After being gob smacked by the beauty of the Wallowa Mountains, but disappointed in the opportunities for sound recording, it was time to head south. My first stop was in the Blue Mountains, west of La Grande. The rugged peaks of the Wallowas smoothed into rounded pine-covered mountains surrounding meadows and small streams. I found some dirt roads near the Starkey Experimental Forest and drove around until I found an elk hunter’s camp on the edge of a meadow. The dog and I spent the afternoon there, watching the birds and listening to the breeze through the trees. No more loud whoosh of the streams. The meadow was surrounded by a nice pine-fir forest. I did some exploring, looking for good places to set up my microphones.
In the forest near camp, I found some sign of pileated woodpeckers, a bird I have been trying to record for several years without much luck. There was also an elk trail nearby and I hoped I would be lucky enough to record some elk moving through the forest. Down a two-track to the east of camp was a small, impounded cattle tank which still had water where I might be able to be get some sounds of animals coming in to drink.
As dusk settled in, I set up the microphones and went to bed. It was a nice quiet night and a beautiful dawn. I recovered the mics after the birds started to settle down. When I later reviewed the recordings, I was a little disappointed that the mic by the water tank only recorded a robin bathing and chirping, and distant elk and coyotes. But the mic in the forest recorded some nice close-up sounds of pileated woodpeckers, elk stomping through the forest duff, squirrels chattering, and lots of forest birds. Please use headphones for best experience.
After enjoying a nice, slow morning, I headed south again, this time to the Strawberry Mountains. I drove south from Prairie City, and checked out several areas, but it was busy that weekend with most of the dispersed sites full of ATV’ers, so I kept moving. I went back to a campground I had discovered on my way north, at the junction of a couple of lightly used highways east of Seneca. A fire had burned much of the forest to the west, and the Forest Service had thinned out so many trees in the campground that there was hardly any shade, but there was still a lovely diversity of birds and a very pleasing sound. When I first drove through on my way north, there was no one else in the campground. This time there was a truck and camping trailer parked at one of the shadier spots, but I found another suitable spot at the other end of the campground. I took some time to back up my recordings and do some reading. As I started to make dinner, the other campground occupants showed up, a young couple who apparently had been out exploring in their Jeep. As the shadows started to get long, they cranked up their generator and started blasting music. I figured they would eventually quiet down, but probably not before I lost my opportunity to record the evening chorus. There was also a good chance that other people would pull in for the night. I didn’t like my odds for being able to get a decent recording, so I packed up and left the campground. I knew of at least one dispersed site a few miles to the south and headed there. On the way, I found another two-track heading into the forest, an old logging road, and as it was almost dark, decided to call that camp for the night. I set up a mic about 100’ from camp, in a second- or third-growth of dense lodgepole pine. I didn’t expect much, as it was very quiet when I set up the mic, with just one distant hermit thrush adding to the quiet.
But the dawn chorus turned out to be sweeter than I expected. In addition, during the night what I suspect was a bobcat yowled periodically, finding a reverberant surface to send haunting calls down the valley. Close to dawn, it was joined by a couple of coyotes, including one that howled for almost 30 minutes. The recording gets added to my growing collection of “weird sounds from Oregon”, see also “Strange sounds in the night.”
The place where I had pulled my car in was small and buggy, so I headed down the road about 30 miles to a nice sunny campground for breakfast. Then I continued south toward to some of my old haunts in Nevada and California. But as I was driving past Malheur Wildlife Refuge in southern Oregon, I noticed the oncoming cars had really dirty windshields. As I wondered if the local gas stations had stopped supplying windshield cleaner, I soon found out the reason for the gross windshields:
Although I washed my car as soon as I got home, the lower part of the front bumper and radiator are still covered in grasshopper guts. I think they are a permanent part of the car now.
So, as I’ve done for many 4th of July’s now, I spent the holiday at Sheldon Wildlife Refuge. And as has happened more times than not, a brief thunderstorm rolled through. But that didn’t stop the birds from singing and I captured this nice evening chorus of sage thrashers with Brewer’s sparrows in the background:
After a couple of days at Sheldon, I headed back to the southern Warner Mountains. Near the Mill Creek Falls campground is a remote lake that is only accessible via a short hike. I’ve been wanting to do an overnight recording there when it’s not windy, with the hope of getting some owl or coyote calls reverberating off the lake. It’s always been too windy on previous attempts.
But this time it was pretty calm, although the clouds still had a few raindrops left to share. I set up a mic near the lake and left it for the night. Sadly, no owls or coyotes, but there was a lovely dawn chorus, punctuated with the calls of a nesting pair of bald eagles with the whisper of the lake outlet in the background.
The forecast said there was some very hot weather moving in, and after 10 days on the road, it was time to head home.
I didn’t know then that it would be my last trip with Shadow. Shortly after our return, his condition declined rapidly, and he died at the end of August. He was a good travelling companion, having accompanied me on almost every recording trip for 12 years, from the Canadian border to southern Texas, and the beaches of California and Oregon. In spite of an endless knack for trouble, he was also great company, and I miss him terribly.
