On Tuesday, June 25, we set off for Eastern Oregon. Our major goal was to visit Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a vast complex of wetlands in Oregon's high desert.
This refuge is one of the top birding destinations in the US. It is famous for its tremendous diversity and concentrations of wildlife. One thing we can say for sure about Eastern Oregon and this refuge: IT'S HUGE!
The Auto Tour alone is 42 miles one way. It's not a loop! We did see a lot of birds. A new one for us is the Bobolink. We also saw several families of newly hatched red headed American Coots.
The area is very remote, with few accommodations. We found Hotel Diamond, circa 1898, a B & B in the historic town of Diamond (population 7). We rented a small bedroom upstairs with bathrooms down the hall.
We enjoyed a home cooked roast beef dinner served family style. The next morning a deluxe continental breakfast was served in the dining room.
Thursday on our way west, outside Burns, we stopped at the BLM Wild Horse Corrals. This is part of the National Wild Horse and Burro Program.
Wild horses are gathered from public lands and brought here for adoption. The day we were there about 650 horses were in the corrals. We were surprised that there are about 40,000 wild horses in the western US.
The adoption fee is only $185. These horses are very wild and need a lot of gentle patience. We considered hitching one to our bike rack, but that didn't meet their stringent criteria.
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