Birding

February 1, 2026January 31, 2026

Backyard Habitat

Winter has settled in around us. At the moment, the snow has melted, replaced with a bitter cold and freezing fog shrouds the mornings.

The snow will eventually fall, as will the cold snap break. It is full on winter in Central Oregon.

As I look up from the keyboard to watch morning replace dawn, there is a new addition to the courtyard . . . just beyond the office window.

Between an aspen tree and the house is a bird feeding station. More to the point, an 8-foot metal pole twisted into the ground and adorned with various means of offering food to the local wildlife.

Up to this winter, we have not been feeding birds at this house. At previous dwellings, we had multiple feeding stations. What changed?

In time we took note of our surroundings and started to look more closely at the space around our small home.

This past summer we made additions to the pergola over a southside patio. This turned in to more time spent sitting outside.

Then this winter we started opening the window blinds in our office space. A trio of thirty foot evergreens screen a small courtyard from the alleyway.

An offset of the garage wall from the main house makes up the other two sides of a semi-private space. There is a 20-foot aspen sitting about six feet away from our office window.

This grove of trees offers resting perches and homes to a variety of small song birds. They were joined this fall by a pair of Scrub Jays, who added to the frenetic display.

As we spent more time looking outside, we noticed a couple of large gray squirrels carting whole shelled peanuts from a neighbor’s feeding station.

Hour after hour they scurried across our yard, over the road, and into the wooded lot to the east of us. It just seemed like a good time for us to get in on the action.

Maybe it’s an old age thing . . . but watching little balls of feathers dart from branch to ground and back is relaxing.

Plus , we’re keeping them fed when food sources are scarce. and temperatures dip. It feels great to help our backyard neighbors.

September 28, 2025September 27, 2025

Shifting to Fall

A Blackbird perches effortlessly on bare tree branches

It’s Fall. The equinox was this week and the weather has cooled. Just yesterday we had our first frost.

It’s not snowing, yet . . .

Mornings are still mild and we continue to have warm days ahead, but still, . . . it’s feels like Fall.

The trees around our house fill with a different species of songbird nearly every week. A gang of Jays has been stalking the area and V’s of Canada Geese honk their arrival overhead.

Before duck season fills the parking sites with RV’s, and chains close off loop roads, we like to make a seasonal visit to Summer Lake.

It’s just an hour’s drive, so if there’s no activity, we’re not giving up much of the day. That was not the case this day.

The refuge was filled with activity and a wide variety of birds.

Year around there’s a least one Squadron of Pelicans, a Great Blue Heron, some raptors, and a smattering of the hardier song birds to populate the marshes of Summer Lake.

Then, a couple of times a year, seasonal migrations bump those numbers and bring in a lot of different species. These are ideal times to visit.

Before we even got to the refuge, there were a couple of Sand Hill Cranes resting in a field along the road. We spotted a few more pairs at various points during our regular loop drive.

A pod of pelicans float by a Great Blue Heron

In managing the refuge there is a seasonal shifting to water levels in the various ponds. In the fall it seems the ODFW attempt to give hunters some easy access points, but also offer more protected spaces.

On this trip the pond on the west side of the dike loop road had just a thin layer of water. This seemed to be just what the shore birds wanted. The place was filled with a huge variety.

Refuge managment means shifting water levels

Once again we enjoyed the space without any other people. This makes it easy to stop on some of the narrow roads to get a photo or put the binoculars on an unfamiliar group of visitors.

We’ll be back, of course, but not before winter takes hold and then it will be a very different landscape . . . beautiful in a different way.

August 31, 2025August 30, 2025

Eye of a Storm

The week started with a wildfire burning east of Redmond and headed for Sisters, with another one burning north near Oakridge.

Both of these conflagrations managed to spread plumes of smoke over the area . . . well, actually it was fickle wind patterns.

Dry fly presentation over a morning hatch on the Crooked River

In the middle of these smoke-filled days, there was a trip to the Crooked River. Opportunity pushed Prineville outside an “unhealthy” AQI (Air Quality Index) shading on the weather map.

Apple Weather and Watch Duty get regular scans on our phones . . . tracking wildfire activity and air quality.

The Crooked is a welcome respite from thick smoke-filled air and fishing was good too. It is the height of summer season and the lush vegetation, juniper trees and snags are busy with bird activity.

A young Osprey is getting better at hunting, eating, and keeping the gang of Magpies at bay. The Magpies really are a marauding gang. At any point a dozen of them swarm over the trees.

Off to grab another of his 3 to 5 fish per day diet

With just a skreech from one, a few more come flying. They menace the Osprey but don’t really do much damage . . . if you don’t count making meal time stressful.

Our day begins before the sun hits the water. All morning I’ll fish over the caddis or mayfly hatch.

By noon activity on the river’s surface has tapered off. By now it’s getting hot, even in the shade, so we pack up and head home.

Tip napping in the shade of an old juniper tree

The Apps suggest that smoke will wane in the next couple of weeks, so that’s good news.

We’ll wait till the Labor Day crowds thin before venturing back out.

July 27, 2025July 25, 2025

High Desert Mornings

Early morning light glitters across this expanse of river

The pace of our lives is not brisk and our days of multitasking projects is long past.

That’s not to say we’re idle. Quite the opposite, as summer gets up to full blast our weekly schedule fills up.

Along with more excursions, come early starts. It’s all part of getting into summer.

The High Desert in this season can be oppressively hot from noon to sun down. To counter this, we are out the door at first light . . . conversely, back in the house by mid-afternoon.

A young Western Kingbird sports a mix of juvenile plumage and adult feathers

This week’s trip to the river was highlighted not by fishing, though that was good, but by a proliferation of fledgling sightings.

A Magpie flock harassed this juvenile Osprey trying to enjoy his catch.

A young Osprey was getting a lesson in Magpie gang warfare.

There were moments when we thought the Magpies would succeed in getting the young Osprey’s meal.

In the end, he finished the fish and brought back another.

A Western Tanager dives down to catch insects mid-air

A group of Western Tanagers were also spotted. Likely a stop on their migration to either the Cascades or Ochoco range.

The sighting is a rare treat, not only because of their brilliant colors, but also they only spend a few days in the canyon on their summer jaunt to the mountains.

Black-billed Magpie

We also got treated to a family of Redwing Blackbirds.

It appeared to be flight practice. We observed the family hopping along the tops of willow bushes at the river’s edge.

Often these trips are filled with long stretches of sitting quietly, watching the natural world move around us. Morning hours seem to be a good time to get the most of that activity.

May 11, 2025May 10, 2025

Central Oregon Tour

We put a lot of miles on the Subaru this week . . . kind of a Central Oregon tour.

Summer has come on with a vengeance, but the rivers are still running too high to fish. The alternative is checking on places where we will be fishing soon.

High Desert spring green is short lived.

The Deschutes River canyon is dressed in spring colors . . . green and yellow. there are still a couple of weeks before the rafters take over. We hope we can work in a fishing excursion before then.