McKenzie River wildlife

Pedro and I went camping at the beginning of August in central Oregon at a campground called Ice Cap on the McKenzie River. It was our first time at the campground and our first time at that river. We loved it so much that when we returned home, we reserved another weekend there at the end of August.

I have many good photos, and I’m going to combine both weekends at the same campground. To make fewer photos for you to have to absorb, I’m going to break them up a little. This first post will be just the wildlife. It was all the usual stuff, and my photos aren’t great, but it was fun collecting them.

The Canada Geese loudly proclaimed their activities and were easy to identify even if hard to see.

The American Dipper was not shy so I could ID her even in the low light.

Ice Cap campground is on the edge of a small body of water called Carmen Reservoir. Our campsite was high above it and we looked down onto the birds much of the time, and sometimes we walked down to the water’s edge to get a closer view of them.

The Cedar Waxwings are active, presenting a challenge in photography as they move rapidly.

The Cedar Waxwings were my favourite of all of our visiting wildlife.

We also looked down onto this beaver lodge. At least we are convinced it’s a beaver lodge. We did not see sign of beavers though.

We were so bombarded with chubby chipmunks at our campsite that we named two of them. I don’t have a photo of the Yellowpine Chipmunk, but the fat Siskiyou Chipmunk was always close at hand.

The next time I looked over here, two inches of a banana were missing, and a chipmunk was licking his chops. {photo by Pedro Rivera}

We witnessed a Steller’s Jay and Bernardo the chipmunk squabbling like siblings over some crumbs we put on the stump. The Jay actually poked the chipmunk with its beak when he wasn’t looking. Then Bernie jumped at the Jay, causing it to fly off, as you see in the photo on the right.

A Great Blue Heron flew on the other side of the reservoir, too far for my phone to capture well.

A Red Squirrel scolded but did not give us a good view of her colours in the light.

Through the windshield we spotted deer crossing the road as we left the campground.

The only other wildlife I know of out there are us people. We at least smelled like it at times. Some of the other campers did get wild one night. Pedro actually jumped into the ice cold water, and that was WILD. But I will cover all that in another post.

One thought on “McKenzie River wildlife”

We were up and down the McKenzie several times over the years, Crystal. It’s a gorgeous river. My dad had a small house on the river and my brother had a larger house on it, at seperate times. Fun photos. The encounter between the squirrel and the Jay would have been a kick to watch. “Peck me, will you!”