Birding a new (but close) area!

Today I met with a small group to inspect a new area managed by the National Wildlife Refuge system in the Klamath Basin. The host was Mike Johnson, Manager for the Klamath Marsh and the Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuges. I was invited by Seth Anthony, Dennis Taugher, and Kyra Eberle of the Klamath Trails Alliance. They are interested in developing hiking trails across the north end of the Klamath Basin. The refuge system sees this as an opportunity to open a large new area to the public for low key use, i.e., birding, hiking, biking, horseback, etc. I was the bird watcher representative, specifically for the Klamath Basin Audubon Society.

The area is basically the marshes and diked areas to the west and southwest of the Wood River Wetland. Below are the bird species and estimates of numbers observed there today. As you can figure I registered the count on eBird and emailed it to myself. The count was good, especially since the weather was not real good and we were actually moving faster than I normally do when counting birds:

USFWS Barnes Agency property, Klamath, US-OR May 26, 2012 10:20 AM - 1:20 PM

Protocol: Traveling

Comments:     We were driven out by Mike Johnson, the USFWS Refuge Manager, to the starting point about 3 miles SW of the Wood River bridge, and 4 of us walked back, with one diversion down and back a dike, for a total one way of about 4 miles. Weather was broken heavy clouds with some sun breaking through, yet sprinkles, windy, and temperatures in the upper 40's to low 50's.

Total of 49 species:

Canada Goose  30

Gadwall  15

Mallard  25

Cinnamon Teal  6

Northern Shoveler  4

Redhead  4

Ring-necked Duck  8

Eared Grebe  10

Western Grebe  4

Clark's Grebe  8

Double-crested Cormorant  12

American White Pelican  8

Great Blue Heron  1     Notable due to scarcity; one seen flying over while I was driving away.

Great Egret  2

Black-crowned Night-Heron  4

White-faced Ibis  8

Turkey Vulture  6

Osprey  1

Bald Eagle  3

Red-tailed Hawk  1

American Coot  10

Killdeer  4

Black-necked Stilt  10

Black Tern  10

Forster's Tern  30

Mourning Dove  2

Downy Woodpecker  1

Western Wood-Pewee  3

Black-billed Magpie  3

Common Raven  2

Tree Swallow  25

Bank Swallow  30

Barn Swallow  4

Marsh Wren  25     Estimated count by ear, some seen.

American Robin  2

European Starling  2

Cedar Waxwing  6

Common Yellowthroat  1

Yellow Warbler  10

Savannah Sparrow  10

Song Sparrow  4

Lincoln's Sparrow  2

Red-winged Blackbird  40

Western Meadowlark  2

Yellow-headed Blackbird  20

Brewer's Blackbird  6

Brown-headed Cowbird  10

Bullock's Oriole  1

American Goldfinch  1

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org )

Good and bad nature news.

This week I discovered that something had gotten into the wild bee hive in one of our owl boxes, torn off the lower side, and there was no sign of live bees on the comb.

Also, a couple weeks ago we found enough Barn Owl feathers to believe that something had killed one of the pair of our Barn Owls. Great Horned Owls would be highly suspect and are known to kill Red-tails and other raptors. We do hear Great Horned Owls occasionally. The good news is we found that one of our owl boxes is occupied by an adult and I can see at least one wobbly half-grown chick through the entrance hole.

There was a pair of Bullock's Orioles coming to the hummingbird feeder in our kitchen window of our cabin, beautiful!! Several hummingbirds have been coming of several species, including a brightly colored male Anna's Hummingbird.

I noticed a Mountain Chickadee on the ranch on Tuesday. They are fairly common here anytime of year and we get an occassional Black-capped Chickadee. You have to get into the Cascade Mountains, about 20 miles west to see the Chestnut-backed Chickadee.

Weekly Synopsis of Birds seen on the Lonesome Duck and the area.

Last Sunday there was a Townsend's Solitaire giving its little one note call on the ranch. We get them mostly in late fall and winter. This time of year they are mostly higher in the mountains (again, we are at an elevation of 4,150 feet).

Monday & Tuesday a Whiteheaded Woodpecker was seen a couple of places on the ranch. Hopefully, it will find a mate and they will be here all summer.

Tuesday night it was calm and pleasant. We slept with only the screen between us and the outdoors. I can often hear fish, beaver, and other things splashing in the Williamson River from our upstairs bedroom. Often we also hear owls, especially Great Horned, and coyotes. This night I got a surprise, a Sora Rail on the river! This is unusual habitat since we do not have their usual marshy habitat on the river close to the cabin. Possibly it was migrating along the Williamson River. We do have good habitat for them in a wetland in our north pasture.

