My long awaited trip to the Malhuer National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon commenced on April 22.  My memories of eastern Oregon as part of the Great Basin Desert were renewed…miles and miles of sagebrush.

Road across E. Oregon desert (Not the Oregon in the travel brochures!!!)

Lake Abert-A shallow salt lake in SE Oregon

Sand dunes in Oregon along Hwy. 395

Arriving in Burns, OR where I stayed I immediately went to check out the refuge and was disappointed to find the spring migration had not yet occurred and there were few birds in the ponds and the tress had not yet leaved out.

Overview of Malheur NWR pond

 Still, my primary goal was courting sage grouse and I wasn’t disappointed. Although the courting are (lek) area had burned over last year, there were still 4 remaining males showing off their stuff.

Sage grouse strutting area (lek)

Sage grouse-Puffing out the air sacs on their chests, they emit the sound like a large bubble bursting.

Sage grouse

Sage grouse highlighted with rising sun

All along the route, starting in NE California I saw individual pairs of greater sandhill cranes.  This pair, just east of Burns, were the most photogenic.

Sandhill crane-Normally gray, the adults acquire a rust-color to their plumage during breeding season.

Although few and scattered, the ponds provided some opportunity for shorebird and waterbird photos of the early arrivals.

Avocet

Black-necked stilt

Franklin’s gull

Eared grebe

Yellow-rumped warbler

Left Burns a day early and returned home via Hart Mtn. Antelope Refuge.  Lots of gravel roads; sagebrush; very few animals.  What I saw was:

Lots of sagebrush

2 Pronghorn bucks

Herd of mule deer

Swainson’s hawk

Turkey vultures

A stop in Alturas at Subway for a Subway Club and then on home.

For birders and nature photographers a wildlife refuge is like Disneyland is to an eight-year old.  Having spent many joyful hours in the wildlife refuges in this country all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts and from Alaska to Texas and Florida I can vouch for that.   President Teddy Roosevelt started it all over 110 years ago when he designated Pelican Island in Florida as the first national refuge.  Certainly…their existence may be a symbol of “big government” but I’d hate to see if there’d be anything left at all if the federal and state governments hadn’t stepped in to halt the developers.  Today there are over 540 National Wildlife Refuges covering all 50 states and 40 in California (I’ve made it to half of them) where there are also over 100 State wildlife areas.   I’d have to concede our national parks, monuments, forests, refuges and other public facilities depict a heavy dose of beneficial socialism.

Where I now live there are at least 6 refuges just about an hour from the house.  Leaving an hour before sunrise, I stop at Starbucks to fill my travel cup with Pikes Peak Roast, and then on to a refuge.  Most of these are popular waterfowl hunting areas during the fall and early winter but even during hunting season there are large areas where the ducks and geese can rest out of the hunted area and have good roads and trails that circumvent them.  During most of the year it’s just bird-watchers and photographers out there and if I get there at dawn I’m usually back home by noon with a card full of images and miss the bulk of the late-sleeping visitors.

Other refuges required a bit more travel, some by car; some by air.  But I’ve been from the Kenai NWR in Alaska to the Lower Rio Grande NWR in Texas, the Chincoteague NWR in Virginia to the Key West NWR in Florida and even a couple in the Hawaiian Islands.  Obviously I didn’t do photography in all of them but now that I’ve got more time (although increasing aches and pains) I hope to add many to my list through my photography.  As of now, here is a sampling:

DELEVAN NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

Gadwall

Mallard

Shoveler

Pintail

Widgeon

Cinnamon Teal

Blue-winged Teal

Ringneck Duck

SACRAMENTO NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

Avocet

Black-necked Stilt

Killdeer  

Great Blue Heron

Red-tailed Hawk

Marsh Wren

Black-tailed Jackrabbit

GRAY LODGE WILDLIFE AREA

Bald Eagle

American Egret

Pied-billed Grebe

Glossy Ibis

Snow Geese

White-fronted Geese

Raccoon

Muskrat

ELKHORN SLOUGH WILDLIFE AREA

Ruddy Duck

American Merganser

Bufflehead

Western Grebe

Red-winged Blackbird

European Starling

Wow!  South Africa was 4 months ago and I finally completed cataloging all my photos.  I photographed 166 different bird species (although I have to admit, there were many shots that were “just for the birds.”)  But, here’s a few of cream of the crop of the arboreal species and the final installment of my African adventure.

African hoopoe

Yellow-billed hornbill

Lilac-breasted roller

European bee-eater

Blue waxbill

Golden-breasted bunting

Dark-capped bulbul

Common scimitarbill

Red-billed oxpecker

Go-away bird

Green pigeon

Magpie shrike

Common fiscal

LOTS OF STARLINGS,

Wattled starling

Violet-backed starling

Blue-eared starling

Red-winged starling

AND LOTS OF WEAVERS

Yellow weaver

Red-billed buffalo weaver

Red-headed weaver

Masked weaver

Thick-billed weaver

…and now on to Ecuador in July!

