Yvonne in Southern Oregon's Blog: Klamath Basin Birding

Mickey and I went birding to the Klamath Basin on sunday. It was dark when I picked her up at 6:30 and we went into town and had breakfast! Fresh squeezed OJ for both of us...and I know I had some sort of scrambed eggs and ham, but all I can remember is how HUGE the biscuit was - I mean you could made a meal just out of that biscuit!!! (Black Bear Diner in Grants Pass)....Then we started heading out toward Central Point to go up Lake of the Woods highway over to Klamath Falls. I hadn't had my coffee fix for the day, so Mickey and I stopped at Dutch Brothers on Washburn Way and she got us some coffee treats!!!! We got back on the road and headed out through Merrill towards Tule Lake Wildlife Refuge in Northern California. We finished off at Lower Klamath Lake back on the Oregon side, then on back home...again in the dark...another fantastic birding adventure with my best friend in the world! Thanks Mickey!

Mount McLoughlin from The Great Meadow wayside

Upper Klamath Lake FROZEN!

Upper Klamath Lake

Red Tail Hawk just below the highway, past Running Y

Red Tail Take-off

Red Tail Hawk

Discovery Marsh - Tule Lake Refuge HQ

Cat Tails going to seed

Seed fluff from the Cat Tails. It felt soft enough to spin like wool!

Looking out over the frozen ponds at Discovery Marsh

Golden crowned Sparrow

Song Sparrow

House Sparrow

Young House Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Best Friend Mickey

All the canals were FROZEN!

Young Immature Red Tail Hawk

Red Tail

Shrike at Tule Lake

Tundra Swans, Geese and Ducks at Tule Lake.
We were in a blind, but they were really far out on to the lake even with my 300 mm lens.

Mick and I drove over to Lower Klamath. I like the auto drive route over there...again most everything was frozen, but we found a few ducks. Here is a female Northern Shoveler.

Male Northern Shoveler

Coot! Plenty of these...they're kinda cute!

Female Anerican Wigeon

Red Tailed Hawk - Rufous Morph
All my hawks were Identified by Greg Gillson! I am lucky enough to have him help me with these ID's and give me pointers as what to look for! Will I ever get it????!!!!!

In past years near this area Mickey and I have seen White Faced Ibis and one year two donkeys in a corral! Nothing here this year, except frozen water, and an occasional hawk flying over hunting.

Ice Ice Baby

Okay...now this is another area of Tundra Swans, Geese and ducks, but if you click on this picture and look in the center you will see a Coyote...We watched it walk out on the frozen lake trying to get close enough for a snack! Way off to the left (you can't see it in this photo) there was another coyote - they usually work together when hunting. All of a sudden the far coyote started heading back to the shore, and so did this one. Wonder if they could hear the ice start to crack under foot? We were thinking how brave and stupid they were at first, but then when they turned around and went back, we thought how smart they really are!!!! Wow....Good moment 'birding' for us!

Male Bald Eagle

Northern Shovlers with two bufflehead females

Yellow Headed Blackbird

We were in the truck stopped with the windows and sun roof open...watching this huge wave of different blackbirds flying and landing. For sure we saw Yellow headed and Red Winged...and probably Brewers in the Mix...