No, I’m not indulging in a spot of schadenfreude. Rather, I’m talking about the lovely days in May 2022 that we spent looking for and at birds in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
This is the second of two posts about this trip.

What’s in a name?

Malheur (local pronunciation: mal-hyoor — very difficult for us francophones) is a French word meaning misfortune, unhappiness, or sheer bad luck. Here’s where the name comes from: Peter Skene Ogden, a trapper and trader for the Hudson Bay Company, wrote of the “Rivière au Malheur” in his journal in 1826, after discovering that a cache of furs and other supplies he had left near the river had been found and stolen. From this incident, the Malheur River, Malheur Lake, Malheur National Forest, Malheur County, and Malheur National Wildlife Refuge all derive their names.

ASIDE: The refuge is lately notorious as the site of the 2016 occupation by a group of armed far-right extremists, led by Ammon Bundy. You probably remember the story; if not, there’s a link below.

Malheur birding, Year 2

This was our second birding trip to the Malheur refuge. (I never did write a post about the 2021 trip, but you can check out my postcards from that trip — link below.) This year’s trip began at Summer Lake Wildlife Area, where we met up with Craig’s cousin Ron and his wife Linda, along with other birding enthusiasts. After a couple of days we moved on to Malheur.

Like last year, we were staying at The Narrows RV Park, where the cheerful and accommodating folks who own the campground also run a bar and grill that serves some of the best milkshakes I’ve ever tasted. We spent a couple of evenings in the bar, munching cheeseburgers and watching the Warriors win. Other nights we hung out with Ron and Linda, drinking wine, eating cake, and teaching each other our favorite simple games: Baseball (card game) and Farkle (dice game).

These social evenings were a welcome change from last year, when the weather was so cold — and our anxieties about Covid still so high — that we spent most evenings huddled inside our campers or RVs trying to stay warm and healthy. This year, fully vaccinated and enjoying sunshine and blue skies and even some photogenic clouds, we were all more relaxed and sociable.

What we saw there

Ron and Linda have their usual birding haunts at Malheur, and during the day we made the rounds with them, cameras and binoculars at the ready. Here’s a sampling of what we saw:

Western kingbird

Bullock’s orioles

Eurasian collared dove

Night hawk

Warbling vireo

Western wood-peewees

Black-chinned hummingbird

Yellow warbler

Cedar waxwings

Never figured out what this one was!

Long barn at P Ranch

Yellow-headed blackbirds

Teasels

Yellow-breasted chat

Dancing grebes

On our way home, we made another stop in Klamath Falls. We had heard that a new sculpture by Stefan Savides had recently been installed at Putnam’s Point, at the south end of Upper Klamath Lake. The sculpture honors the famous dancing grebes, so we made a little detour to check it out.

• T. C Elliott: The Peter Skene Ogden Journals (in Oregon Historical Quarterly, 1910)
• Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
• Wikipedia: Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
• Nancy Langston: Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (in Oregon Encyclopedia, a project of the Oregon Historical Society)
• Friends of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
• The Narrows RV Park
• Savides sculpture to capture ‘dance’ of the grebes (Klamath Falls Herald and News, Feb 5, 2021)
• Discover Klamath: How (and Where) to Go Birding in Klamath County
• Video: Oregon Field Guide: Grebes Walk on Water (PBS station KLRN)

You might also like…

• Springtime at Summer Lake
• Postcards from our 2021 Oregon birding trip