Now it’s waterbirds !  Those fresh water species we photographed while visiting 4 different “hides” (blinds in US terms) plus several other ponds, lakes and rivers.  The hides allow very close-up images of most birds although a few keep their distance.

KINGFISHERS

Giant Kingfisher

Pied kingfisher

Brown-hooded kingfisher

African pygmy kingfisher-About the size of a goldfinch

HERONS

Goliath heron-the world’s largest

Gray Heron

Black-headed heron

Hamerkop

Shorebirds, etc.:

Pied avocet

Three-banded plover

Blacksmith plover

Spotted thick-knee

Little grebe

African black rail

Lesser flamingo

LAPWINGS

Wattled lapwing

Senegal lapwing

White-crowned lapwing

DUCKS & GEESE

Egyptian goose

Spur-winged goose

White-faced duck

Cape teal

Yellow-billed duck

The next group of birds will be those I call the ground birds…the ones that spend most of their time on the ground as opposed to in the trees or primarily associated with water. 

Ostrich-Obviously the biggest.  Lots of them in the south but only a few in Kruger.

Lots of ostrich chicks.  They have communal nests so it wasn’t rare to see 20-30 chicks in a group.

Maribou stork-A scavenger. 

Regularly seen along the river banks and at predator kills.

Saddle-billed stork-Pretty rare, this one was fairly tame within one of the camps.

Yellow-billed stork-These use one foot to stir up the water and flush fish, frogs and insects out of the mud.

Blue crane-A year-round resident in the grasslands, especially the cultivated grain fields.  Absolutely beautiful!

African openbill-Strange beak, open at the sides.  I wonder why.

Black-bellied bustard-It is found in woodland and tall open grassland in South Africa. It prefers high rainfall and in many areas occurs only following heavy rain.

Southern black Korhaan-Found in dry coastal fynbos and karoo scrub. 

Helmeted  Guinea fowl-Common everywhere we went.

Swainson’s spurfowl-Spurfowl are also known as francolin.

Burchell’s Coucal-A predatory cuckoo; it’s call, like water dripping, is thought by the natives to signal a rainstorm, thus they call it the Rainbird.

African hoopoe-A major player in Michner’s The Source, the hoopoe was chosen as the national bird of Israel. In Leviticus (11:13–19) hoopoes were listed among the animals that are detestable and should not be eaten. 

Red-billed oxpecker-Regularly seen picking bugs off the hides of giraffes, rhinos, large antelope.

Yellow-throated longclaw-Looks like out meadowlark, huh?  A great example of convergant evolution (but what the long back claw is for I can’t tell you).

Kurrichane thrush-Looks and acts much like the robin.  All over South Africa…lawns, parks, etc.

Cape wagtail-Ubiquitous.  Much like the thrush.

This is a poem written by my ten-year old grand-daughter, Hope, for a school assignment on writing a poem on “I Am.”

Ahhh…where to start with the birds!  So many; so different.  I guess I’ll again go from the sublime to the ridiculous and begin with my favorites, the raptors…eagles, buzzards, vultures, owls.

According to my field guide there are 59 species of eagles, hawks and falcons; 9 species of vultures and 12 species of owls in South Africa.  Obviously I didn’t see all of them and my photos of several were too distant to blow up and publish.  Still, I felt very lucky to get images of the 15 I did get.

Bateleur eagle: The name, bateleur, is French for “street performer.”  The rocking motion of the bird in flight resembles a high wire walker keeping his balance.  A smaller eagle, we had several opportunities at these birds fairly close to the road.

Martial eagle: The largest eagle in the area, about the same size as our golden eagle.

African fish eagle: A smaller eagle but the favorite of the South Africans.  Many people have its unique call recorded as their cell phone ring.

Steppe eagle: A medium-sized eagle, fairly rare in the area we visited.

 Brown snake eagle: A small eagle found mostly in treed savanna.

Tawny eagle: A medium-sized eagle, previously thought to be a small steppe eagle.

Pale chanting goshawk: We saw lots of these, especially in the drier desert habitats.

Lizard buzzard: Hawks are called “buzzards” in SA.  This one is unique in its pale feathering.

Rock kestrel: Similar in coloration but much bigger than our kestrel.

Eurasian hobby: A small falcon migrating in from Europe.

Lappet-faced vulture: A huge vulture with a wing-span up to 9 ½ feet.

White-backed vulture: A smaller, but more common vulture.

Pearl-spotted owl: A very little owl.  This one was quite tame.

Cape eagle owl: Much like out Gt. horned owl.

Barn owl: This species is found all over the world except in polar and desert regions.