Blue Goose ~ Day 39

July 9, 2014 ~ Burns OR to Nampa, ID

Burns is 30 miles north of Malheur NWR which is where I headed early this morning. I had been here before, a couple of years ago, and saw my first Sage Thrasher hanging around the Visitor Center.

White Pelicans at The Narrows on Malheur NWR - OR

On that trip I also saw fluffy Clark Grebe babies climbing off and on a parent in the spot called The Narrows between Malheur Lake and Mud Lake. And I had a flat tire way out in the refuge but a kind cowgirl named Lola came by in her pickup truck and fixed it for me. She had a lease with the refuge and was on her way to cut hay...which is called an "extractive" or "consumptive" activity.

It was cloudy all day, raining intermittently, but usually only for five minutes at a time. I did stop by the VC but the mosquitoes were ferocious, even with an application of Esther's vanilla-lemon-lavendar spray. I think it does help some as we used in around the camp fire in Oregon one night and weren't bothered at all but it was not very effective in this mosquito hell. I tried a very short trail to a photo blind and was getting bitten through my sox and on my exposed hands which were saturated with this good-smelling DEET-free stuff. The woman volunteer in the center said she uses something with eucalyptus and lemon peel by Repel that she had to order online and which the refuge workers use. She stays at Malheur as a volunteer for three months and then lives in west Texas near Big Bend National Park the rest of the year. There were birds flying outside...an Osprey guarding a dead fish on a platform in the marsh, a Rufous Hummingbird at the flowers right outside the window....swallows, an oriole, ducks and grebes....but I moved on after visiting a little museum at the headquarters with many taxidermied bird specimens, most collected nearly 70-80 years ago on the refuge. There was also historical information and photographs (as there are at many of the refuges), in this case detailing the conflicts betweens settlers and ranchers, the early sod homes, the indigenous Indians and the tribulations of pioneers coming from the east, getting lost and wallowing about in the marshes.

I left on a wide gravel road east out of the refuge, connected with a main state highway and saw my first Ferruginous Hawk. Now this hawk I have been chasing all over the west for two years...sort of. I was always on the lookout for it. I think I saw one perched on a fence post one afternoon in Oregon as I climbed out of the Deschutes River Canyon south of Maupin, but never went back to check it out. And there weren't shoulders so I couldn't just pull off, which is always a consideration while doing driving-birding. I always regretted not turning around that day as these hawks just aren't that easy to see. But there it was today right in the appropriate habitat - dark on top, white underneath, with a white tail that I saw clearly when it flew. It looked a bit like an osprey at first - but there was no water nearby and it wasn't an Osprey. Now I want to see it better and longer. Still, an unsatisfactory sighting is better than not seeing one at all.

And then I drove and drove and drove through sage, up and over long rolling hills, along the back (eastern) side of the Steens. I got hungry early afternoon and pulled over at a gravelly spot near the Owyhee River and cooked a meal if using heat to eat qualifies as cooking. I boiled water in my little JetBoil stove and rehydrated some Teriyaki Chicken. Feeling refreshed, I kept driving north and east, finally getting into the Snake River Valley near Nampa, Idaho. The desert began to turn green, irrigated by water from the Snake and other waters, the air deliciously fragrant with mint fields all over.

I got to Deer Flat NWR after 4 o'clock so it was closed, but I picked up a map, which usually are available after hours, and drove the the 47-mile Snake River route. Deer Flat NWR is composed of the Lake Lowell Unit and the Snake River Unit with management of 104 islands in the river. The last on the auto route is Dilley Island which "was purchased for the refuge by Idaho Power as mitigation for the construction of C.J. Strike Dam." 

Snake River Island - Deer Flat NWR - ID

I hate dams and reservoirs. To me reservoirs are bloated rivers with dead trees at the bottom and kind of creepy. Perhaps they are necessary, but I don't have to like what they do to free-flowing waters. 

At the first pull-out along the auto route, my endless paging through bird guides over the years helped when I rather quickly identified a small bird bouncing around the boulders using to outline the parking area and prohibit over-entusiastic drivers of motorized vehicles from venturing into the riparian habitat. It was the second life bird for the day: a Rock Wren. What happened is that I saw two of them close up but briefly before they disappeared into the brush, so I decided to sit for an hour and wait them out. One of the field guides says they seldom are seen far from rock jumbles. And 30 minutes later, out comes a wren, which sat on the ground in the shade of one of the rocks with wings held partially away from its body and its mouth open.

