Malheur, 2019

A ranch not far from Malheur headquarters

Three years ago there was an ill-conceived occupation at the Malheur headquarters here in eastern Oregon. Poorly-informed, poorly prepared, armed men came here from other states and created a stand-off that lasted about 6 weeks. One of them was shot and killed, several served short sentences, and the others got off scot-free. The damage that was done both to the land and to the community is slowly healing.

Buena Vista overlook

This is a place that  John and I hold dear.

A flooded field, private land

It is wide open. At this time of year, both the refuge and the private lands surrounding it are host to thousands of migrating birds.  We saw hundreds of ibises. They nest in the Great Basin of Oregon, and migrate to Mexico when winter approaches.

The Great Basin is a stark place and you shouldn't count on your cell phone to work. You must put away the phone and watch the snow-melt fill up shallow places. We probably saw 10 species of water birds here.

Mostly it is high desert, sage brush everywhere.

Look up! See the swallows. They have a nest in that tree.

At Benson Pond

If you are a careful observer you will see other nests. A great horned owl, perfectly camouflaged.

Benson Pond

Water abounds now, but only for a few precious weeks.

Near Krumbo Lake

The ancestors of the Paiutes were here long ago.

On Coyote Butte

Here and there you may find a flower.

Krumbo Lake

If you know what you're doing, you may catch a trout, and there will be few to notice.

Above Krumbo reservoir

In the sky above the sage brush and water are millions of newly hatched midges. They will only live a few days, just long enough to find mates. They hum, but do not bite. What beautiful, harmless little lives. It is, I believe, a perfect existence.

Malheur

 I have just returned from a trip to central Oregon, the northern Great Basin.

 This is a place of high desert, very cold at night. There was snow when we awoke on Friday morning, April 28.

The place where we stay is certainly not fancy. If you are interested, please visit the website of the Malheur Field Station, and if you go, take a sleeping bag, food, and your own gear. The field station seems to be trying to return to the elements much faster than anyone has the money or time to prevent.

 After all, that is the history of others who have tried to exist in this harsh and wild environment that was once the domain of the Paiute tribe.

The Malheur area has been managed by a collaboration of local cattle owners, refuge managers, Paiutes, environmental groups  (the Audobon Society), and others. The refuge was a good example of working things out between federal government and local interests; it was not a "land grab" and should never have been the center of violent protest on the part of the Bundy family in 2016.

Harney County is still healing from the Bundy's armed occupation of early 2016.

  But what a place. There are close to 200 thousand acres of wetland in this high desert basin, and every bit of it is crucial to migrating birds. Here is our list of 85 species spotted in 4 days. By "our" I don't mean "me;" I mean the actual bird watchers I was tagging along with: they have the most acute eyes, ears, and memory of anybody I've ever met.

However, birds are only a part of the draw. This is a Side-Blotched Lizard, a little guy who has to watch out for many predators.

A buck rub; it is time for itchy antlers to come off.

A freshly dug badger hole. Badgers can dig down pretty far in just 30 seconds, searching out ground squirrels to eat.

This sphere is comprised of hundreds of little twigs: a magpie nest.

Decades ago there were a number of drainage ditches dug; they are running full right now because of the wet winter.

Tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage was done to Malheur headquarters by self-branded "patriots" in early 2016, and when we visited last year it was closed. Thanks to local volunteer efforts, it looks good now.

Is there a wetland near you? Try to visit it in the next few weeks. Take some binoculars, and be willing to sit and listen for awhile.

Back home now in my warm house and easy life, there is a small part of me that remains behind. Certainly I will go back, but for now it is enough to gratefully remember the solitude and beauty.

Mustangs

The day we go in search of wild horses on Steens Mountain is clear and cool, a perfect morning for a hike even if we never come across anything more than hoof prints in the hard, volcanic,  high desert dirt. 

Scanning the hills, at first it looks like it might be a herd of cattle out there: little dots of slowly moving color in the distance.

