” She plans to post this later and I’ll make sure you have a link to it when it’s available.
We returned to our cabin and there was a brief period of sunshine, so we quickly suited up and went for a walk down to the campground. By the time we returned, it was about 8:45 PM, nearly dark and hailing on us.
It feels good to be back in this warm, but drafty cabin again. The wind is blowing hard and I have to wonder if I am going to have power for long.
This blackbird was looking cute in a clump of yellow flowers and then all of the sudden, he lifted himself off the ground. This seemed to change is personality quite a bit.
Later in the evening, we saw one of these guys harassing a pair of Sandhill Cranes. Despite the huge difference in size, the Blackbird was not backing down.
Right now, I am holed up in a little trailer on the Blitzen River outside of Frenchglen, Oregon.
The cabin is rustic, but it’s a lot more convenient than camping. Given that the rain has been coming down intermittently, this was certainly a good call. Reliable cover, heat, electricity and a bathroom with a flush toilet… not a bad deal.
These little swallows are nesting right near by. They apparently form large communities because there is a whole swarm of them in this area and we saw another large group over by Buena Vista (about 30 miles to the North).
