Author: jstv

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Winter Melts Away

Small signs of spring in the canyon

Winter has begun to loosen its grip. We are at a point in the season marked by high stream flow, winter run off.

Now, in the past few years snow pack was below historical levels and by mid-April our streams were fishing  .  .  .  not this year.

Aftermath of high water levels

This year Oregon ‘enjoyed’ above average snow pack. I say enjoyed because that means reservoirs will still have water well into the fall.

A below average winter run off would fail to fill reservoirs, the result would be low river levels at the end of season and to fish that is a much worse scenario.

Since the runoff started, the Lower Deschutes, John Day and Crooked River have been running at record high levels. Snow melt will do that, but not to this extent  .  .  .  the Crooked River is running at 300 percent of normal flow.

Snow has disappeared at lower elevations, replaced with a fresh carpet of spring colors taking over the high desert.

What’s not as typical is how much snow is still covering the Cascade Range peaks. Which means we have a while before river levels return to normal spring flows.

Blue Mustard

I would like to be fishing, but for the next few weeks we’ll take in spring fresh growth, migratory birding and open roads. There will be plenty of time to wet a line later.

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. . . out like a Lamb

We made a quick stop at Fort Rock to enjoy the sunrise, then continued our trek to Summer Lake

This week really seemed like spring had arrived to Central Oregon. March softened its edge as April took over  .  .  .  and not anytime too soon.

The arrival of spring requires at least one trip to Summer Lake (likely more) to check on what the Pacific Flyway has deposited on the briny marsh land.

Marsh Wren in repose

We caught lots of flashes of Osprey, Eagles and Hawks.

Hunting is always good (if you are a raptor) with spring fledglings popping about.

There was a squadron of Pelicans swimming in formation, a pair of Sandhill Cranes and flocks of White-fronted Geese.

American White Pelicans ruffling their feathers

The avocets were just starting to show up, however no Snowy Plover, yet.

Red-winged Blackbird singing his heart out

The reeds were full of Red-winged Blackbirds calling for mates and most of the swallow houses had occupants.

The season is on and we were treated to lots of activity.

Summer lake is such an easy trip and usually the valley has great photo ops.

We are planning a run further out to check on Abert Lake, as well as a trip through Klamath Marsh sometime later in the spring. Birding is a great excuse to do some traveling  .  .  .

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Inaugural Flight

Waiting for something more exciting than drone flying

Something we don’t post a lot about is the technology used in making this blog.

That’s not going to change, however this week we do want to offer a brief ‘Behind the Scene’ look.

In addition to laptops and tablets, our smart phones and cameras are critical to managing content.

To these primary tools we have support pieces that get hauled along on nearly every journey. We recently updated one of these  .  .  .  a drone, which is the focus of this post.

For those who are interested, it’s a DJI Mini4 Pro  .  .  .  and what it does is bring a unique prospective to our video productions.

 

Technology, in various forms, allows this blog to exist. It’s existed for nearly seven years in the current iteration. What we’d like to avoid is for any technology to become the focus of “That’ll Do”.

The drone, like any other camera just helps us tell a better story. That story will always be about what we did this week and we hope you’ll continue to be a reader  .  .  .  thanks.

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Snowdaze

It snowed like this all day

This week, as the first day of spring {3/20/25} rolled by on the calendar, media outlets carried stories about cherry blossoms, gardening tips, and spring break locations.

Meanwhile, Central Oregon got covered in two feet of fresh snowfall.

We’ve gotten used to snow in March, but this snow storm was one storm too many. The weather has been off and on all season. That, I guess shouldn’t come as a shock.

Unfortunately for us, we were clearing snow off our driveway on the first day of spring.

Day two and the sun breaks through

Oh, it was a beautiful sight  .  .  .  fir branches ladened with mounds of white and that muffling of sound a layer of snow brings to the world.

It didn’t get much below freezing, and in fact it melted pretty quickly.

Taking a moment between shovel fulls

There was a day, or two, of clogged roads, as we waited on snowplows to come through. Sharing sympathetic looks with our neighbors (who were also shoveling snow), it took us over an hour to clear our driveway.

In the end, we managed to get a few more home projects completed .

But still  .  .  .  this is MARCH!

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Pacific Flyway Visit

In the Pacific Flyway

Well, that was a False Spring.

For the past few days we greeted each morning with a thin blanket of snow. It’s gone by early afternoon, but still  .  .  .  when will we get a Spring?

Before the winterish weather settled in on us, we managed a trip to Summer Lake.

Expanse of sky above Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge

As migratory birds start to move, we make somewhat regular excursions to the Wildlife Refuge on the Northwestern edge of Summer Lake.

This week there were not a lot of birds to see, but a start to the spring migration through the Pacific Flyway was evident.

Red-winged Blackbirds were starting to claim nesting areas. We spotted a few banks of Trumpeter Swan and a pair of Sandhill Cranes.

Mostly, it was a good excuse to get out while the weather was nice.

There was some wind that cooled the 50 degree day, but not too much.

A bank of swans

We’ve marked the calendar to come back in three weeks which will likely be the height of migration.

We are also charting a trip to the Klamath Lake area as there are some spots there we’ve not checked out.

A chaotic take-off

The Pacific Flyway will be crowded in the coming months, so it’s the perfect time to do some birding  .  .  .  weather is the only question mark.