Nature

May 31, 2026May 30, 2026

Rainy Days

Being retired allows you to pick and choose the activity, as well as the day.

The crux of this is . . . we avoid weekends and holidays, regardless of how nice the weather.

Not to begrudge the wage slaves their Memorial Day weekend, but as the campsites started to clear, the dark clouds rolled in.

Tuesday arrived blustery and gray, so by midweek the storm clouds had bunched up overhead and the rain moved in. This dampened our plans. But being resilient, we shifted to more home oriented projects and waited for the inevitable sun’s return.

Last week’s trip to Portland netted us a stack of light fixtures and accent pieces for our ongoing house update. Sooo . . . we spent some of those rainy days installing stuff.

Evening thunderstorms roll through, usually moving north or west along the eastern side of the Cascades. The sky opens up and for a few hours there is sunshine.

Summerlike weather is returning to the forecast next week, so we’re planning accordingly.

For now, we keep working through our house projects.

May 17, 2026May 16, 2026

The Edge of Summer

Snowmelt fills the small ponds along Cascade Lakes Highway.

It got 80 degrees out this afternoon, but the day started just above freezing.

It’s a time between lingering winter storms and full on summer heat . . . the shoulder of summer to lean on.

Upper Deschutes River was clear of snowpack early this year

School is still in session, vacationers are at minimal numbers, and the weather is typically sunny, but nearly always dry. This year we’re able to get into the Cascades nearly a month early.

That will likely come back to bite us before summer’s end. For now, we pull on a sweater as we leave the house, knowing it will be shed when the day warms.

The aspen’s leaves have started to obscure the tiny song birds queued up for a turn at the feeder.

Rabbit Brush, an invasive species, carpets the pine forest with bright yellow . . . for a few weeks in the spring

Small yellow blossoms cover the rabbit brush, so the wooded lot across the street has a golden carpet for a few weeks.

There are wildflowers coming up on the canyon walls and pretty soon the wild iris will add patches of light purple to the riparian.

Birds are paired and fledglings are starting to join in the swim or take flight.

All too soon we’ll be hunkered under broad brimmed hats and tucked into whatever shade we can capture from the junipers.

But in these few weeks we are at peak outdoor time and intend to enjoy every minute

May 10, 2026May 9, 2026

Spring Birding Trip

Trying to put a name to what we just saw

Our first spring visit to Summer Lake was this week. It’s not much later than normal, but this has been anything but a typical wiinter/spring transition.

Regardless, it’s a great half-day drive.

Lord of the reeds . . . Yellow-headed Blackbird

Oregon is a premier birding state, not because of a single site, but because there is such a diversity of habitats.

Coastal rainforests, mountain meadows, and sagebrush steppe all situated on the Pacific Flyway.

How do they manage that perch? Red-winged Blackbird

Central Oregon is on the northern edge of the Great Basin and offers a number of alkali marshlands as ideal birding sites.

Most people think of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge when you mention birding the high desert. And while that’s a massive reserve, at 187,000 acres, it’s not our top pick.

Perhaps the more common song in the marshes . . . Red-winged Blackbird

The Summer Lake Refuge has about 29 thousand acres and an 8 mile loop road skirts around the central marsh ponds.

This narrow gravel track offers up excellent access to viewing areas right from one’s car.

As suspected, there wasn’t a great number of birds . . . groups of waterfowl and some shorebirds. JQ grabbed images of most of them.

It was a perfect spring day, mosquitos were at a minimum so we could enjoy a tailgate lunch and tour with the windows open.

There are bound to be a couple more trips to the Summer Lake, as well as Abert Lake and points east.

Hopefully . . . before the real heat of summer starts to bake the sagebrush steppe.

May 3, 2026May 2, 2026

Tail Waters

We spend a lot of time on rivers. Usually Spring brings a rise in water levels. There is always a period ahead of this surge as temperatures warm and fishing is good.

Then one settles in to wait for run off to end and river flows to return to a fishable level.

Seemed to be casting knots rather than flies.

The Crooked River is a tail-water, meaning it flows out of a dam, which also means that the levels are more regulated. This bit of control has a positive effect on late spring run-off.

This year’s minimal snowpack means there will be a marginal rise to levels. It will become a problem in September when the reservoir dries up, but for now it makes for good fishing.

Caddis flies are food for Buntings as well

This week’s trip to the river was not particularly productive on the fishing side.

There is a Caddis fly hatch timed for the first part of May . . . Mother’s Day Caddis . . . which is just getting started. So maybe next week.

Lark Bunting, known for their flight displays and song

There was a marked increase in bird activity. Of course the Canada Geese and a variety of ducks bobbed in the water and settled on the banks.

We also got to watch a Kingfisher fishing. We added a new species to the list. Though not unusual for the area . . . a Lazuli Bunting was spotted and regaled us with song.

Sighted, also, was the Methuselah of butterflies, a Mourning Cloak in fringed black, was sunning in the willows.

This species overwinters, living for up to ten months which is a couple of lifetimes for a regular butterfly.

Warmer mornings are on tap for the future and the forecast is partly cloudy at worst.

The heat of summer will be on us all too soon, but for now we continue to take advantage of these beautiful spring days.

April 26, 2026April 25, 2026

Just Another Week

There was a noticeable absence of media coverage for Earth Day 2026. As advocates for wild spaces this was not unexpected . . .

but still . . .

Federal support is being systematically reduced and eliminated and that should be a red flag.

American White Pelican

We’d like to encourage readers of this blog to engage in a bit of keyboard advocacy supporting wildlife and wild places.

It’s actually easy and effective to write your representative, their connections are a browser search away.

Our week was very low key.

Summer colds and house projects took up most of our energy. Lists of books read really isn’t blog post worthy. Neither is writing about what was accomplished.

Tip, 14 years old this month and an excellent travel companion

We’re pretty sure you aren’t interested in what got checked off a ‘to-do list’. Understandable . . . we managed to use the time to re-energize.

Of course we did work in a trip to the river. The fishing was not that great, but weather was perfect, lots of birds flying round. Mostly we sat by the river and relaxed. It was nice.