Rock Wren at the Snake River Unit of Deer Flat NWR - ID

I've seen birds do this on very hot days which it was today, especially when clouds finally cleared. It stuck around several minutes so I got to see it well. Nice!

I drove on and pulled into a river access site scraping bottom on the rutted road. I always want to get as close as possible to water. There were four people camping down there, all checking me out as I drove in, stopped and got out. I engaged two of them in conversation and they were friendly enough, once they realized I wasn't going to stick around. I'm not sure the thin guy had teeth. His companion was a heavy-set woman in shorts. They were about to bathe in the river. The guy told me they camp down there often, for free, on a "First come; first served" basis. He said he had an uncle who lived in Michigan and "had a dairy farm up in Detroit." 

The route ended on one side of Lake Lowell where people were fishing, although there were signs all over stating that "All Boats Must Be Off the Lake by 9:30 P.M." 

For many years, I subscribed to HCN (High Country News), a magazine about issues in the west. I found this while searching for information about Lake Lowell: 

WWW.HCN.NEWS

Protesters armed with posters opposing a ban on fishing, canoeing, boating and other recreation paraded 200 boats in a “Death of Recreation Parade” July 9. Locals worried about Idaho's Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge's proposed comprehensive conservation plan were demonstrating to express concern that the new plan would limit their recreational pursuits and the industries that recreation supports.

The issue provides a type of case study of what can happen when recreation and government mandates mix.The refuge's main feature is Lake Lowell, a manmade reservoir and one of the largest off-stream reservoirs in the West. It was created in 1909 to supply irrigation water to Idaho farms. It’s also become a haven to boaters, fishers, hunters, horsemen -- and wildlife. Normally, revising these management plans does not provoke such spirited responses, said Desiree Sorenson-Groves, Government Affairs Vice President for the National Wildlife Refuge Association. But Deer Flat’s case is unique: The refuge lies atop a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation site, and dammed lakes are more often seen as recreation areas than wildlife havens.

Complicating Deer Flat’s planning effort was a confusing battle over who owned surface water use jurisdiction--the Bureau or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [who manage National Wildife Refuges]. The two left it undecided until the service began design of the conservation plan. In June 2010, the agencies agreed that FWS should control Lake Lowell's surface water use. Now, Lake Lowell recreationists are faced with rules where previously there were none, and it seems the mere presence of federal government meddling has irked them. But these recreation-hungry Idahoans may have jumped the gun with their parade. The Deer Flat plan’s preferred alternative would allow most current recreational activities...The effort to satisfy both recreationists and wildlife protection mandates is part of an ongoing nationwide process set off by the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997. Refuges are part of more than 150 million acres of public land across the United States, a system initiated by Theodore Roosevelt as a means of protecting fish, wildlife and plant; this law focused on updating their management. The 1997 act requires each refuge to design a 15-year plan by 2012 to guide future recreational and wildlife management.  As of April 2011, 424 comprehensive conservation plans were complete, 114 were in the process and 16 had yet to get underway.

Deer Flat's plan would protect more than 200 species of waterfowl, like Canadian geese, bald eagles and great blue heron and 30 mammals such as mule deer, river otter and red fox use the area.After four open houses to gauge public concern, the refuge office had received 197 comments as of Wednesday evening, some addressing recreational concerns but others suggesting limiting use to non-motorized boats, along with some other ideas, said refuge manager Jennifer Scott-Brown. While Deer Flat's dilemma has made the news for its contentiousness, refuge managers say they believe plans generally settle on an adequate balance between wildlife protection and recreation."Usually where most (plans) fall is somewhere in the middle," Sorenson-Groves said. News reports also indicated the goal isn’t to take away boats, but still meet the federal mandate to protect wildlife. But as the boat-driven battle continues between late-enforced rules and recreation habit, Lake Lowell boaters are unlikely to be appeased.

Always, the tension between what most Americans want and any effort to protect at least some of our country from major "consumptive" use.