Tag: Summer Lake Refuge

Over the course of a week we picnicked on three different rivers. It was a busy week  .  .  .  at last.

The week also contained Jack’s birthday. We won’t pretend celebrating was limited to a single day.  With upcoming posts we’ll catch you up on the state of spring fishing in Oregon.

Getting older gets easier, but there remains a sensitivity to being reminded of the fact. On a recent internet scroll , I hit a meme that suggested a natural outcome of aging was  .  .  .   bird watching .

That stung a bit.

The thing is  .  .  .  we sort of do bird watch.

We make regular pilgrimages to Summer Lake’s Wildlife Refuge, known for its birding. We have identified most of the regular visitors to trees that surround our house. And, if a raptor should perch nearby, all activity ceases. 

I guess that counts as bird watching and as birders we suggest everyone try it.

The Summer Lake spring birding trip also occurred this week. There was a crowd.

Well  .  .  .  in reality a ranger, a group of bird watchers and an older couple from Prineville. But that was 8 more than we saw on the winter visit.

A typical wildlife refuge greeting opens with,  “you seen anything unusual”? This makes it easy for someone to assess your level of interest and birding acumen .

Our depth of knowledge was tested with the Snowy Plover gaffe of 2023 when we learned to always have a copy of Sibley’s bird book readily at hand.

There weren’t a lot of ‘new’ faces paddling around, just greater numbers. We’re not the counting kind of birders. There are no notebooks. There are however, lots of images, many shared in this blog.

On this trip a muskrat swimming along the dike actually got more attention than an Avocet, a Pelican rookery or Grebes diving.

It’s more of an interest in nature than birdwatching per se. The trick is to just slow down, which so happens is exactly what one does as they get older.

The South Central portion of Oregon holds the northern part of the Great Basin. The Great Basin is North America’s largest area of contiguous endorheic (internally drained) basins.

Two hundred thousand square miles dotted with lakes and streams that don’t flow to any ocean  .  .  .  it’s a hydrological land formation.

The Wasatch mountain range defines the eastern edge while the Cascade and Sierra Nevada range define it’s western side.

Death Valley and the Mojave Desert mark the southern point and a few hundred miles into Oregon from Nevada is the basin’s northern portion.

The off-shoot of being basically a closed system is these basin lakes are typically shallow, alkaline and circled by marsh lands.

At least historically  .  .  .  currently these lakes are disappearing, drying up, which is not good news for anyone, and particularly for migratory birds.

Oregon’s portion of the basin includes a chain of lakes at the foot of Hart Mountain and west over Abert Rim sits a long valley holding Abert and Summer Lakes.

The refuge on Summer Lake was our destination this week.

We’re trying to get one more birding journey in before it turns into a duck hunter’s trailer park. This week we got to watch Egrets come and go.

There was a small squadron of American White Pelicans, along with thousands of water foul; ducks, geese and swans.

What we try to accomplish in the fall is a final trip across the northern dike road before it’s closed for the season.

This narrow track of gravel cuts between two large ponds with a view unobstructed by reeds and with Fremont Ridge as a background.

Most likely we won’t be back until the spring migration starts.

Though if we see a string of warm winter days, it is worth a trip to catch a photo of a resident heron, local raptor, or even one of the many cold season song birds.