Tag: Summer Lake

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In the Flyway

Tundra swans

More than half of the 650 species of birds in North America migrate. The westernmost edge of North America is the Pacific Flyway and includes coastal plains, the valleys on the west side of the cascade range, and also marsh and wetlands in Central Oregon.

Marsh wren

Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge is one of three major stopping points along the Pacific Flyway and happens to be an hour’s drive from our house. The marshes on the north end of the Summer Lake Valley are an excellent spot for birding.

Binoculars, the extra long camera lens and of course “Shirley Birds West” … a favorite guide book …  are primary tools in our bird watching. However, recently we discovered a couple of online tools that are invaluable.

Buffleheads
Marsh wren

Bring up BirdCast on your browser and you’ll get an animated map of current bird migrations. There are also some interesting forecasting tools here as well. But the best tools come out of Cornel University. It’s eBird web page is packed with helpful goodies.

There are species specific maps that show monthly migration patterns. Which will help predict when the Evening Grosbeaks will be showing up at the feeder.

We used this as an identification aid when trying to figure out which species of swan was sitting on the water at Summer Lake.

Tundra swans have entirely white plumage and their bill is mostly black.

It’s spring so naturally we are making somewhat regular trips to the Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge. This week we were greeted with hundreds of swans. The question is Trumpeter or Tundra … it’s not an easy ID … we think they were Tundra.

Tree swallow

The Cornell site also has an application where you can set up an account and track of what birds you’ve seen, get a list of the types of birds most likely to be in a specific area and find out what other birders are seeing.

There is also a mobile app that turns your smart phone into a bird identification tool and even plays song/call recordings.

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Looking through a new lens

 

This week, unlike the last few, was filled with ‘doing’. The air quality improved and the sun was out.

We took day trips three different days.

Hit the Crooked River on a perfect fall day … caught no fish but had a great picnic.

 

We love areas like this … that said, we never travel unprepared, even on short trips.

The other two days we headed east toward Fort Rock and the high desert.

Came across a few road obstacles … nothing we couldn’t manage.

If you’ve spent any time on this blog it’s clear we are iPhone photographers. We subscribe to the adage ‘the best camera is the one you have in hand’.

However, the types of images we are attempting to capture require telephoto lenses that just aren’t available on an iPhone.

This week we took delivery on a new Sony camera and lenses. Similar to the system we rented in June and posted about in issue #38 on birding.

Storm front moving across the Summer Lake Wildlife Area.

Of course Summer Lake was one of the places we headed for. Unfortunately it’s hunting season and there was some obvious restrictions on where you can go if you’re shooting but not ‘killing’.

 

We stuck to the western edge, Anna Reservoir area of the refuge, and managed to get a ton of really great weather shots.

The Summer Lake valley presents lots of image possibilities … rain clouds, sunny sky and thunder heads simply by turning around.

 

There will still be iPhone pictures in the blog but this new system is going to bring a new level of photos, hope you enjoy.

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A Summer Lake Overview

 

For us, there are regular excursions to Summer Lake area and the wildlife refuge there. It’s a favorite spot to bird and shoot weather images.

But this week we are looking at Summer lake from a different angle.

 

Winter Rim. The Western edge of the Summer Lake Basin is lined with basalt columns with vertical rock walls plunging to the valley floor below. This offers a beautiful backdrop for the many photos we snap while exploring the refuge.

There is a trail (Fremont NFT #160) running along the top edge of Winter Rim. The Southern OR. Intertie Trail extends from the northern boundary of the Fremont NF to the southern edge of Summer and Albert lakes. At the top of Winter Rim, the views of Lake County are stunning.

At the point we  intersected it, there’s a picnic table that hangs quite literally on the edge of Winter Rim. The view was obstructed with smoke haze on this day, but still very impressive. There is also a rental cabin at this site.

 

We have always used US 31 to get to Summer Lake, but this trip we found a whole new area to explore on the western side of Winter Rim.

 

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Watching the weather

The day begins with coffee, Weather Underground, and the crossword. It’s important to know what’s happening outside as you plan the day and week ahead. The high desert  has great vistas whose beauty is in the sky and clouds.

This particular morning there was a notice of thunderstorms on the forecast app. Always on the look out for weather picture opportunities, this storm was scheduled for late afternoon and seemed too good to pass up.

Deciding to document the storm we head east toward the Fort Rock area. This part of the high desert has a great expanse of sky. The plan was to get ahead of the storm and be set up to catch the action.

We opt for the Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge, offering a perfect location, just off Highway 31 near the the town of Summer Lake and to the north end of the town’s namesake.

This put us exactly where we hoped to be…surrounded by storm clouds. Thunder never materialized and for the most part we avoided rain and hail, all the time capturing images of the three or four different storm cells pushing up against the mountains to the east and west of us.

As icing on the cake, migratory birds were paddling around in the water ways. I guess the only down side were black clouds of mosquitoes. Even then the storm’s wind helped disperse the pests.

Finally, on the way back home and closer to Fort Rock, we managed to catch a tremendous sunset. A great ending to a day of weather watching (check out newest photo essay for more images of the storm).