We left home on the 31st at 11am and drove to Sisters via Mt Hood/Madras and Redmond. On the way we stopped a few places to sightsee on this beautiful day. Near Deschutes Crossing we pulled off to the Recapture Resevoir and we were treated to the view of a pair of adult BALD EAGLES flying by west to east and a pair of GREAT BLUE HERONS flying west to east. 100's of MALLARDS and BUFFLEHEADS along with a smattering of RING-NECKED DUCKS.
On the way to Madras we saw several RED-TAILED HAWKS, a single ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK, and at least 25 AMERICAN KESTRELS.
It was bitterly cold in Sisters but we stayed at the Sisters' Inn and RV Park, remarkably comfortable room with king-sized bed, breakfast and quiet for just $75. As it was New Year's Eve and the dining fare in Sisters is limited we drove to the Tumalo Feed Company outside of Bend for dinner. It was a lot of fun, but pretty disgusting. The first course is an enormous basket of onion rings with salsa that Les and I managed to eat about 20% of. Then enormous steaks, fried potatoes, beans, garlic bread - I think we finished about 1/3 if that portion and finally ice cream. Whoa! The restaurant was packed with loads of overweight families and children, everyone seemed to have a clean plate. What a cultural experience.
We met at Santiam Pass snow park at 8:30 to receive our Christmas Bird Count assignment. We were paired with a nice couple from Bend (Brian and Antonia) and had a good day. The snow was old and crusted so we never needed snowshoes, but we ended up walking six or seven miles for a limited number of birds but a good day.
Gray Jay (parking lot)
Stellers Jay
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Pied-billed Grebe
Common Merganser
Brown Creeper
Winter Wren
Common Raven
Dark-eyed Junco
American Dipper* (2)
Ring-necked Duck
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Trumpeter Swan
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
*American Dippers - there were two near the resort at Clearlake. They were in the lake one just 40 feet from us and the other across the cove. Both were actively diving and calling with a remarkable active series mimic calls along with the standard dipper repetoire. We kept looking for grosbeaks, cell phones, and other unknown whistles and trills and these two little guys were, on close observation, responsible for all the noise.
Les and I drove back to Portland at the end of the count, a little tired after eight hours of walking in snow and a 4 hour drive, but happy we made time for the event.
Other highlights: the firm snow was great for tracks. We saw lots of rabbit tracks with different gaits and speeds, river otter, squirrel, raccon, river otter, and mink or some other mustelid of similar size.
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