The High Desert Museum

So, we did another Bend thing. We keep knocking things off our list as we explore the area around us in our new home of Bend, Oregon. In our travels south of town, we have gone by The High Desert Museum many, many times without ever having had the time to stop. Finally, we set aside a morning to go. We couldn't see all of the exhibits in a half a day, and none of the raptors were on display because of threat of avian flu, so we're going to have to go back. We focused mainly on the outdoor exhibits and Ann noted that when the weather is bad will be a great time to go back and see the collections inside.

Situated in the Ponderosa Pine woods just south of Bend, the High Desert Museum comprises an exhibit hall and several outdoor attractions connected via shaded walkways. Even in the heat of an August day, I was surprised at how shady and relatively cool it stays up under the beautiful giant pines.

Local "Wildlife"

One of the first thing that we noticed on approaching the museum building to pay our entry fees, like just about everywhere south of town, there are a ton of what we call mini-bears, small rodents scurrying everywhere. Unlike most places, however, some of the Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels are chubby, lethargic, and clearly not phased by humans. It is a real shame that people are feeding the "cute" creatures. The Yellow-pine Chipmunks are still true-to-form skittish of humans.

Golden-Mantled Ground Squirrel, Chubby and Docile

Chipmunk in a Barrel

Yellow-Pine Chipmunk, Tiny and Skittish

On exiting the side of the building to visit the exterior exhibits, I heard a lot of birds including chickadees, woodpeckers, a flock of Cedar Waxwings, Red-breasted Nuthatches, a Red-tailed hawk, and a Raven that sounded like a three-pack a day smoker. It flew over with something white in its mouth just as we heard the rather jarring call of a rooster. I had not expected chickens on the property, but then I did not know that they had a replica farmstead on the grounds, complete with chicken pen.

He's Good Looking, but About as Sharp as a Bowling Ball

Prettiest Pearly Everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea, I've See This Summer

Mexican Hedge-Nettle, Stachys mexicana

Creekside Forget-Me-Nots, Myosotis scorpioides

Ripening Oregon Grapes, Mahonia aquifolium

There's a small creek running through the property that no doubt the local wildlife use extensively for rehydrating. Some of the water is channeled into small ponds and into the otter exhibit. One of the ponds contained a bunch of Rainbow Trout, some of them dinner-sized.

Rainbow Trout

The principal attraction at the museum during the summer is the resident raptors, Because of the current avian flu scare, they are not on display and are only on view in the Raptors of the Desert Sky program. This program is an extra-cost ticket on top of the museum admission, but well worth the extra nominal fee. Roughly 100 guests are seated out under the trees bordering an open grassy meadow and during the 25-minute program, different raptors fly from perch to perch over and through the audience. I could feel the wind from a hawk's wing as she flew not three inches off my left arm.

Open Area Where the Raptors Fly

Now let's talking about photographing raptors in flight. Falcons fly too damn fast to get a photograph by any means other than dumb luck. I tried several hundred frames and got bupkis. But I knew that going in and went for the challenge anyway. The way to do it is to video them and extract stills from the video, but despite having a camera that takes wonderful video, I insist rather stubbornly on shooting stills.

The first raptor we saw was an Aplomado Falcon, a bird that I have never seen before, looking much like a very overgrown kestrel. There are a few pairs in the southwest US, but they mainly live in Mexico and South America. This small bird never alit for more than a fraction of a second, so she was very hard to shoot. 

Aplomado Falcon (Next 2 Images Also)

As the next bird flew into the seating area across the field, it was obvious to me that it was a Harlan's Hawk, a bird of Alaska and Western Canada that winters in the central and southwestern parts of the US. Although it lacks a red tail, it is a form of Red-Tailed Hawk and not its own species of hawk by modern rules of speciation. This female is a big hawk, a typical Buteo in size, and is also the most vividly colored Harlan's that I have ever seen, with a very distinctive black and white-banded tail and vivid rufous leggings and shoulders.

Harlan's Hawk (Next 2 Images Also)

The final bird in our flight program was the speediest of all birds, a turbo-charged female Peregrine Falcon who never stopped racing in circles stooping on a lure that her handler was twirling. When she grabbed the lure, she was rewarded with a starling to eat. This little acrobat was often nothing but a blur to my naked eye. I finally got some decent shots of her as she devoured her starling on the gloved hand of her handler.

Peregrine Falcon (Next 3 Images Also)

After the show was over, they brought out a really small, smallest that I have ever seen, male Great Horned Owl. As with most birds of prey, the females are much larger than and often twice the size of males. This GHO was really pretty tiny, weighing in at 950 grams (2 pounds).

And finally, they brought out a very large female Red-Tailed Hawk that is one of the lightest colored ones that I have ever seen. If you have ever observed Red-Tails much at all, you know that they have quite a range of plumage variations. This one's head is very light and her belly band is hardly visible from any distance. She apparently loves to sun herself and she obligingly spread her wings and tail feathers for us. You can see that she has new primaries (flight feathers) and new tail feathers coming in where those feathers molted.

Great View of Red Tail Feathers, a Warm Cinnamon Color

After watching the raptors, we went to see the other stars of the museum, a pair of river otters. I never tire of watching them be otters and do otter stuff, though it is a lot more fun to see them in the wild than in captivity.

At this point in our day, we were getting famished and wanted to head back into town for a beer and some falafels, so we made our way back into the main exhibit hall and back out to the parking lot.

Grill Detail, Restored USFS Fire Truck

Western Painted Turtle

I thought that the High Desert Museum is really well done and that it is a place that we will want to visit on a more regular basis. We still really have not delved into any of the interior exhibits and very few of the outdoor exhibits.