Summer Lake

January 19, 2025January 18, 2025

Into a New Year

Since our last post we’ve extracted ourselves from social media, turned off that stream of ad laden drivel and got reacquainted with reading and our local library.

Toward this end, we shifted our e-reader habits away from the corporate giant. Extracting ourselves from the monolithic Amazon is no easy task and certainly not complete yet. But steps have been taken.

Enjoying a new e-reader and a great mystery

We ‘side loaded‘ a couple thousand books to ePub readers and made connection with the local library via Libby. It was very freeing.

December’s end and January’s start were an endless string of gray skies threatening rain, snow or both. Then, this week the sun returned to the high desert.

In Central Oregon clear winter days start cold, bone chilling cold, but usually that freeze is tempered by midday. We took full advantage of this and headed over to summer lake for a late lunch drive.

We didn’t expect to get much birding but Summer Lake valley offers great vistas and it’s always a nice drive.

A ‘bank of swans” rests at Summer Lake Wild Life Refuge

We watched a flock of trumpeter swans and white fronted geese lounge on an iced over pond.

Caught sight of a few song birds and a pair of Bald Eagles perched on top of a tree.

We also watched a young coyote practice his field mousing skills . . . to little success. It was an enjoyable way to pass the time over a snack lunch.

Winter has for now, softened its face so we’ll take advantage.

May 26, 2024June 5, 2024

Get the Picture

Cinnamon Teal, small dabbling ducks who feed mostly on the surface

All our journeys include an element of photography. However, some places we go, we go to take pictures.

Summer Lake is one of those places.

Each visit offers a unique experience. Seasons bring shifts in habitat and inhabitants. The wildlife refuge empties and fills over the course of the year with a variety of bird populations.

Some birds are resident, but most of the species we encounter at Summer Lake are only there for a short period.

Resting, feeding, and for some, raising young, before moving on to summer or winter nesting sites.

One of many nesting boxes for long term residents

In addition to wildlife, the refuge sits amid an incredible landscape. Framing the western edge is Winter Rim, a 3000 foot escarpment jutting out of the valley floor. The top can have a cap of snow ,even when it’s shirt sleeve weather at Summer Lake.

To the south is Summer Lake, a marshy flat plain that stretches for miles. Eventually, this runs up against Abert Rim a fault scarp that rises 2500 feet from the valley floor . . . the last 800 a basalt cap.

Yellow-headed Blackbird singing his little heart out

This landscape is equally as photogenic as the wildlife, and both are the reason we keep coming back here.

We end this week with a toast to OJ . . .

September 17, 2023September 16, 2023

Mosquitoes in September?

This week we headed over to Summer Lake. It’s a trek we’ll make a couple of times over the next few weeks as the winter migration gets underway.

It bears repeating . . . Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge offers the best vantage point for birding. To start, it’s on the Pacific Flyway.

More importantly, the marshes and ponds are bordered with a loop road and numerous turnouts. These two elements mean we are within easy viewing distance of a multitude of bird species.

There is one other, not so great, aspect of this wetland sanctuary . . . mosquitoes. Clouds of the little buggers.

I was under the impression that one encountered this pest only in spring and early summer. I was wrong. Application of some trusty repellent and at least the biting was down to a minimum.

We’d come in the late afternoon to take advantage of the evening light and perhaps capture the sunset. It was too early in the season to have the wetlands teeming with waterfowl. With the exception of mosquito swarms, it was a pleasant evening to be birding.

Photographers refer to this time of day as golden hour. The sun casts long shadows and paints a warm hue to the light cast.

We found some nice images and have plans to return in a few weeks when the activity increases. Hopefully, without mosquitoes.

April 30, 2023April 29, 2023

Birding

White-fronted geese trail behind two Sandhill Cranes

This week Central Oregon skipped spring and went straight to summer. Not complaining, but it was an abrupt shift in weather and attitude.

We’re long overdue for a Summer Lake trip, so we loaded up the bird books and headed east.

It might be a bit cliche . . . turn seventy and post a piece on birding. Is that too much, old guy? In between trips to the river, which by the way are great places to bird, we do regular bird-centric excursions.

Over the years we’ve sat, eyes pinned to lenses, along a lot of different marshes. Living on the northern edge of the Great Basin puts us close to a few stopovers on the Pacific Flyway. One of the best, in our opinion, is Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge.

Unlike wildlife areas with better ‘press,’ Summer Lake never disappoints. Here we squint across a hundreds of yards of field. The loop road, often just a couple of tire ruts along the top of a dike, allows for great birding opportunities.

It was an unseasonably warm spring day, perfect time to catch the first round of migratory birds moving across the country. Some will spend weeks, others will move on in a few days.

The great thing is they never cease to amuse; like an acrobatic yellow-headed black bird bouncing from stalk to stalk, or Clark’s Grebes hunting a secluded section of the pond.

There is another visit scheduled for later this spring, well before the summer heat.

December 11, 2022December 9, 2022

Winter at Summer Lake

Trails and dikes wind through the Summer Lake marshlands

Foul weather is the reason most stated for not going outside … saw it on FaceBook, I think. Since moving to Central Oregon we’ve grown very attached to iPhone weather apps. Our weekly sojourns are guided by the trove of information available via this visual piece of software, now bundled with iOS.

Weather permitting, we like to take in at least one winter day at Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge.

Waterfowl forage and rest along these channels

Granted, peak birding season is March to May when a majority of the migratory birds are in the flyway. But winter weather doesn’t just affect wildlife, there are seasonal changes to vegetation around this marshy lowland.

Weather on the valley floor is dependent on and very different from Fremont Ridge to the south or Abert Rim to the East.

Snow covers sage and rocky desert terrain

Summer Lake and La Pine are at nearly the same elevation with a couple of ancient lava mounds between them.

Our day starts in a pine forest as Highway 31 scales the southern edge of Paulina’s lava flow. At the Fort Rock junction scenery changes to sage. There is a distinct high desert landscape along the southern edge of Christmas Valley, through Silver Lake.

From there it’s a gradual climb up the western slope of Fremont Ridge. Looking back, west from Picture Rock Pass, you’ll get a better sense of that elevation change.

From the same vantage point looking east, Summer Lake sits in a wide valley butted up to the nearly vertical rockface of Fremont Ridge. The slope along the lake’s southern edge, and in the distance Abert Ridge, present great photo backdrops. Wind has scraped recent snowfall into crevices defining Fremont Ridge as it pushes up from the valley.

Freemont Ridge (right) skirts along this snow swept wetland

In the refuge’s marsh golden shades of reeds and grass jutting out of snow add texture, as well as color.

It’s the middle of duck season and RV’s fill the camp sites but we encounter no one.

It’s a cold, sunny mid-week day and we’re finding lots of landscape photo ops, as well as a handful of raptor sightings. Just a typical winter’s day at Summer Lake.