On Thursday a Red-breasted Sapsucker was hanging around our cabin. We also have lots of Pygmy Nuthatches and an occasional White-breasted Sapsucker.

Today I went fishing back in the Fremont Mountains almost 50 miles to a place along the Sycan River. I did not catch any fish, only seeing one small one in an area where they can be over 2 feet long. However, it was a great break into the backwoods and I saw Mt. Bluebirds, Canada Jays, Clark's Nutcrackers, deer, Ravens, Mallards, etc.

A Birdwatching Trip

Yesterday some of the ranch guests wanted to do some birdwatching. Four guests and I went out for just over 4 hours in the north end of the Klamath Basin. We birded and discussed the natural history along Modoc Rim, along the Williamson River delta and Agency Lake, spending some time at Wood River Wetlands, and finishing up at Kimball State Park. Special objectives were the huge White Pelicans and Sandhill Cranes. We did not see any Sandhill Cranes this time but did see the pelicans and many other birds and a few other creatures like muskrats. A sampling of what we saw:

    Pied-billed Grebe

    Horned Grebe

    Western Grebe

    Clark's Grebe

    American White Pelican

    Double-crested Cormorant

    Great Egret

    Turkey Vulture

    Canada Goose

    Wood Duck

    Mallard

    Bufflehead

    Osprey

    Bald Eagle

    Red-tailed Hawk

    Golden Eagle

    American Kestrel

    California Quail

    American Coot

    Black-necked Stilt

    Forster's Tern

    Mourning Dove

    Steller's Jay

    Black-billed Magpie

    Common Raven

    Tree Swallow

    Northern Rough-winged Swallow

    Barn Swallow

    Cliff Swallow

    Marsh Wren

    American Robin

    European Starling

    Yellow Warbler

    Song Sparrow

    Red-winged Blackbird

    Western Meadowlark

    Yellow-headed Blackbird

    Brewer's Blackbird

    Brown-headed Cowbird

    House Finch

    American Goldfinch

It was a good day.  :)

Week ending report of birds, etc.

With the return of nice weather this week lots of activity kicked in. We have a wild bee colony in one of our owl boxes. The bees became very active traveling out to such blooms as Klamath Plums and Serviceberry (which are blooming even more now). Many more wildflowers were coming up and preparing to bloom. Lots of butterflies emerged even though it was still dropping below freezing early in the week.

American Goldfinches have joined Lesser Goldfinches at the feeders and the first Bullock's Orioles of the season showed up and will hang around, nesting mostly in the Aspen and Cottonwoods on the ranch. Here's some of the other birds observed on the Lonesome Duck Ranch through the week:

    Double-crested Cormorant

    Great Egret

    Turkey Vulture

    Wood Duck

    Mallard

    Cinnamon Teal

    Bufflehead

    Common Merganser

    Bald Eagle

    Red-tailed Hawk

    Golden Eagle

    California Quail

    Killdeer

    Spotted Sandpiper

    Mourning Dove

    Barn Owl

    Anna's Hummingbird

    Calliope Hummingbird

    Belted Kingfisher

    Lewis' Woodpecker

    Northern Flicker

    Steller's Jay

    Western Scrub-Jay

    Common Raven

    Tree Swallow

    Barn Swallow

    Cliff Swallow

    Black-capped Chickadee

    Mountain Chickadee

    Bushtit

    Pygmy Nuthatch

    House Wren

    Western Bluebird

    Townsend's Solitaire

    American Robin

    European Starling

    Yellow-rumped Warbler

    Spotted Towhee

    Song Sparrow

    White-crowned Sparrow

    Black-headed Grosbeak

    Lazuli Bunting

    Red-winged Blackbird

    Yellow-headed Blackbird

    Brewer's Blackbird

    Brown-headed Cowbird

    Bullock's Oriole

    Cassin's Finch

    House Finch

    Lesser Goldfinch

    American Goldfinch

    Evening Grosbeak

Mischievous squirrel and more Yellow-headed Blackbirds

Large numbers of Yellow-headed Blackbirds came to the feeders this week. This is a spring phenomenon in the Klamath Basin, especially if you are near a lake, or on a river aligned with their migration corridors like here on the Williamson. They almost reach nuisance levels, especially since we keep feeding them. But it will be over soon and we will not see very many the remainder of the year unless you go to the marshes where they nest and spend the summer. Good places around here will be the marshes along the west side of Upper Klamath Lake and Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuge about 25 miles north of here.

