May
May managed to be even more hectic than April. I headed back out to central Oregon to work on another ONDA project. This one felt incredibly special since it was the very first phase of a new project on a place called Twelve Mile Creek. We built a brand new fence to keep grazing cattle out. If the cattle can access the land, there's really not any restoration that can happen because of all the destruction they cause.
Twelve Mile Creek flows through an incredibly beautiful canyon in the middle of nowhere. It's BLM land with no trails or signage so it was a cross country hike down into the canyon to get to our campsite and work area.
These trips are always fun but this one was really top tier. Somehow we had all these people who were very knowledgeable in a specific field - two(!) historians, someone who volunteers on the Oregon Bee Atlas Project, a geology nerd, a few birders(me included) and some folks with botany backgrounds. So we got to really extra nerd out on everything around us!
The wildflowers were in bloom and the weather was spectacular. We even woke up to a bunch of snow on that last morning.
I was home for a few days before I turned around and headed back to the desert. This time to go to the Oregon Birding Association's annual meeting. This year it was being held in Harney County, one of my favorite places in Oregon. It was my first time attending and it was fantastic. 3 days of field trips with super knowledgable guides and other great birders. In total I saw 142 species of birds and a ton of new to me birds. Birding Harney County involves a lot of driving and paired with the heat, it was pretty exhausting. I needed a few days of lots of naps and putting my feet up to recover.
I still have a lot of photos to go through but here's what I've got so far. I don't think there's anything cuter than a baby grebe catching a ride on its parent's back.
