Oregon will never have the best birds, but it does have some of the best birding.
   Just the name “Green Jay” (photo) gets most birders twitching. Add Great Kiskadee and Plain Chachalaca and the froth starts building on the palate. These birds can only be seen one place in the United States: the legendary Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Other “valley” specialties that attract birders to South Texas include White-tailed Hawk, Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet, and Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. The list goes on: Tamaulipas Crow, Brown Jay, Tropical Parula, and White-tipped Dove. Birders who choose to maintain and build a “life list” of lifetime bird sightings must visit the Rio Grande Valley sometime in their lives. Some birders would even call the Lower Rio Grande “Mecca.”

   But for this birder, and certainly others of varying skill and ability levels, there’s more to birding than just the birds. Don’t get me wrong. Green Jays and Great Kiskadees will forever dance in my head like sugar plum fairies. I will most definitely return to South Texas to observe the regional specialty birds. I will even lead birders on tours to the region in search of these tropical species and the whole Rio Grande experience. But this particular experience lacks an important element of what some consider good birding. Step outside these isolated islands of habitat preserved for the birds and one quickly reenters the developed and cultivated human world; a world outside most people’s image of nature. For the natural birding experience, one must journey to the Wild West.

   Three years ago, my spouse and birding partner, Kris, and I discovered Northern Alberta. We were amazed when we traveled just a couple hours north of Edmonton into the seemingly endless swath of forestland known as the “boreal forest.” The diverse habitats of Alberta’s boreal forest provide nesting grounds for more than 20 species of warblers plus dozens more waterfowl, shorebirds, owls and songbirds. One does not have to travel to Alberta to see the birds that breed there. Many of them breed in the east, and the warblers can even be seen in South Texas during spring migration. But Northern Alberta offers the Wild West birding experience that is unmatched in the East or in South Texas. It offers total immersion in nature; instead of searching out islands of habitat, the Alberta birder must search for the isolated islands of urbanization.

   Five years ago, this birder escaped the chaos most people know as the San Francisco Bay Area. Some eight million humans call this region home, and more than 400 species of birds can be observed in the area, providing one knows where to find them. Three hours east of the Bay Area, the adventurous birder finds long stretches of wilderness in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The birding experience in the High Sierra is rewarding, but the wilderness there is shared among the eight million Bay Area residents seeking escape from the urban jungle.

   My departure from the Bay Area was inspired by a brief but cathartic visit to Eastern Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. One of the largest refuges in the lower 48 states, Malheur’s habitats are not measured in thousands of acres like its counterparts in South Texas or the Bay Area. Malheur is measured in hundreds of thousands of acres. Add the contiguous public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and we’re talking about millions of acres of habitat for the birds … and the reptiles, mammals, and insects, and all the vegetation that supports their survival. Just like Northern Alberta, one is hard-pressed to find human habitation in the Malheur region.

   I was privileged to live at Malheur Refuge for my first spring and summer in Oregon. The birding experience was well worth the room and board I received as a full-time volunteer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The birding experience offered total immersion in birds and their habitats, with easy access to spots with no human activity visible for miles in all directions. The region is not untrammeled by humans. In fact, the refuge itself was once managed for cattle production. But the birding experience at Malheur still immerses the visitor in wildness.

   After my stint at Malheur I was drawn to Central Oregon, which lies at the transition between the Cascades and the High Desert. The Oregon Cascades boast a strip of wilderness that runs from Washington to California. Just over two million people live in the entire state of Oregon, most of whom live in the urban centers of the Willamette Valley. Even on a busy summer weekend, one can still find solitude in the Cascades, along with a true wilderness birding experience. Central Oregon certainly has its urban center, which rates as the fastest growing region in the state. Most Central Oregon residents live in Deschutes County, with a population under 200,000. Let’s say the county population doubles in the next ten years to 400,000. Even this outrageous rate of growth could not take away the millions of acres of forest and desert that define the Central Oregon birding experience.

   Oregon hosts no endemic bird species (birds found nowhere else), while Texas and California both claim endemics. The list of birds observed in Oregon barely exceeds 475 species, while Texas and California hold the ranks of first and second in the nation, with over 600 and 500 respectively. No bird species as spectacular as Texas’ Green Jay or as isolated as California’s Yellow-billed Magpie reside in Oregon. And according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon ranks only 16th in the nation for visitation by wildlife watchers. 

  But no state in the U.S. except Oregon invites the nature enthusiast to travel from the beach to the volcanoes to the desert in a matter of hours. Oregon boasts incredibly high regional concentrations of woodpeckers and owls, drawing birders from across the country into the state’s abundant natural resource. Immersing oneself in Oregon’s nature is easy. The state has its share of urban centers, but they are the islands surrounded by a sea of wildness and open space. This abundance of habitat combined with the state’s proximity beneath the Pacific Flyway and the corresponding diversity of birds make Oregon the base for a truly unique nature experience. Some would say it’s the best birding on the continent. 

Oregon Important Bird Areas www.audubonportland.org
Oregon Cascades Birding Trail  www.oregonbirdingtrails.org

Text © 2003 Stephen Shunk of Paradise Birding  Photo links to source.