Catch-up Blog #2: Central Oregon

June 17-21, 2015

From Bozeman I flew to Redmond, Oregon, via Seattle. On the way from Seattle our pilot banked the jet so those of us on the right side had this amazing view of Mount St Helens.

I then had a couple days to visit some friends in central Oregon. Wayne and I (his wife Patty, my high school biology teacher, couldn’t make it) found three Blue-gray Gnatcatchers on the north slope of Gray Butte in Jefferson County on an short excursion my first afternoon. It wasn’t quite as rare as I thought it must be here, with records dating back 20 years from this same area. The habitat looks right, with scattered Western Junipers among a thicket of antelope bush and sagebrush that have a chaparral-like structure.

This Mylitta Crescent was one of the fiew butterflies we saw.

This is the amazing view Wayne and Patty have of the Crooked River valley.

Wayne and I also birded Hatfield Lake (the only sewage pond named after a congressman?), where Eastern Kingbirds were a good find, plus many ducks and four Greater Yellowlegs. I was later told that this was only the 11^th record of Eastern Kingbird for Deschutes County. Then my friend John and I made an attempt for Boreal Owls above Todd Lake, departing at 2:00 a.m. on Friday. We heard no owls, but it was a lovely night, and it was fun to hear the dawn chorus of Hermit Thrush, Varied Thrush, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Dark-eyed Junco, and Chipping Sparrow.

The views of Mount Bachelor were stunning.

Back at the parking lot Gray Jays appreciated the almonds I had brought along for my snack.

John and I birded along the Deschutes River for most of the rest of the morning, highlights being a family of Bufflehead, this Red-breasted Sapsucker…

… and this surprising American Redstart, a second-year male.

Then came my two days of leading field trips for the Dean Hale Woodpecker Festival, which I’ve done for the past couple of years. In order to look for Black-backed and American Three-toed Woodpeckers, we check burns, which often host several other species as well

In this burn we found a pair of Black-backed Woodpeckers, and on the second day we returned and found their nest.

At other stops we had Williamson's Sapsucker, this one a juvenile male…

…White-headed Woodpecker, an adult male…

…and Downy Woodpecker, this one also a recently-fledged juvenile.

We didn’t look at just woodpeckers – there were plenty of would-be lifers for the participants among the other birds. This Hermit Warbler was new for some people.

The most unexpected bird on our first day was this very worn Red-shouldered Hawk, which we first saw fly through the trees and disappear, but then found soaring high overhead. It eventually became a small speck in the sky and drifted off to the west.

Scenery and wildflowers were abundant. This is Mount Washington, carved by many glaciers during the last couple hundred thousand years.

This is Erythranthe lewisii, Lewis's Monkeyflower. What used to be Mimulus has been carved into a few genera based on genetic studies that agree with older morphological data.

This is Platanthera dilatata var. dilatata, White Bog Orchid.

Catch-up Blog: – Yellowstone National Park

It’s way past time for a update on my comings and goings, and there was a lot of it in June. I’ve now been in Chiapas for two days, and stuff I want to share are starting to accumulate already, so before it becomes hopeless, here are a few posts to catch up.

June 15-16, 2015

After the WFO meeting in Billings, I spent a couple days visiting my friends Jeff and June in Bozeman, whom I first met during my year in Freiburg, Germany 25 years ago. They treated me to a day’s drive through Yellowstone National Park, my first time there.

We saw lots of interesting geological scenery.

Here I am at a viewpoint for the Lower Yellowstone Falls.

And yes, there were lots of people. We enjoyed the eruption of Old Faithful geyser with all of these people, for example.

There were the usual elk, bison, and a few nice birds such as this Mountain Bluebird.

A pair of Tree Swallows were apparently nesting in a cavity near the bluebirds.

This American Dipper was unusually cooperative.

A lone American White Pelican was eyeing the large red trout at LeHardys Rapids, here stretching its beak.

What appears to be a black malar streak on this male Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s) is an artifact – it’s an extremely brief separation of feather tracts due to the bird’s motion or a brief erection of the feathers.

You can see the black lores on this “Mountain” White-crowned Sparrow (ssp. oriantha), the subspecies that breeds in the region and migrates through Arizona.

There were few butterflies, but I managed a photograph of this Polites themistocles, Tawny-edged Skipper.

Here we all are at LeHardys Rapids.

On my second day we took a much shorter excursion west of Bozeman to the Headwaters of the Missouri River State Park, which is actually the confluence of the Jefferson, Madison, and Bozeman rivers down in the valley. Near here we stopped in some habitat that was quite unlike anything I had ever seen before.

And in it I heard my first song of this Clay-colored Sparrow, a bird I knew until now only from its winter grounds.

Other birds we saw here were Gray Catbird, Sandhill Crane, Song Sparrow, and at the nearby park this Cedar Waxwing.

I finished my first week ever in Montana with a state list of 122 birds. Next I was back to Oregon.

Western Field Ornithologists in Billings

Here are some photo highlights from the past four days of field trips for the Western Field Ornithologists 40^th annual meeting in Billings, Montana, my first visit to this state.

Our first morning on Emory Road

Baird's Sparrow

Brewer's Sparrow

Chestnut-collared Longspur

Escobaria vivipara, Spinystar

Long-billed Curlew

McCown's Longspur

Looking for Mountain Plover

Mountain Plover adult and chick

Northern Flicker hybrid

Pronghorn

Sage Thrasher

Another morning’s field trip

Sprague's Pipit

Upland Sandpiper

White-tailed Jackrabbit

Gambell Cooked and Birded

Here I am in Billings during the Western Field Ornithologists membership meeting, adding to my brand new Montana state list with McCown's and Chestnut-collared Longspurs, Upland Sandpipers, and Baird's Sparrows, yet I'm still reeling from the week long WINGS tour to Gambell which finished already a full week ago tomorrow morning.

We flew from Anchorage to Nome with this amazing view of Mount Denali from my window.

Then I cooked and baked up a storm,  3 1/2 meals a day for 15 people for a week. For the first four days I did not set foot outside but was on my feet in the kitchen for 19-22 hours each day. It was a rewarding time for all.

Towards the end of the week I found time go to birding. I came across White and Eastern Yellow Wagtails, a Common Ringed Plover, and many singing Lapland Longspurs and Snow Buntings. On the next-to-last evening, I had time to walk to the far end of the Near Boneyard and caught up with the Eurasian Skylark that had been found earlier that day. Then I heard a report of a dull kinglet-like warbler from two of our participants, Ethan and Alex, who were still energized at 10:30 p.m., as was I.

A bunch of birders converged on the Far Boneyard and failed to turn up any warbler, but I saw three or four Gray-cheeked Thrushes then flushed this oddity from a group of boulders from above the boneyard. These photos I snapped are probably the best anyone got, and it was never seen again. It appears to be a Dusky Thrush of the western subspecies, split by some as Naumann's Thrush, though there is a hybrid zone, and this may be one of those pesky hybrids. It's a very rare vagrant this far east in any event.

Then then next morning the assembled group re-found the previously seen warbler, and it tuned out to be the 5th North American record of Siberian Chiffchaff. I had been packing kitchen supplies and making an inventory of our food to be boxed up and stored while preparing breakfast for the group (including the best sticky buns one participant said she had ever had), and when I had a chance to escape, Gavin came to give me a ride, and we located the bird again when I got this photo.

I also took this shot of Jon Dunn in the foreground photographing the Chiffchaff, while in the background on either side of the left wind-powered generator you can see the mountains of the Russian Chukchi Peninsula rising above the horizon.