Hi All -
Apologies for the delay in sending this out - it's been 3 weeks since
Taghrid and I made our Klamath Basin trip, but better late than never :)
We had the most amazing President's day weekend, birding the Klamath
Basin area (mostly south of Klamath Falls, but we also found some gems
further north, in the Klamath Marsh NWR).
We saw Golden Eagles, Bald Eagles, Ferruginous Hawks, Rough-legged
Hawks, dozens of Red-tailed Hawks (and we probably missed at least as
many), Tundra Swans, White-fronted Geese, Snow Geese, and various ducks.
In one field in Lower Klamath NWR, we had at least 3-4 dozen Bald Eagles
(yes, you read that correctly: 3-4 dozen), together with hundreds of
Sandhill Cranes (some of them dancing in their beautiful courtship dance
right past Eagles sitting on the ground), many thousands of
White-fronted Geese, many hundreds of Ring-billed Gulls, and probably
thousands of Red-winged Blackbirds). And right across the road, in the
wetlands, there were many thousands of Tundra Swans. The noise was
unbelievable, between the swans, the geese and the cranes, and the
sights simply stunning.
We also had great luck with Great Horned Owls (4 of them in one day) as
well as a pair of Prairie Falcons. Two of the owls were at the
Petroglyph Point (along with the Prairie Falcons), while the other two
owls were at Captain Jack's Stronghold.
And to keep the wonders coming - we almost didn't notice a huge Bobcat
relaxing on top of a raptor perch/pole, at least 30 feet up in the air,
until a friendly person pointed it out to us, at which point both of our
jaws dropped down to our knees ☺. The Bobcat couldn't care less about
all the clicking cameras below - it was perfectly relaxed atop its
perch, just keeping a lazy eye on people and cars going past.
Then on our way out, we had the privilege of watching a pair of Bald
Eagles, in courtship, and building their nest (literally, breaking off
huge branches by bouncing up and down on them, and carrying them back to
an already huge nest - see photos).
On our way home we stopped at Klamath Marsh NWR, which was mostly frozen
solid, but were we saw (and had close encounters with) no less than 7
Rough-legged Hawks on a single 3-mile stretch of road through the marsh.
One of them allowed me to within 20-25 feet of it (I approached it very
slowly, starting out at maybe 150 feet, a few steps, a few clicks, until
15 minutes later it almost completely filled the frame ☺.
Is birding the Klamath Basin always that great, or were we just
unbelievably lucky? Now that we've been there once, we definitely plan
on many repeat visits.
Anyways, enough talk - here's a link to some of the photo I took on the
trip:
https://goo.gl/photos/syjpERMZSntMecKdA
Regards,
Nagi & Taghrid
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