Mountainous Marion County

A sunny and rain-free weekend was all we needed to take a mini getaway. Itching for dryer times, we headed east towards Central Oregon. But first, we had some cleaning up to do in our home county (Marion).

Detroit Lake

Detroit Lake

Canada Goose enjoying some sun

We had been getting eBird needs alerts for Marion County for some really cool stuff, so we took the opportunity of a nice weekend to try to fill in some gaps. Marion County is interesting as it stretches from Salem to the Cascade Mountains, maybe 80 miles or so across at its widest point. So this makes for an interesting list of birds you can get. We’ve been wanting to tackle the eastern end of the county to pick up some mountain species that we can’t get in other areas of Marion county, and that’s just what we did.

Tumble Creek

Pine Siskin

We hit up the Detroit lake area and stopped at one of our favorite little trails, Tumble Creek Trail. As soon as we got out of the car, we found some Red Crossbills hanging out high in the conifers! These crossbills were the first of the year for us. Minutes later, we walked towards the head of the trail from our car and flushed TWO Mountain Quail! LIFER!!! We cautiously tried to relocate them as they scurried under the bridge. We quickly crossed the road and saw them just below us. The morning was a bit dark and cloudy, so lighting wasn’t perfect, but the view definitely was just about as perfect as we could imagine! These birds are notorious for being hard to find, so we just could not believe our luck.

Red Crossbills silhouette

MOUNTAIN QUAIL!!!

Notice the lovely "tiger" striping on its flanks

That face, though...

We watched one for a couple of minutes before the two of them flew across the creek. We were totally stocked to SEE these birds. We thought if we would ever find them, we’d only hear them. And to get these clear views of them was absolutely amazing. The rest of the trip was just going to be sprinkles on top.

Its little head feather is like a tiny sword

We next headed to Detroit Flats where there is a small trail along the lake. This tiny area is a great spot for Flycatchers, and that’s just what we got. Our Empid ID skills were put to the test, and we still weren’t 100% sure about all of our sightings. We felt really good about identifying Gray Flycatchers with its yellow lower mandible and tail pumping. And we usually felt pretty good about IDing Dusky Flycatchers, but we could not confirm if we had a Hammond’s Flycatcher.

Gray Flycatcher

Dusky Flycatcher

Dusky Flycatcher

We had never spent so much time looking at and discussing primary projection than we had with these empids. (Hahaha!) We kept going back and forth saying: “Are they long enough? Does the tail look short to you? They look kinda long, but not SUPER long. Its head looks round – no, now it looks like it has a crest. Does it look like it has a clear vest? Why won’t it call or sing?! Oh forget it, just put down empid sp.” And that’s how it goes sometimes. If you have any wisdom you’d like to share, please do!

Empid sp.

Empid Sp.

Empid sp. Cresty and vesty, but the primaries didn't seem long enough for Hammond's

Our last stop for our Marion County hit list was up on Byers Peak. On our drive on the windy road up the hill, we found a Townsend’s Solitaire – county bird! We didn’t get too much else up there, but we had exact coordinates to find a Sooty Grouse, and we were successful! Yet another lifer! We only heard this little trickster. We tiptoed around this steep little pullout trying to get a visual, but it was not going to happen. We could just hear its low "hoots" (and feel them in your chest), but we could not locate this darn bird. Sometimes it sounded like it was behind us, and other times right in front of us, and we’d be standing in the same exact spot looking in one direction! We recently saw that someone posted a photo of one up in a tree, and we did not even think to look up. It did not cross either of our minds that a Sooty Grouse could be up in a tree! It was probably sitting up above us, throwing its voice and giggling at us weirdos.

Townsend's Solitaire

You can see the ruby crown of this Ruby-Crowned Kinglet! Now summering in the Cascades.

Wilson's Warbler with his adorable toupé

We moved on to Sisters before spending the night in Bend. We stopped at Calliope Crossing and picked up a couple of Calliope Hummingbirds. We also found a few more Red Crossbills that confused us at first as the flock we saw had only juveniles. From a distance, the streaking on the body threw us off, and it took us a second to realize those weren’t just chunky Pine Siskins.

Juvenile Red Crossbill

You get a better look at the bill crossing in this pic

Our go-to spot at the Best Western in Sisters reliably turned up White-Headed Woodpecker and other mountain species including Pinyon Jays, Pygmy Nuthatches, and Mountain Chickadees. There’s a water trough were the little birds like to go drink, and I love that someone had the brilliant idea to nail a little wood board that goes down into it that now allows the woodpeckers to scoot down in there to get a drink.

Female White-Headed Woodpecker

Male White-Headed Woodpecker going down for a drink

We drove to our delightful AirBNB home for the night. It was a perfect little spot with great mountain views and, get this, alpacas!!! That may or may not have been my main motivation for booking this place. Plus it had adorable sheep, little lambs, and chickens. It was a perfect way to end a fantastic day. More from our next day in my next post!

