Malheur NWR: Day 2

The rainy and cloudy days of late this fall season have us reminiscing of the sunny days of late spring/early summer. After a full first day at Malheur NWR, we were rested and ready to hit the country roads again in search of what other awesome things we could find. 

Brewer's Blackbird

Female Yellow-Headed Blackbird

We awoke to the haunting, mechanical sounds of the Yellow-Headed Blackbirds. And as we stepped out of our teepee to enjoy our cold, quick breakfast before heading out, we noticed some movement in the hot springs pond behind us. There were two lovely American Avocets lurking in the foggy mist blanketing the pond. We gazed upon them as they elegantly swished there slender up-turned bills to and fro in search of food.

We were already off to a great start and couldn’t wait to get out and really get our marathon birding in. Once again, Highway 205 gave us some cool birds on our drive to the refuge headquarters. Using our car as a moving blind, we were able to get some nice up close views of Willets and a Long-Billed Curlew out in the fields along the road. I never cease to be impressed by their long, curved bills that could seem so cumbersome, but yet is wielded with such poise. 

Willet

Long-Billed Curlew

As we continued to drive, we halted suddenly and kicked it in reverse when we came upon quite a sight. Not only did we see two statuesque Sandhill Cranes, but they were in the middle of a confrontation with a nearby coyote! One of the cranes lifted and stretched out his wings, making himself appear larger and quite intimidating as he approached the coyote head on. The coyote didn’t appear to be afraid, but did seem to come to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to be worth the fight to take on these large birds. He casually kept walking in the direction of the cranes – the two parties agreeing to go on about their business. Amazing.

The confrontation. The coyote contemplates his next move with his tongue sticking out.

The Sandhill Crane's wings widen.

The negotiation.

The final resolution as they part ways.

When we go to Malheur NWR headquarters, we were greeted by a number of sunny little Yellow Warblers. The feeders again hosted lovely male Black-headed Grosbeaks. 

Watch out for swallows on the bridge!

Yellow Warbler

Black-headed Grosbeak

Red-winged Blackbird

We headed back to the water to see what we could see. Before we got to the blind, a handsome Lark Sparrow stopped us in our tracks as he hopped just feet away from us on the ground, allowing for nice views of his stunning plumage. Once back at the water, the Black Terns again dazzled us with their dapperness and smooth, gliding flight.

Lark Sparrow

Black Tern - under

Black Tern - over

Two Black Terns hanging out on a log

As we walked around the grounds of the headquarters a bit more, we heard and caught sight of a couple of Cassin’s and quite a number of Warbling Vireos. However, what stole the show were a couple of stealthy birds that were actually quite visible. A Common Nighthawk perched on a branch, sleeping the day away and only casually opening his eyes every once in a while as crowds were gathering to gawk at him. (And I do mean crowds. This place was like birder Disneyland!) 

Warbling Vireo

Cabbage White on Lilacs

Common Nighthawk

We moved on just a little bit farther down the path to find another crowd forming to view a Great Horned Owl that was nesting in a tower on top of a hill. Even one of the fuzzball babies made an appearance later on taking a look at all the fuss of birders.

Great-horned Owl

Mountain Cottontail

We continued on our way to check out some new spots around the refuge, including P Ranch where we saw a very uncommon Least Flycatcher that had previously been spotted. It did its distinctive “che-bek” call. We also picked up our first state Bobolinks there! 

Mourning Cloak

Black-tailed or Mule Deer

Abandoned Swallow nest under a low foot bridge

We then moved on to Page Springs Campground and were inundated with half a dozen Yellow-breasted Chats! This was quite unusual, for us anyway, as we usually only see (or hear) one, maybe two, in one place. It was otherwise pretty quiet there, so we started making our way back to our home base, making what we thought might be some quick pit stops.

Yellow-Breasted Chat

House Wren

Likely a Montane Vole? Or maybe Long-Tailed Vole?

