About the Area
The Klamath Basin offers excellent, year-round wildlife observation opportunities. Binoculars, a spotting scope, and wildlife field guides will enhance your viewing experience. Staying in your vehicle, when practical, will increase your observation opportunities and reduce disturbance to wildlife.
We have lots of birds of many species here. To give you an idea, here are the results from the Christmas 2004 bird count taken near downtown Klamath Falls:
105th Christmas Bird Count
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Lake Ewauna Area
Savannah Sparrow
The following bird species and numbers were seen during the 105th Christmas Bird Count on Sat., 18 Dec., 2004. This is not the total for the entire count, but is for the Lake Ewauna section of the count circle, and that area includes the Wingwatcher's Trail. This area was surveyed by Rick Hardy, Wes Stone, and Joan Spencer. For more information please contact Kevin Spencer at .
Area that was monitored is described by Wes Stone:
Evening Grosbeak
I just want to clarify what Kevin said. The "Lake Ewauna area", one of 7 designated areas on the Klamath Falls Christmas Bird Count, includes the Wingwatchers Trail but also the rest of the lake and a large portion of the South Suburbs. So the overwhelming majority of these individuals weren't seen from the trail (almost all of the Northern Shovelers were seen by Rick Hardy at the sewage ponds, which he got special permission to bird).
Twenty-six of the 52 species were seen either from the trail or from Veteran's Park, and another 10 were observed from the right-of-way on the north side of the lake (future trail site!). So, most if not all of these species (and others) MIGHT be seen from the trail on a random day in December. This count area also DOESN'T include the Link River upstream from the highway bridge, where there were scads of Black-crowned Night-Herons and waterfowl.
In any case, I just thought that anything on the website should reference the larger area and not just the Wingwatchers Trail. Rough area boundaries were: West-HWY 97, South-HWY 140/Southside Bypass, East-HWY 39, North-South 6th Street.
Thanks and Happy Holidays!
Wes Stone
Chiloquin, OR
wesweb.homestead.com.
Pied-billed Grebe - 6
Eared Grebe - 2
Double-crested Cormorant - 1
Great Blue Heron - 5
Great Egret - 1
Black-crowned Night Heron - 3
Canada Goose - 529
Mallard - 160
Gadwall - 10
Northern Shoveler - 866
Redhead - 1
Lesser Scaup - 527
Greater Scaup - 2
Common Goldeneye - 111
Barrow's Goldeneye - 5
Bufflehead - 37
Common Merganser - 32
Ruddy Duck - 118
Bald Eagle - 1
Red-tailed Hawk - 3
American Kestrel - 10
Merlin - 1
American Coot - 345
Ring-billed Gull - 38
California Gull - 194
Rock Pigeon - 201
Mourning Dove - 175
Belted Kingfisher - 3
Red-shafted Flicker - 11
Western Scrub Jay - 6
Black-billed Magpie - 1
Common Raven - 2
Mountain Chickadee - 16
Common Bushtit - 6
Red-breasted Nuthatch - 3
Brown Creeper - 2
Bewick's Wren - 2
Marsh Wren - 3
Golden-crowned Kinglet - 5
Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 2
Varied Thrush - 1
American Robin - 36
Eurasian Starling - 953
Song Sparrow- 30
Golden-crowned Sparrow - 12
White-crowned Sparrow -21
Oregon Junco - 7
Brewer's Blackbird - 1
House Finch - 99
Lesser Goldfinch - 21
House Sparrow - 671
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