Bottomless and Bitter Lakes!

After the movie I was ready for dinner and a rest so I headed to Bottomless Lakes State Park and my campsite for the night..

.I neglected to get a photo of my site I got there at dark anyway and headed for the shower house.  After that I had a sandwich and worked to upload a few photos to Flickr. They had free WiFi there.  Another storm hit in the night but it too was in the distance we got the wind but not the rain.   In the morning I took some photos of the park on my way out..

                                                    The swimming area in the park

There is a tower that birds find handy...

                     

                                              an English House Sparrow had a nest in there somewhere..

nearby white crowned sparrows vied for a good perching spot...

There's a brackish hint to the Lazy Lagoon, it reminds me of Salt Lake...not as big but the way it smelled...

Other pools in the park are like this the Devil's Ink Well.  These were created by volcanic forces, when sink holes opened up and water filled them...original measurements done with cowboy ropes so even tho they determined no bottom, the Ink Well is actually 50 ft in depth.  

Devils Ink Well

I noticed the beautiful work of the CCC in these buildings...

After a quick trip around the park I headed back toward Roswell to visit Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

 Just a few miles away from town and back toward the direction of my travel.  This hawk had me pull over to take his photo of this Swainson's Hawk. 

the Visitors Center is nice it was staffed with volunteers...when I asked what was around he told me people had reported some dragonflies, I don't think he understood my question.  He and his wife were extremely nice people. 

Barn swallows had a nest under the porch there and I spotted a yellow warbler in a tree out back and more scaled quail on the back overlook 

barely got this quail as he zoomed out of sight...

There is an approximately 8 mile auto tour around the lakes so after a quick visit to the VC I got a stamp in my passport book, then headed around the loop drive.  

...the lakes level is down but still vast!

I spotted a greater roadrunner in a tree...

and another western kingbird...

and lots of western meadowlarks and lark sparrows...

and on the water, I saw all sorts of ducks...Northern Shovelers 

n shoveler 

lots of coots,  blue winged teals, american avocets, wilson's phalaropes, black necked stilts, and ruddy ducks.  

ruddy duck

I took a Boardwalk...

white faced Ibis and black necked stilts 

AND finally a new bird for me showed up and in great numbers the Cinnamon Teal.  Here is a pair with a B N Stilt in the background. 

here is another pair...

Many Blue Winged Teal were present also...

I have waited a long time to see this DUCK! Finally..another shot of the cinnamon teal pair..

And on the way out of the Refuge 2 Mississippi Kites  up in the tree.  

As I headed north toward Ft Sumner, A storm was brewing...

The last ebird list of this trip Bitter Lake

Next my stop in Ft Sumner, NM 

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

BIRDSSSS everywhere!

Casey and I had a cold night in Farewell Bend so we headed South this is where I made a complete navigational blunder! I had planned to go see Mt Shasta...but I found out about Lower Klamath NWR and Tule Lake NWR from studying the map so I left Crater Lake on the west side to find camping it was a short drive back to the  east side of 62 and then south down 97 alongside Upper Klamath Lake where I saw hundreds of Western Grebes !! Hard to photo due to a RR track and a Weird fence but I snapped this one..

The problem was I saw no access for me to just pull over and really explore the lake with my binoculars so this and of course the almost always present american coots which are always a treat to see anyways!  I kept driving South on 97 and took 161 East over to Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge.

Which is in CA! Goodbye to Oregon...I sure enjoyed every single moment of it...and I hope to return one day to continue to explore the areas I was not able to visit and I'm sure you could live there your whole life and never do that!  This Lower Klamath is chock full of birds the numbers are amazing!!

SO many species too...this is a mostly Northern Pintail flock...mixed with all sorts if anyone sees a duck I in this flock I have not mentioned let me know what you see!! Try as hard as I did I never got a really decent photo close up of one!  I drove down the canals and they would fly right away...

There was other wildlife to see as well...

And I saw more Sandhill Cranes! 

And I added the Cackling Goose, and in this same shot is the Great White Fronted Goose with the pink beak..

Flickr ate my photo

Northern Shovelers were plentiful I got this shot of a female. Still a bit grainy...

There is so much waterfowl there. This Redtail Hawk was not happy with me driving down the gravel road he was hunting on and flushing the hundreds of dabblers out of his way....he really looks pisst and he was screeching at me!

I also saw in this same area but got no photo of the northern goshawk! A new bird for me! I got a real good look but my camera was not in my hand and not even turned on when I took Casey out for a quick leg lift break...Im calling this next bird a pine warbler, until I am told different I couldn't pin any other I'D on this donkey so Pine Warbler it is! Thanks Jen for the correct I'D Orange Crowned Warbler

Flickr Ate my Photo

And lots of American Wigeon males and females were on the lake mixed in with the coots..

Brewers Blackbirds were around in numbers too...

Flickr ate my Photo

The beautiful thing is Lower Klamath is basically on the way to Lava Beds National Monument...so that's where I headed for the night to camp. I ended up spending the entire weekend there.  I will report on Lava Beds later....another great birding area nearby is Tule Lake,

 its located right by the Natl. Mon. So the next morning I left early and made my way into one of the photo blinds...BUT first I had to walk the mosquito quantlet!! The issue I had with this blind on Hill Road was none of the openings were for a person my height so I ended up on my knees...there were some openings 6 ft up and some 2 ft from the floor? SO strange...none at about 5 1/2 ft--the first thing I heard was all the shootgun blasts! Not what I wanted to hear...and hopefully none would penetrate the thin walls  of the blind while I was in there I spent about 30 mins in there...Once again Thousands of American Coots and Northern Shovelers, Northern Pintails, western Grebes, American Wigeons, Eared grebes, Mallards, White Pelicans, 

Tule Lake 

Female A. Wigeon 

Eared Grebe

I was so pleased to actually get this shot of the female Rudy Duck..

Found a cubby of  California Quail hiding in the brush.

Fkickr ate my photo

The White Pelicans gave me an air show...

The snow geese were unsettled...

ANd I've never seen such a large concentration of Egrets some great, some snowy's as well..

Saw 2 adult Western Grebes...

Feeding this immature Western Grebe..he was soooo cute!

And I watched the White Faced Ibis pick up crustaceans for a meal...

These 2 days of birding was fantastic I would recommend both these spots for migration and wintering water fowl!! Many of my photos are still unidentified and not really good enough to share! I will go over them with a fine tooth comb when I get myself back to SC. A bonus of being in this area is the natural beauty of the lakes...and the View of Mt Shasta!  I had a wonderful 2 days of birding in this great refuges...I only wish there was no hunting..that made me sad..:o( 

  

Lava Beds National Monument is my next stop and next post!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.