Taojones

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).

This is a rest stop about an hour outside of Burns, Oregon. We stopped here to stretch our legs and to take in the scenery. This patch of highway offers views that seem to stretch out for miles.

Once we got to Burns, we found a our little bed and breakfast which I think must really be the pride of the town. It’s called the Sage Country Inn and it is very pleasant.

We are staying in the “Cattle Baron Room” which is supposed to be the room where all the boys slept. This little tidbit is relevant to my stay because one of those boys is a colleague of mine.

I don’t know what I expected, but the place is really just a cute room, There are no Foghat or Ted Nugent posters on display from his formative years (or Raquel Welch for that matter). There is a case with some antique guns inside and a small collection of old coins and bills. There is a dress hanging int he closet that hearkens back to an earlier time in American history.

Tonight we ate at Linda’s Thai Room in downtown Burns. We chose it because it was really one of the only places open. My advice, is to go into a meal at the Thai room with an open mind. It’s not the same Thai food they serve where I come from. Also, think hard about how hungry you are. We were unable to eat everything and the Waiter seemed disappointed that we couldn’t take any of the food home,

I’m looking forward to an early day tomorrow heading out to get some birding in before we report to our next hotel. I’ll keep you posted.

It’s hard to work very hard when the sun is out. Sometimes, I allow myself to get distracted when I am supposed to be hard at work. “Say, are those buds about to bloom? Maybe I should take their picture”

Reach for the sky, a photo by Tygh on Flickr.

…or, “Hey, is that branch broken? Maybe I should go get a paperclip and fix that – and then take its picture.”

Prosthesis, a photo by Tygh on Flickr.

So when the sun goes down, it is a little easier, but concentration is an art and a discipline. Vacation is coming up soon; more on that in my next post.

Yesterday, I took off from work a little early and headed up to Saddle Mountain in the coast range. I had a couple of motives for heading up there.

The first thing I wanted was to get out of the house. The second reason was that I wanted to test some network gear that – at least theoretically should allow me to get work done in the evening while I am out of town next week.

I’ve thought about this a lot. I don’t have to report anywhere for my job, I simply need to be able to access my VPN and be able to put in a good 6-8 hours a day on the various projects I am working on.

So in my head, I’ve been thinking about maybe planning a bit of a road trip; see the Grand Canyon, see the great lakes, drive all the way down the coast – both coasts.

I don’t know. This idea could very well be one of those ideas that sounds like a great idea until you try to put it into practice.

In the end, the technology yesterday worked great, but these were the challenges:
1) I ended up spending three hours on the road and once I got there
2) There was off and on rain which made it difficult to be productive.
3) when it wasn’t raining, there was considerable glare on the computer screen and this made it difficult to see.

All of these issues can be addressed. As for the mileage, this just needs to be accounted for in the plan. The other two issues can both be addressed with a good umbrella.

Just thinking here.

She thinks I should cut back on the sodium, and thinks I should get more sleep. That’s her job.

Watching, a photo by Tygh on Flickr.

Once upon a time, I hated starlings. These birds are really aggressive and ferocious. They eat everything in their destructive paths, evict other cavity nesters and make life generally difficult for native species.

A starling will devour a cake of suet in about the same amount of time it takes to put a new one out. The rudeness of these creatures is just appalling. …and there is never just a single starling. In my early days of birding, I was at a loss for how to control our local population of these demons.

Somehow during all this, it dawned on me that the existence of a pellet gun, along with the skill to use it could potentially address the problem. I had been an expert marksman in the military and I was confident that I had the technical ability. On the other hand, I was also a vegetarian who was appalled by what I felt was unnecessary cruelty at the center of the way we produce food.

In retrospect, it was a ridiculous notion. Making a dent in the population would have required a pile of starling bodies that would have made Buffalo Bill blush. I’m going to skip to the end of this story and tell you that I made no such pile of carcasses, but I didn’t take the high road either.

There was a single starling casualty at my hands. It was supposed to be clean and simple… a single shot and one demon less. I don’t want to go into the details of what happened, but I am compelled to write that the ferocity these birds show at the feeder is a reflection of the way they cling to their lives. An animal that will fight a dozen other birds for a scrap of food is not going to just die quietly.

Underestimating that animal’s tenacity was a hard lesson for me. I gained a respect for the individual, and the species that will always be a part of me. I still don’t like wasting bird food on them, but once in a while I allow myself to stare back at a starling and I am haunted by the knowledge of its fierce heart beating within.

 

I love the way the light reflects off of the wild roses in the field behind our house. We haven’t had enough sun this year and so when there is a break in the rain, I like to go out and take a few pictures.

This was a moment when everything was still wet from the last downpour and the clouds cleared long enough to make all these new leaves glow in front of me.