What Birds Live in This Remote Desert?

[00:00:00]Oregon has an impressive array of habitats, ranging from ocean coastline to deep forests.

[00:00:07]With lush greenery and plenty of rivers and lakes, something people may be surprised to learn about the state is that it also has arid biomes as well.

[00:00:16]While on a trip to Oregon, we went with our friends to visit one such area, hoping to find birds we had never seen before.

[00:00:24]>> We are now officially on our way to Fort Rock to try to find some desert birds.

[00:00:28]Last night was pretty interesting though because there's a moth species around here called the Pandora moth, which was all over the place at the gas stations and any place with lights. So, there was a lot to look at last night, but we were pretty tired so we didn't spend too much time. But, now we're looking forward to getting some of these desert species.

[00:00:44]>> Yeah, I'm pretty sleepy.

[00:00:46]Um I'm excited to see kind of when we get into the desert area and I think once we see some of those new bird species, I'm going to perk right up.

[00:00:53]>> The most well-known feature of Fort Rock State Natural Area is the large rock ring that towers around 200 ft over the otherwise mostly flat landscape. This horseshoe-shaped structure resembles the walls of a fort, which is where the natural area gets its name from.

[00:01:10]While the ring was made through volcanic processes, it now plays host to many different bird species that take advantage of its high cliffs.

[00:01:18]Before even getting to Fort Rock itself, we found some birds in the surrounding sagebrush.

[00:01:24]>> Loggerhead shrike, perched up, flew across, sitting some of the bushes over here. A lot of good stuff just from the road. I'm excited to get out and walk.

[00:01:31]Beautiful rock formations in front of us.

[00:01:34]>> Getting some nice looks at the shrike was a treat, but we were even more excited about our first life bird of the day.

[00:01:40]>> We just got our lifer sage thrasher views. It was kind of frustrating because we were driving into where we're going, which is uh this area with the rocks in the background here, and uh we just kept seeing stuff perched up, but it was so far away and we were trying to like not be in the road. So, it's it's nice we're on a quieter road we could stop and enjoy the sage thrasher. So, first lifer of the day.

[00:02:01]Oh, that's so cool.

[00:02:07]Still feeling great about finding our first lifer in the sage. We kept moving around finding a few more when we noticed a Brewer's Sparrow, as well as another classic sagebrush species.

[00:02:19]Sagebrush Sparrow.

[00:02:23]The trifecta of lifers here. We're not even in the park yet.

[00:02:28]Eventually, we made it to the parking lot that was right next to Fort Rock.

[00:02:32]Here, we got our first glimpse of some of the bird life living on and around the cliffs.

[00:02:37]Some of these birds included a prairie falcon and some swifts.

[00:02:42]Up on the primary rock formation behind us, there are some white-throated swifts, and those are usually very high elevation swift species. It's really cool to see them out here. They're mixing in with some cliff swallows. It's really interesting to see that whole ecosystem on that big rock with the prairie falcons and the swifts all hanging out up there. This place is so cool. And we've pretty much seen almost everything we wanted to see just on the way in, but I'm excited to walk and see what else we can find. I seen that prairie falcon fly over this cliff face and like fly in front of it just looked so epic. Very cool experience with that bird. And one thing you might not expect is it's pretty chilly in the morning.

[00:03:17]So, you can see the winter hat. It'll probably warm up as we get further in the day.

[00:03:21]But right now, it's a little cold and a little windy.

[00:03:23]We started walking the trails and immediately noticed that a particular species was quite plentiful.

[00:03:30]So, it turns out there's just tons of California quail out here. We saw a family of quail with a bunch of babies.

[00:03:35]And then we've seen a few just perched up in bushes, too. And so, this is pretty birdy here even though it's really arid-looking, dry, and dusty.

[00:03:57]>> In addition to the many quails, there was also another bird species at Fort Rock that we simply couldn't ignore.

[00:04:04]>> This place is absolutely loaded with rock wrens, but the best place for the sparrow seems like it was more out in the open by the roadside. So, I think we're going to keep going this way for now, but we may have to go back over there to get some more views of them.

[00:04:16]So, this rock is kind of the rock wren pride rock they come and sit on top of it and they look like tiny little miniature lions and they kind of sit on it and fly off. Um they're super boisterous and cute and spunky little fellows.

[00:04:40]>> After getting some incredible looks at the rock wrens, we started walking a trail that elevated up toward the rocks, giving us a striking look out over the unique habitat.

[00:04:50]>> Even though there's a decent amount of birds up here, they are all specialized for this habitat. So, you have the sage brush sparrows, sage thrashers, the rock wrens. These are all things you'd kind of expect to find up here. So, I really like birding in habitats that are super specific for certain animals that are adapted to them. This is definitely one of them.

[00:05:09]>> We continued our walk alongside the impressive rock structures, spotting more species at home in open areas, including green-tailed towhees and an American kestrel.

[00:05:19]While the birds were fun to see, it was still the entire area itself that had us so intrigued.

[00:05:26]>> I was thinking about how interesting it must have been for people crossing the country coming out west to just encounter these different landscapes cuz like looking out here I can totally picture horses and buggies and people moving to start a new life on the West Coast. So, it's just really interesting to think that maybe people in the past came through here and now we're here just enjoying it for recreation.

[00:05:45]>> We concluded our walk having found a handful of species very specific to this area.

[00:05:50]Not ready to conclude our time in the sagebrush yet, though. We went back to driving around to cover more ground, finding a few more species, including red-tailed hawks and a Say's Phoebe.

[00:06:02]Eventually, we decided to move on. So, we're heading away from the sagebrush habitat right now. It was really cool to pick up some of those species that live there, and it was actually kind of easy right away. Although, we didn't always get the best looks at things. They were fairly cooperative in at least making an appearance, which was cool.

[00:06:18]The arid part of Oregon was definitely a fascinating place to explore, with gorgeous rock formations and birds that have adapted to thrive there.

[00:06:27]If you like this video, take a look at our other videos on birds and birding.

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[00:06:38]We'll see you next time on Badgerland Birding.