Malheur Wildlife Refuge is over 187, 000 acres in Southeastern Oregon, containing over 320 species of birds and 58 mammals. It consists of sagebrush and wetlands.
I had grown more interested in visiting the Malheur Wildlife Refuge after reading Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, by Terry Tempest Williams (a wonderful book). She mainly talked about the Salt Lake Region in Utah, but did mention this refuge as a wonderful place for bird sightings. But what really sealed the deal for me was when I heard about the wild horse herds in the same area. I’m not a birder, but I do enjoy seeing the various varieties and recently got The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North American in order to be able to identify more.
After my trip to Kenya, I do feel I became more observant and would start to see the birds more, and becoming reignited by photography has also refined my observation skills. However, I have a long ways to go.
The headquarters area was about 30 miles from where we were staying – Crystal Crane Hot Springs, most of it a well-maintained gravel road. There were birders out and about with their huge telephoto lenses, which made mine seem rather dinky. There were a lot of Yellow-Headed Blackbirds about, and also Red-Winged Blackbirds.
In addition at the pond there were several American White Pelicans, which are beautiful. Around the grounds were bunny rabbits and ground squirrels. Also seen were hummingbirds, and many other birds that I did not identify. It was supposed to be rainy that day, so the clouds were got were much better than expected, with even a few spots of sun.
One birder told us that there were owl babies by Benson Pond, and that we would probably see others about who could point them out to us.
We headed down to Benson, meaning to stop and then look for the South Steens Wild Horse Herd. We actually passed it, reaching French Glen and realizing we had gone to far. However, we had stopped to take a picture of a beautiful Great Egret. While the Egret was fairly sharp for the distance he was from me, I did end up doing a texture to the background, as the photograph was cropped quite a bit.
Where the photograph of the Egret was taken, in the middle distance was a flock of geese, and in the far distance I made out two coyotes probably hunting rabbits or rodents.
Along the way, I also got this picture of a Long-billed Dowitcher.
French Glen is a very small town (est. pop. 12) with a historic hotel built in 1924. Pete French was the owner of a livestock company and he was murdered in his 30s as he had a tendency to buy up land, controlling the water rights and preventing settlers from getting to their own land if they had to cross his.
The little town is at the foot of the Steen Mountain Loop which rises from sagebrush terrain to over 9000 feet. I’ll have some pictures of that next week. Here is a picture of the area right by French Glen. 
After going up the Loop, we headed back to see if we could find Benson Pond and nearly missed it again. There is no sign directly off Hwy 205. Instead, you have to take another gravel road north of it, and then work your way down.
By the time we got there, there was really no one else around to point out the owls, and frankly I didn’t even know what type of owl or what I was looking for! Hindsight tells me I needed to ask more questions, but aside from looking up at the trees to see if I could see any owls (since I did learn that they don’t usually stay right by the nest but in nearby trees). For some reason I thought it might be a burrowing owl, so I was looking on the ground around Benson Pond, but there was a lot of grass, reeds, and parts where there were holes down to the water. I also tried to listen for any sounds, but again, was unsuccessful.
There were more egrets, and it was wonderful to watch then land, as well as some Dark-eyed Junco Sparrows, more blackbirds. I also admired greatly these beautiful trees, pictured below as the bark was nearly black and stood out from the green leaves. On the way back, I happened to catch some movement and saw this beautiful pheasant, but by the time I stopped the car and started shooting though not at a fast enough speed to get any great photos as he was retreating behind a barbed wire fence.
Again, I feel like I would like to go back and just have more time to observe and hang out. This trip was very short, but it provided a great overview to make plans for the next trip and I had some wonderful experiences.
Next week, just a bit more about the general area.
Musings with Camera in Hand 