I have earlier mentioned the Wood Ducks that come into the yards of our cabins here on the river, especially our cabin, appropriately named “Wood Duck.” I have also mentioned earlier the Western Gray Squirrels that also come and seemed to like to have the ranch Labrador retriever, Lori D, chase them. Well here are a couple of short happenings. If you look closely at the photo above you will see one of the squirrels, the gray blob at the base of the feeder. They seem to ignoring each other at the time, the squirrel even seems to be using his tail as kind of an umbrella with all the bird activity around. Now see this photo:

I was trying to get a photo, through our window as above, of a pair of Wood Ducks approaching our cabin. About the time I shot the squirrel came charging at the ducks. It looked playful on the squirrel’s part, but, although the Ducks hurried out of the way without flying, they did not seem amused.

Now Lori D has a bad limp to her right rear leg. She was out chasing the squirrel again and it appears she sprained her leg. We checked for a bite but there is none and she doesn’t act like it, just a sprain. Mark up another one for the squirrel.

Friday, Suzie and I drove out the Sprague River Valley all the way to the Mitchell Monument of the Japanese Balloon bomb of WWII. It’s about 11 miles east of Bly. It was a day of sunshine and clouds racing over the greening valley, many of the clouds with snowy trails of virga hanging below them. In the mountains along the sides of the valley the precipitation was reaching the forests. It was spectacular, especially on the +8,000 foot slopes of Gearhart Mountain above us. We only went sightseeing a little beyond the Mitchell Monument before we found the winter’s snow was still blocking the road.

There were lots of migrating birds along the Sprague Valley as well as permanent residents (such as Bald Eagles). The most interesting bird we saw was several Long-billed Curlews.

This evening there was an adult Golden Eagle soaring over the entrance to the ranch near the US 97 Bridge over the Williamson River.

The Williamson is a unique river.

I tell people the Williamson River is quite unique. It is very much like two different rivers. It starts out as a spring in a pumice hillside in a grove of Ponderosa Pine. That's in the Fremont-Winema National forest only about 40 miles northeast of the Lonesome Duck Ranch.


Thing is, it then flows mostly north, away from us for over 20 miles. It first goes through the famous Yamsi Ranch for some 8 miles as several more springs join in. It is clear and a true spring creek meandering through pastures and clumps of willows. It goes through several other ranches and some of the national forest before in turns west and enters the huge Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. Before the refuge the river has Brook Trout and a genetically distinct population of Redband Rainbow, different than the Redbands found down our way that run in and out of Klamath Lake like landlocked Steelhead Trout. John Hyde, of Yamsi Ranch, says the record for the upper Williamson is 31”. That's a nice fish but something else grows them even bigger down here on the lower Williamson.


When the river enters the huge marsh at the refuge is disperses across many miles of shallow marsh. Often there is no visible channel. Furthermore, as summer progresses most years, the river does not emerge from the marsh at the downstream end and continue toward us. It is all absorbed, evaporated, diverted for irrigation, or just goes underground. The marsh itself is not prime trout habitat; it is known more for Bullhead Catfish, for example.


So the preceding is part of the reason the Williamson is like two rivers. In normal springs the winter rains and snow-melt fill the marsh to overflowing and the second part of the river, the Lower Williamson begins. When such wet periods occur the Williamson flows out of the marsh headed south, now. The overflow point is just about the point of the former village of Kirk, where the fishing regulations change on the Oregon regulations between the upper and  lower parts of the Williamson. The water coming out of the marsh is deeply colored by organic materials now in the water and looks like coffee without cream. This can be easily seen at the little bridge over the river at Kirk.


From Kirk the river gradually drops into a canyon that runs on the order of 10 miles. The canyon contains several waterfalls which are nearly inaccessible. The largest falls is called Rootbeer Falls for good reason. The dark water loaded with humic acid and other organics foams copiously when agitated by the rough treatment.


The rather long seasonal separation of the river into two, plus the falls act as barriers which keep the fish in the upper and lower rivers distinct. Starting in the canyon, Brown Trout are present. The river is dark until the dark colored water from the marsh is cut off as season progresses well into summer. Then the river becomes mostly spring fed, cold and clear. Late in the summer the very cold Spring Creek enters the Williamson about 3 miles below the canyon and Collier State Park. This time of year it usually more than double the flow of the river. A little cream is added by the Sprague River 10 miles further down at Chiloquin. The cream being some of the muddy water from the ranch country up the Sprague River Valley. Still the volume of cold clear water in the Williamson dominates and it serves as a retreat for the very large Upper Klamath Lake Redbands when the lake gets too warm. The waters of the rivers and the lake are very rich. Quite and fish growing system!!!