Some of them are cattle, but mostly it's wild horses. Leaving our dusty car at the side of the gravel road, we walk slowly towards the group.

We pass near a mare with a very young foal. I doubt this baby is more than a day or two old.

The protective father makes sure we come no closer. At the same time he remains very alert to the movement of the herd on the hillside. It's likely that he is a banished young stallion beginning his own family, watchful of everybody. With no one to comb and bathe him, he still shines like copper.

They move near one another, hide their baby in the sage brush,  and decide we are no threat.

Meanwhile the herd on the hillside is aware of us, bands together, and heads away. It is the cattle, recently branded, who seem most fearful. The horses put the cows between us.

This band of mustangs is named after the lead stallion, Atlas. That's Atlas on the far left, with a map-shaped white patch on his side. The other horse in a leadership position is the pinto on the far right, maybe a mare. She probably has a name, but I couldn't locate it on the Facebook pages devoted to the 200-plus horses on Steens Mountain.

They stream over the ridge, Atlas the last to disappear into the 127,000 acres of high country where they roam. They were like a vivid dream, evaporating with time and distance... I won't see them again but can't forget what they were like.

Twos

Freshly returned from a late-spring trip to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in central Oregon, I've been looking at the photos. It seems that things come in twos this time of year.

We were told that there are more deaths from owl attacks than rattlesnakes, which I do not believe, but still...it's true that they are well-armed and defensive, so I stayed a good distance away when taking this shot of a mama great horned owl. There was no way of knowing about the owlet until the pictures could be seen on a big screen. Nice surprise!

These two wild mustangs are calmly grazing in one of the most beautiful places anywhere, South Steens Mountain, Oregon. They were so unconcerned and robust that I thought they must be a rancher's open-range grazing livestock. But no. Soon afterwards we saw many other wild horses and I took a zillion pictures, which I may share later.

Later.

A wild stallion and his mare.

I love prairie dogs. Those feet were made for diggin' and that's just what they'll do. After taking 10 minutes to edge closer and closer to these two, we got a pretty good look at one another.

Without prairie dogs, what would burrowing owls do? These little owls take over the abandoned burrows of ground squirrels and badgers, which seems very esoteric, and so no wonder their population is dwindling? At Malheur we found them more than once, though. The male is a little smaller and he works quite hard, bringing food to the Mrs while she takes care of the brood.

 

Traveling in Malheur is a dusty affair, and the VW needs a good hosing. But first check out the synchronicity between an old juniper and our back window, a matching twosome.

There's never been a better reason to put off washing the car.

Malheur

We have just returned from a four night stay at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in central Oregon and it is hard to know where to begin. In any ordinary year I would just post a bunch of amateur pictures of waterbirds with fabulous names: avocets and willets, ibises, bitterns, and stilts. Then cliff swallows. Yellow-headed blackbirds. Golden eagles. This year the group collectively saw 72 species of birds, which is quite a lot for 5 days of laid-back bird-watching.

But this is not any old year for the Malheur, and anything that I may say about what I saw is colored by what I felt. 

Photo by my husband, John.

Say. Saw. Felt. Confusing. What is the difference.

The Malheur refuge was occupied by misguided anti-government extremists early in January of this year. One of them is dead and most of the others are in jail right now. Many in Oregon feel that it was handled as well as it could have been.

But it is still terrible, and there are lasting scars in that area. There are ranchers who, at the time, were sympathetic but misrepresented, and others who were targeted by angry armed men and who now feel paranoid. There are more than one or two citizens diagnosed with PTSD. And there is an ugly race this month for sheriff. Everything is badly bruised.

 How do you enjoy a place like this?

Well. It is helpful to accept small beauties in a great landscape.

Conversely, there are great beauties in very small landscapes. 

 It is possible to love them both, two opposing ideals, and hope for the best. May Malheur heal, and Burns, OR, become a viable community once again.