Birding Oregon 2023: Summer Lake

May 26, 2023 a-roving take a picture the birds and the trees

Oregon Trip, Part 1:
For the second year running, our annual May birding trip
to eastern Oregon began at the Summer Lake Wildlife Area.

Getting the scopes on some distant waterfowl

Off to Oregon!

It was that time again, and we were off to join expert birders Ron and Linda Klein for our yearly trip to Oregon. It’s a long drive up to Klamath Falls, our first stop, but we got an early start and so had time for a couple of stops along the way. The first was at Santiago Calatrava’s striking Sundial Bridge over the Sacramento River in Redding.

Our second stop was the source of the Sacramento River at the base of Mount Shasta. Here, the water flows right out of the hillside. It’s hard to imagine that this small stream will eventually swell into a major river.

Our trip followed much the same route as last year (links to my posts about our earlier trips are below). We stopped overnight in Klamath Falls, then headed up to Summer Lake for three days. From there we made our way out to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. After four nights at The Narrows RV Park, we headed up to Crater Lake for a final night at the historic lodge. Long drive home the next day.

Setting up camp

Having sold our old camper and diesel truck last summer, we needed an alternate camping plan for this year’s trip. Craig had bought a new truck that was capable of towing a small trailer, and we found one to rent in Klamath Falls. This meant that we didn’t have to haul a trailer halfway across California and back but could simply collect it when and where we needed it. Perfect, we thought.

And so it proved, for the most part. We reached Summer Lake in the mid afternoon. Ron and Linda had arrived a little earlier, as had their friends Mary and Larry, and they were getting set up when we got there. We did the same, with very few hitches — not bad considering it was our first trip with this rig! Naturally, we met with a few minor challenges, but Craig had already sorted out the issues with the tire pressure, and we figured out how to hitch and unhitch the trailer without too much difficulty. Overall, we felt rather pleased with ourselves.

Chores finished, we all sat down to enjoy “an adult beverage,” as Ron likes to phrase it. This idyll didn’t last long, however, as the no-see-ums were out in force. I slathered on the repellant and, happily, escaped the worst of the attack. Craig, alas, did not fare so well. Before long, we all made the prudent decision to adjourn to our own quarters.

Our trailer was small, especially next to the huge 5th-wheel campers and RVs that surrounded us at the campground. But compared with our old camper, it was spacious, with a full bathroom, a large fridge, and a comfortable bed. In fact, the hardest part was figuring out how to set up the overly complicated lawn chairs!

The trailer’s kitchen was well stocked with silverware and dishes. However, it proved to be woefully lacking in the pots and pans department. There was one very small saucepan and a cast-iron skillet about five inches in diameter — enough to fry a single egg, perhaps — and that was it! Happily, Ron and Linda were able to lend us most of what we needed, and I bought a new skillet to add to the trailer’s stores. So we managed.

The birding route at Summer Lake

The next morning was our first big birding day. We rode with Ron and Linda, with Larry and Mary following in their own vehicle. First stops were the rest area and the Summer Lake Lodge.

There’s a lovely pond behind the lodge but we saw few birds there this year, aside from a Forster’s tern wheeling round and round over the water.

Across the street, tree swallows were in abundance.

And Linda spotted this great horned owl!

Once we’d had our fill of the lodge and environs, we loaded up again and headed out on the dirt road that winds for several miles through the wetlands of the reserve.

A few birds had successfully eluded my camera during our previous Oregon trips, and I was determined that things would be different this year. Yellow-headed blackbirds, which are very common in this area, were my first quarry. Happily, we discovered a section of the reserve where these birds like to hang out, and these two were obliging enough to pose for us.

The weather was pretty much perfect that day, with lots of photogenic clouds admiring themselves in the still surface of the water.

Though birds were our main focus, we also encountered several other water-dwellers on our drive: a muskrat (smaller than I’d imagined) and a bullfrog. We even spied a garter snake enjoying a refreshing dip! And later, at Malheur, we came across a group of river otters disporting themselves in the water.

The track eventually leads to an old barn, where a colony of cliff swallows nests in the eaves. This year, unlike last year, the nesting box in the barn was in use, and three great horned owlets goggled down at us from the safety of their perches in the rafters. Mama owl was also up there keeping a weather eye on the goings-on, but she was backlit and did not photograph well.

In the evening, we went back to Summer Lake Lodge, where we enjoyed an excellent dinner. We were sad to learn that the older couple who run the lodge are trying to sell it — and have been trying to sell it for some time, we hear. So who knows what we will find there next year?

In all, it was a beautiful — and productive — day of birding!

It’s not only about the birds

For our second day’s adventure, Ron and Linda proposed a little hike to look for petroglyphs along the Medicine Man Trail. A local family had created a trail guide and so, booklet in hand, we set off to see what we could see. Which turned out to be not very much! We found the directions to the sites a bit mystifying, and even when we thought we’d found the right rock, the pictures were sometimes quite indistinct. Still, it was a fun change of pace.