Birding at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

Recently found out about the Malheur NWR located in Princeton Oregon in-between Frenchglen and Burns Oregon. Malheur is located in the South Eastern part of Oregon in high desert country, which is about eight hours away from the Seattle area. I found about this location from my friend Mike Montgomery who has been going there since the 80’s to bird watch. After doing some research on the area I decided to go there this past weekend the last weekend in March to see some species of birds that I would not be able to see along the Washington and Oregon coast. After visiting Tim Blout website Harney Birder I knew that I had to go and check out Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. So to get to Malheur from the Seattle area I will say again is eight hours by car. There are two routes that you can take to get there, both which grant you access to wonderful views Oregon and Washington State. The first is going through Portland in which case you would be treated to the views of Mt. Hood and the geological displays in Warm Springs Oregon. The other route would be to go through Snoqualmie Pass and crossing the Columbia River on Highway 97.
We decided to stay at the Malheur Field Station to take advantage of being in the heart of the refuge. The field station is ran by a group of knowledgeable and friendly staff who truly love the outdoors and are passionate about nature. Malheur has a lot to offer from: clear skies for astronomy; a variety of land animals; many species of birds which was my main focus, dramatic landscapes for the geologist in all of us, and several hikes. There is a lot of ground to cover while at Malheur NWR but we will focus on the locations that we went birding.

Black Billed Magpie-Malheur NWR

I will admit that we had a plan for the three days we were going to be at Malheur but we was off script from the start of day one but that didn’t hinder us from having an exciting three days of bird watching. The morning was supposed to start out in Frenchglen at sunrise and to drive the south portion of the central patrol road. Malheur has a center patrol road that cuts through the middle of the refuge for forty two miles. However on the first day as soon as we walked out of the trailer at the field station the birding day began with sounds from a bird I hadn’t heard before in the past. After looking around I saw a quail belting out its song, if you classify the sounds it was making as singing, while standing proudly on top of a sage bush. After getting into our vehicle and heading out we encountered large numbers of Red-wing Black Birds and rabbits hopping from bush to bush. A little bit later the first obsession of the day began when we became obsessed with photographing the Black Billed Magpie. You may think why spend so much energy over a magpie, well the Black Billed Magpie is a beautiful bird with its long blue tail, white body and black head. One thing however I noticed while trying to photograph the Magpie was that compared to other wildlife refuges I have been too birds at Malheur are flighty. Once we spotted a Magpie it would fly off into the distance. This went on for a while and then we reach the Malheur Headquarters which has a pond and a bird blind,which treated us to about ten to fifteen White Pelicans in the pond swimming around with Cormorants, Buffle heads and Great Blue Herons hiding in the tall grass on the edge of the pond. In the trees during on this morning were Turkey Vultures resting in the trees with a face only a mother could love. Several ground squirrels running around, Black birds singing, Swallows and Swifts dancing through the air, and Wood Peckers pecking away in the trees. We also spotted more quails in the sage brush near the trail to the overlook. A side note when we come back that evening the ground squirrels were in for the day and the quails were running around on the lawn of the headquarters.

After enjoying the lively animals at the headquarters and since we were off script anyways we decided to cruise for birds on the outskirts Burns. This area is mainly farmlands which is where hundreds of Sandhill Cranes were congregating. It seemed as tho there was a Red-wing black bird  on every other post singing their songs that morning. We got lucky enough to see the Yellow Headed Black Bird mixed in with the Red-wing Blackbirds and the trifecta was completed when I saw a Brewer’s Blackbird. However the excitement didn’t end there next we saw a Greater Yellow-legs who was belly deep in water. After moving on we ran into a flock of mountain blue birds all of which was seen within a few hours. On the way back toward the Frenchglen we saw the prize of the day a pair of Black Necked Stilts. When we first stop the car one started to fly away and the praying began (please land!) which it did and the cameras was snapping away. People in other cars were doing U-turns once they saw what we had spotted. Once back on central patrol road latter in the day we saw more Vultures, Ring Necked Pheasant, Deer, Tundra Swan, Great White Fronted Goose, Northern Harrier, Bald Eagles, Hawks, and various other birds too numerous to list here.

While at Malheur I had a chance encounter with Tim Blount and we discussed the days birding and he informed me that I should come back in the month of May to view the vagrants when they shows up. There is the possibility of seeing 150+ different species of birds in one day. Malheur is an extraordinary place and a must visit for bird enthusiast. Click here Malheur NWR for more information on Malheur NWR and to see all of the birds that photographed check out my Malheur Gallery.