I am working with the Fish & Wildlife Service in Klamath Falls, Oregon. The Klamath Basin is a great place to be! Klamath Falls reminds me a bit of Missoula, MT where I have spent my past two summers. It’s a great birding area as many birds migrate through the upper Klamath Basin and there are tons of waterfowl here right now! I am really into birding so I am loving being surrounded by such a great diversity of bird species right now. Waterfowl I have seen thus far include: scaup, buffleheads, western grebe, redhead, goldeneye, ruddy duck, white-fronted goose, snow goose, ross’s goose, canada goose, gadwall, common merganser, eared grebe, mallard, northern shoveler, northern pintail, and too many more to remember!

So far we’ve been done some Oregon spotted frog surveys, bald eagle nest monitoring, water depth sampling and we’ve gone out on boats with USGS to help capture endangered and threatened suckers in the Klamath Basin by seining!

Sadly though, I have been learning that the water quality in the upper Klamath Basin is not so great due to many agricultural operations surrounding the basin. Hopefully though we can help gather data to aid management decisions in the future towards improving water quality in the basin!

Here are some great pictures from the past couple of weeks!