[obol] southeast oregon trip

[rich armstrong]

nanette & i spent 5 days in southeast oregon from may 29th to june 2nd getting the entire experience - bear valley, idlewild, malheur, fields, hart mountain, adel, lakeview, summer lake, salt creek falls before returning to corvallis.
the things that i think might be interesting to obol are as follows:
1. NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD - june 1 -  4 miles on rock creek road going from frenchglen to hart mt. it flew across road and then sat on wire and sang for a few minutes. after hearing mockingbirds every day in texas for years this was the 1st time to hear 1 sing since we moved here almost 2 years ago.
2. male BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKER excavating nest hole off trail behind idlewild campground.
3. BLACK-THROATED SPARROWS - pair on harney lake road just west of eagles nest, 2 separate birds in diamond crater, and 2 birds together (probably pair) on north most road of summer lake. since we saw zero other sparrows (not even a brewer's) at diamond crater, and since black-throated are supposed to be rarer, thought this might be interesting.
4. FLAMULATED OWL - did not hear any at idlewild in an hour, and did not hear any on the road just to north .4 miles in where 1 was reported, but did hear 1 .7 miles in that road - so thanks to whoever found 1 on that road.
5. UPLAND SANDPIPERS - we were in bear valley at the y on sandy creek road at 425 am on 31st. we immediately heard 1 singing south of road and then 1 north of road. nanette thinks there may have been 2 different songs from north of the road for total of 3. by 445 they mostly stopped singing, or maybe just drowned out by willets/curlews/meadowlarks as they sounded far away. we stayed until 6 but never saw any of the uplands. so being there extremely early was important - thanks to tim rodenkirk!!!!
6. JUNIPER TITMOUSE - looked in 5 places and found 1 bird 9.1 miles south of adel (1.1 miles past where pavement stops), a little juniper grove. it appeared quickly to a little squeeking. joel geier saw them at this spot sometime. thanks to joel!!!!!!!!!!! it is very nice little juniper gorve next to stream and with more junipers on hillside across street. it is an easy place to get to!!! we would have stayed longer to see if we could find a 2nd but it started to rain. we had earlier looked at falls 2-3 miles west of adel, and a lot between mile marker 20-22 including this little dirt road that went nowhere paralleling 140 where joel had seen them, and the next morning an hour in bullard canyon, all without seeing any titmouse.
7. SNOWY PLOVER - found 1 adult and 2 young on alkalai flats (winbreak flats) at summer lake on june 2nd about 10 am. 
8. BLACK SWIFT - there were 3 birds at salt creek falls on 2nd about 1 pm. in an hour we saw 1-3 birds at least 3 times so even mid afternoon is ok. we never saw a bird go down behind falls as we were hoping to see.
Rich Armstrong
541-753-1978
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