Oregon Trails Part 4 - Finale (04June2021)

In the morning I had the chance to take a couple hours and hunt some species that I needed for my life list.  When using the Target Species tool on eBird, I could see woodpeckers were my main target.  Most of the sightings for these species were north of Bend near Sisters.  But that was a good hour drive.  So I made the lazy and wrong call of going back to Shevlin Park as some of the species did have hits there.

Shevlin was definitely birdy, but I didn't have anything new.

Townsend's Solitaire.

Mountain Chickadee

Western Wood-pewee

Hairy Woodpecker 

A couple of hours evaporated into the ether and I headed back to pick up the family and rejoin the caravan for the ride back to Eugene.  Our in-laws had planned one more hike in the Cascades half way back and we also stopped one more time in Sisters for some coffee and so the ladies could check out some of the shops.  I searched hard for Pinyon Jays and Woodpeckers but came up empty again.

Red Crossbills were literally at my feet.  I had to back up to take these pics.

Pygmy Nuthatch

Lesser Goldfinch

Well that's it for the birds!  Our hike was at the Blue Pool which was a really awesome way to end the trip.  The Blue Pool is a place where a river bubbles up from underground and that makes it freezing cold.  The average temp is 37 degrees F.

Some folks were jumping in and I even saw one girl jump 40-50 feet from a cliff into the pool, so I just had to do it myself.  I jumped in and it's hard to describe how cold it really was.  I can now see how people have died simply because the body stops working when it hits those cold temps.  

I can't wait to go back to Oregon.  Maybe someday to live there.