Last weekend I convinced my friend to join me on a trip east of the Cascades to look for birds, abandoned buildings, and things to poke. Much success was had. On the way to one of our first stops I saw what looked like bones strewn around a field along Friend Road. I made a U-turn only to find that these were not bones, they were dead coyotes. Six of them, likely dumped after being shot or poisoned or otherwise murdered.
Kind of a downer. Back at the car a Horned Lark was singing on the fence...
We kept driving down Friend Road until we made it to Friend, a town considered a ghost town. An old store remains as well as a one room schoolhouse.
At the store, Mountain Chickadees chattered away in the trees, while a Say's Phoebe and Western Bluebirds called from nearby powerlines. There is a residence very close to the store, and they have a horse. And the horse was very curious about us.
Best horse ever
The schoolhouse was cool too. They leave it unlocked so you can go inside and check it out. The outhouses next to it are also open and stocked with wipes.
After Friend, we made our way south towards Maupin where we stopped for the Peregrine feast, then kept driving the backroads for a bit. A Loggerhead Shrike swooped down from a powerline to catch a lizard, then perched on the barbed wire with it. I didn't see any great impaling action but it was cool to see anyhow.
Mountain Bluebirds were flying around, catching bugs, looking pretty...
And then there was this guy:
We got back to the main roads and continued the drive south towards Bend, occasionally stopping to poke stuff...
Road-killed GHOW
We stayed in Madras that night, then woke up super early on Sunday to drive the rest of the way to Millican for the really exciting destination: a Greater Sage-Grouse lek. This is where sage-grouse males gather to put on fascinating displays to attract and impress females. The females will select a mate, get down to business, then carry on to raise their young on their own. Some males never even get lucky, while others get lucky over and over and over.
Without a doubt, displaying male Greater Sage-Grouse are the strangest, craziest, weirdest wild bird I have ever seen. I meant to take a video at some point, but never did. So here is a sequence of what these guys do...
Pretty cool, right? Factor in some strange noises and you have quite the entertainment. One of the males took a break from displaying for a few minutes and went back to looking like a regular old grouse...
Only a couple of the males approached fairly close to where we parked, and we never got very good looks at the females. We left after about an hour and many males were still going strong.
We drove around the dirt roads nearby and found a couple spots to walk the dogs and investigate random junk...
Shipping container of personal belongings and a child's playhouse filled with plastic toys
Our next big stops were the ghost towns of Shaniko and Antelope. Shaniko has tons of preserved buildings, many made into museums or otherwise still in use...
Antelope has a bit more interesting history, mainly the 1980's takeover of the town by Baghwan Shree Rajneesh. This fellow is best known for his cult leadership, his salmonella-unleashing at salad bars in The Dalles, being a sex guru, and the large number of Rolls Royces that he owned. I recommend a quick google search if you need some entertainment.
The plaque above is located next to the town post office.
We made a few more stops along the way home, mostly abandoned buildings...
See the Say's Phoebe? How about here...
And the last bird of the trip, at the gas station in The Dalles...
This was a long post! Glad you made it to the end. Good times!!!
