Towheeblog

Our trip today took us from Malheur more than 200 miles northeast to LeGrande and Union County. There we visited Spring Creek in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. There is one of the most successful Great Gray Owl nest platform programs in the world. For over 30 years the owls have been using man-made platforms in the forest there. The location is about halfway between LeGrande and Pendleton, just off Interstate 84. Elevation is about 45oo feet. The forest is grand fir, Doug-fir, western larch and ponderosa.
There we were briefly tracked by Clark’s Nutcrackers. They had some very derisive things to say about us, apparently. Later we found a gang of them flying down to the otherwise empty road for a mud puddle drink.

Besides the nutcrackers we saw Gray Jay, Steller’s Jays and Ravens at Spring. Earlier in the day we’d seen Scrub-Jay, Crows and Black-billed Magpies–a six Corvid day.
Also found on the very quiet road: a Ruffed Grouse.

Ross’s Geese at dawn over Malheur Field Station.

Curoius young Townsend’s cottontail at Malheur Field Station.

Earlier we watched an adult Golden Eagle soar along a cliff face about two hundred feet above the Powder River. That’s in a canyon southwest of Baker City, Oregon.