November 20-24, Klamath Wildlife Refuges
In late September I wrote a blog post about how I was
changing how I keep my journal – that I planned to switch to a sketchbook with
better paper. It was a good
decision! I’m enjoying filling one page after another.
My last post was about a brief jaunt to the Klamath Basin,
and this one will be too, but this trip is a month later. In late November we spent four nights in ‘The
Basin,’ one of my very favorite places to be.
My big excitement of the trip was seeing a long-eared
owl. I’m saving that for another blog
post since I haven’t had time to do the art yet. This post will be a series of the journal
pages I’ve had time to finish:
Each month in the Basin is a little different. In October we had lots of golds and
browns. Now most of the leaves have
fallen and most of the summer birds have left.
We’ve seen just a handful of pelicans, and very few grebes. I thought there would be more ducks and
geese, but maybe the weather up North has been mild and they haven’t come south
yet. The crevice that held eight barn owls a month ago is empty .... but we did
find one barn owl in another crevice.
Just one. He’ll soon be on his
way south too.
Plenty of egrets are still here and a few bald eagles have
arrived. At the end of day the eagle is singing
in the top of a large willow. A second
eagle perches in a nearby tree and near a nest site. I suspect this pair stays in the area
throughout the year. When winter comes
large numbers of eagles will spend the winter in the Basin.
Many of the ducks we are seeing are in transitional
plumages. This ruddy had a baby blue
bill and a rusty red back in breeding season.
Now he is well on his way to becoming quite drab for the winter.
Plenty of sparrows still hang out in thick, weedy
patches. A snipe walks a floating
plank.
Lots of great horned owls this trip. Two great horned owls where we found them a
month ago, three in a tree near the Winema Lodge, another tucked in this
crevice, we heard one near the Visitor Center, and saw an eighth on a telephone
pole near Merrill.
The Basin quietly waits for winter.