We had heard that there were sightings for Short-Eared Owls in a field just off what was called “The Narrows.” We staked out the area for quite some time, enjoying the sights of some Say’s Phoebe. We were close to giving up after about 30 minutes of scanning the large open fields with no luck. But then, we saw our target bird! A Short-Eared Owl glided like a Northern Harrier over the grassland in search of prey as dusk was coming upon us. Whenever it would land, it seemed to just disappear in the tall grass. But for a few heavenly moments, it landed on a perch just above the grass line. It was a glorious 5 minutes or so as we looked so intently on this beautiful owl that we had only previously seen in the dead of night with a flashlight.

Say's Phoebe

We just couldn’t tear ourselves away watching this gorgeous owl through our scope. And just as we were feeling so fulfilled by this sighting, a Long-Eared Owl decided to join in the game… Incredible! This was also a lifer for us, so we lingered even longer as the light faded because this was just too amazing to step away from. They seemed to be content circling in their own patches of the grassland, but at one point, they did come face-to-face in a little, very short-lived tussle.

Short-Eared Owl

White Pelican flock

It was getting darker by the minute, so we decided it was finally time to jet to get back to our teepee to revel in another amazing day at the refuge. Malheur had other plans for us, though. We stopped at a tiny little pond in front of a large group of very loud cattle to find 36 Wilson’s Phalaropes swirling and whirling away! They not only fed upon whatever was in the water, but they would also look up and snap their bills at the bugs flying around them, catching them like Mr. Miyagi with flies. These gorgeous birds were in their full breeding plumage that we could barely appreciate as darkness was coming upon us and we were pushing the light-gathering capabilities of our optics to the max. Finally, it was time to go, but what a way to end the day!

Wilson's Phalarope

Phenomenal Frenchman's Forest

Nick and I were recently referred to a nice little hidden gem of a birding spot in North Palm Beach County - Frenchman's Forest Nature Preserve. We've hit up this spot a couple of times before and had some nice variety of birds, but nothing was as awesome as this past weekend. As we have come to find out, it was fabulous birding all over South Florida. I guess it was as close to a fallout that we've had in years! And we didn't even get even close to what some other folks had in other areas, but we still had fabulous birding, nonetheless. 

Florida Box Turtle

Florida Box Turtle closing up his flap

We got to Frenchman's Forest around 7:30am on Saturday, and right away we were having some great luck in the parking lot with some nice warbler species, including a much better look at a Magnolia Warbler than we've had before. The first and only one we saw before was very tattered and worn and not a great specimen, visually. We also had our first of several sightings of the tiny, adorable Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

Female American Redstart

Our luck continued as we walked along the trail, seeing a total of 9 warbler species. The most numerous were American Redstarts (mostly female), Northern Parula, and Black-throated Blue (again, mostly female). The female Redstarts dominated our day. It seemed like 90% of the time we saw a small bird, it was a female Am. Redstart. They seemed to almost tease us with their little fanned tails flitting about. Another nice sighting were a pair of Yellow-billed Cuckoos. We flushed one out right away as we walked by the low tree where they were perched. And the other one stuck around just a little while before flying away with it's hard-sounding flap. 

Male Pileated Woodpecker climbing a tree

Male Pileated Woodpecker in a diagonal pose

Pileated Woodpecker silhouette

Male Pileated Woodpecker in a horizontal pose

As we made our way around the trail to a small boardwalk, we found ourselves in birding heaven! Warblers and vireos (Red-eyed and White-eyed) were flying back and forth across the boardwalk. A gorgeous Pileated Woodpecker showed off his beautiful red crest as he clung to the trees with its great claws and gave us some wonderful up-close looks. 

Pileated Woodpecker with his tongue sticking out

My best Pileated Woodpecker pic yet!

