Malheur NWR, Part Three.

After visiting Benson Pond I continued down the Center Patrol Road towards Frenchglen.

I saw this bird fly by and took a quick picture...  Thought it was just a blue heron till I looked at the picture closely... I backed up to find where it landed...

A Black-crowned Night-Heron!  Another first for me.

This bird and I stared at each other for a bit.  Is it just a Western Tanager with not as much red in the face?

A Northern Harrier near the P Ranch. 

A snipe on the side of the road to Frenchglen.

This Ring-necked Pheasant concludes my birds for Saturday (which felt like 10 days of birds)!

Sunday morning I woke up around 5:30 to hopefully get lots more birds in before heading back to Portland.

At that same bridge on 205 I found a Western Meadowlark singing with its mouth full...


Also a California Quail..

From this spot I got my first sighting of pronghorn!

I was afraid these would be the only ones I saw on the trip, but luckily there were more to come...  Later that morning on the Center Patrol Road:

4 more pronghorn!  Just across the creek and through the trees!

Beautiful!

I only saw about five Sandhill Cranes my whole trip... These cranes were along Sodhouse Lane.  Some others along the CP Road:
The one on the left is actually banded...



I returned to the headquarters to look for more birds... Found lots of bunnies and more ground squirrels...



Several Turkey Vultures were up in the trees...


A Black-headed Grosbeak..  Startled by a vulture:


Ok, one more post to come after I eat some lunch.

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