Alpacas, sheep, and little lambs!

I'm in love with this alpaca face! Best AirBNB!

Can't forget the fluffy chickens!

View of the mountains from our AirBNB

A Bird Bonanza in Bend

In late April, one week after returning from Malheur via Deschutes County, a White Wagtail was reported in Bend. We were still recovering from a jam-packed weekend in Eastern Oregon, and didn't especially feel like retracing that part of our route so soon, but… a White Wagtail? We were powerless against the allure of a dapper Eurasian vagrant. It turned out that the bird didn't stick around long enough for us to have to worry about it, but then we'd begun daydreaming about all those Deschutes County breeding birds, so we started planning a weekend trip anyway.

Target numero uno was Green-tailed Towhee: a would-be lifer, and a bird I'd wanted to make a concerted effort to track down this year. We left after work on a Friday, and arrived in Sisters that evening to look for the Towhees in Deschutes National Forest. This patch of forest looked like the place where trees to go die, and we made slow progress trekking over the terrain as we climbed over old, fallen tree trunks. But there was plenty of places to perch, and offered terrific visibility. One of the first birds we found was a distant Lewis's Woodpecker on a very distant snag. There was plenty of Towhee's around -- Spotted Towhees out in the open the way we wished the Green-tailed would appear. We did catch the decent looks at a handful of Thick-billed Fox Sparrows, though (lifer sub-species!).

View of Mt. Washington from Deschutes National Forest

(Thick-billed) Fox Sparrow

Maureen was having better luck with the Towhee's than I was, and they always dropped out of sight before she could put me on them. It must have happened four or five times that she called them out, and then they'd vanish. At least I could hear them "mew"-ing around me, but with the light fading, I was starting to get desperate. Then just as we were heading back to the car, we tracked one down that popped up right in the open, 10 feet away, and starting singing it's heart out! We thought this would have been our best (only?) bet for Green-tailed Towhee's this trip, but the very next morning, we found ourselves serenaded by a pair shortly after stepping out of the car amid a vast, open expanse of sagebrush. But the most salient, and numerous, birds were the dozen or so Gray Flycatchers, singing, and tail-dipping all over the place. 

Green-tailed Towhee

Gray Flycatcher

We did swing by Hatfield Lake, where the wagtail had been seen. We didn't have any hopes that it had stuck around and eluded everyone else for the past two weeks, but the place is otherwise renowned for vagrants, and would be an easy place to pick up all sorts of waterfowl. We ended up taking a trail that turned out not to be a trail, and flushed something huge that flew off a short distance. We tracked it down, and soon found ourselves face-to-face with a Great Horned Owl. Also along the trail / not-a-trail was a beautiful Nelson's Hairstreak that was intensely committed to a particular Pale Wallflower. We suspected it was laying eggs, but couldn't find any after it flew off. 

Great Horned Owl

Just a neat-looking tree

Nelson's Hairstreak

Next on the agenda: woodpeckers. We got a tip about some spots to look for Black-backed Woodpecker, and some spots for Williamson's Sapsucker. We gave the sapsuckers a go, and were rewarded with brief but spectacular looks at a female flycatching. One foray brought it right out over our heads! Not bad for our first encounter.

Williamson's Sapsucker

Iris

Western Fence Lizard? Sagebrush Lizard? I can never tell them apart

We thought we would head to Smith Rock SP the next day and pick up White-throated Swifts, but the place was absolute chaos. We arrived about 10 minutes before they set up for a half-marathon. We were faced with either leaving immediately, or getting stuck there. We opted to leave for Sisters, and were glad for it. But not before a quick stop at Cline Falls SP where we had a nice Prairie Falcon circle overhead for a few minutes.

Prairie Falcon

Some cool fungus

More cool fungus

Common Garter Snake

Our first stop in Sisters was Calliope Crossing, for, what else? Calliope Hummingbirds. We met a couple who hadn't seen them where they're usually found, but we managed to find something special on our own. After establishing that the buzzing that blew past us was definitely a hummingbird, and not a bee, we tracked it to its small, silken nest. What luck! 

Calliope Hummingbird

Townsend's Warbler

Friendly and interesting bugs kept landing on us in Sisters to our great delight. Clockwise from left: ribbed pine borer, mayfly, giant stonefly

Then on to Cold Springs Campground, where a pair of White-headed Woodpeckers was still busy preparing for nesting season. The male was doing all the excavating, while the female was farther off calling to check on his progress. His brief reply seemed to say, "yeah, yeah - I'm working on it." His industriousness outlasted our visit, and he was still hard at work by the time we left.

White-headed Woodpecker getting down to business

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