This is especially good news for John Day River and Malheur River watersheds and the Malheur Basin including the wildlife refuge. Wetlands should be wet. Breeding conditions should be present for pelicans, cranes, gulls, terns, ducks, rails, shorebirds. There should be both surface and increased groundwater, likely more food for rodents. That’s good news for breeding buteos, owls, falcons, Golden Eagles, coyotes, weasals, badger. Last year the Great Horned Owls failed to fledge any young at the refuge HQ, Most recent years there have been at least two owlets fledged annually.
Malheur Lake might return to The Narrows this year. Its surface is now over 20-thousand acres. That’s far below the serious flood stage it reached in 1980s when it topped 100,000 acres.
There is still room on the September birding trip sponsored by the Malheur Field Station. Here’s the MFS announcement:
Harry Fuller ia leading a fund-raising bird trip sponsored by, and based here at, the Malheur Field Station. It is Sept. 8-13. We will see Ferruginous and Swainson’s Hawks, Prairie Falcon, Golden Eagles, White Pelicans, Short-eared and Great Horned and Burrowing Owls, Sandhill Cranes, Black Terns, Franklin’s Gulls, Loggerhead Shrike, Sage Thrasher White-faced Ibis, Rock & Canyon Wren, Horned Lark, Cinnamon Teal, snipe, Wilson’s Phalarope, possible bittern. There are likely to be usual (Lewis’s Woodpecker, Evening Grosbeak) and unusual (any bird that migrates to northern Canada) migrants at the hotspots. We will bird the basin and the entire Steens Mountain Loop.
Interested? Call 541-493-2629.
The art work is by Kirk Rio–ibias over Buena Vista.
Towheeblog 
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