Pileated Woodpecker taking off

And to our surprise, we also found two female-type Rose-breasted Grosbeaks - a LIFER! We didn't know what they were right away since this was our first look, but my main descriptor for them was that mighty, mighty bill. And just as we were trying to re-locate the grosbeaks that had flown back in the mangrove trees along the boardwalk, I spotted another lifer - a Swainson's Thrush! Nick and I had thought we spotted a couple of them the week before at Frenchman's Forest, but we couldn't get a clear ID. But there was no doubt with this look. It was a time of redemption! 

Female Rose-breated Grosbeak

We had such an amazing day, and we were just wrapping up our walk, when we saw a larger bird in our peripheral view fly into a nearby tree and land on a large branch. If we hadn't seen it fly, I'm almost certain we would not have seen this bird. It appeared to be a juvenile Common Nighthawk (the bold white markings missing). It was perfectly still and blended perfectly with the mottled color of the bark. We took our time to get good looks, and I got some nice shots before we flushed it out as we continued on our path. 

Juv. Common Nighthalk

Juv. Common Nighthawk getting sleepy

And just as we thought we were ending our already great day, we stopped at a pair of tall live oaks that were teaming with life. Amongst the little bodies was THE roundest Cape May Warbler we've ever seen. He was definitely fattened up for winter. He looked like a golfball with a beak! And to clinch the great day we already had, we found yet another lifer - a Yellow-throated Vireo! We could not believe our luck and we had to practically tear ourselves away.

Great look at how the Nighthawk's colors blend so well with the bark

Juv. Common Nighthawk

But we didn't stay away long. We had such an amazing day at Frenchman's Forest that we decided to help ourselves to seconds the next day. And what a day that was as well. We had a quick look of the majestic Peregrine Falcon as it flew overhead. And we had some nice looks at both Painted and Indigo Buntings. 

We also added five more species of warblers to our weekend, including TWO, count them, TWO lifers! Ahhh! It was amazing! We hit this one area of the trail that was just swarming with warblers. A fully fruiting strangler fig tree was host to an all you can eat buffet for these little guys. We must have spent a full hour in just this one spot looking at this one tree and sometimes at the two trees directly on either side. Nick got a glimpse of what he thought was a Golden-winged Warbler, and my initial thought was this couldn't be, but I trusted him and we waited and waited for it to reappear. And then like a bolt of lightening, here comes a gorgeous, perfect specimen of a male Golden-winged Warbler! We got a great look at him for about a minute before he was gone and not to appear again that day. But he was amazing. And as we later found out from a South Florida birding pro, this was one of several sightings in Palm Beach county, and the last time they were spotted in the county was in 2003! We have no pictures to show for it, but we have the wonderful memory of this gorgeous warbler forever in our minds. 

Ovenbird - One of many warblers we saw

Another look at the secretive Ovenbird

And another day of epic birding at Frenchman's Forest ended with another redemption bird, the Scarlet Tanager as you have read in Nick's previous post. What a great migration in South Florida we've had so far! Heavy clouds and rain kept all of these amazing warblers and migrants grounded for days, and most of them took off later in the week when a shift in the winds moved them out by Thursday, Oct. 20. Just looking forward to more migrants and wintering birds to come.

Osprey with a fish

Osprey tearing the flesh of his fish breakfast

Below is a list of most of the species for that weekend (not including the regulars) with SIX Lifers: 

Yellow-billed Cuckoo    

Common Nighthawk 

Osprey

Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
White-eyed Vireo
Yellow-throated Vireo (LIFER)
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Swainson's Thrush (LIFER)
Gray Catbird
Black-and-White Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
American Redstart
Cape May Warbler
Northern Parula
Magnolia Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Palm Warbler
Pine Warbler
Golden-winged Warbler (LIFER)
Tennessee Warbler (LIFER)
Yellow-throated Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Ovenbird
Rose-breasted Grosbeak (LIFER)
Painted Bunting
Indigo Bunting
Peregrine Falcon
Eastern Phoebe
Scarlet Tanager (LIFER)