13 min
Overview
The main reason to drive to the base of Bonney Butte is when HawkWatch International has volunteers at the top of Bonney Butte doing raptor counts and banding during the fall migration in September and October. The road in to Bonney Butte is notoriously rocky and low clearance cars will have a hard time. Also, if you want more of a hike, begin at the Wamic Road Trailhead or the Boulder Lake Trailhead. Find the forest road across from the trailhead, and head up a closed green gate with a Road Closed sign on it. There’s a junction: go right to a restroom and the volunteer campground; keep straight for the Observation and Birding Site. This side of the butte supports a dry forest of lodgepole pine, western white pine, Douglas-fir, noble fir, and mountain hemlock. There are views back to Badger Butte, Bonney Meadows and Echo Point and, at an opening, down a kinnikinnick slope to the White River valley, Mount Jefferson, Broken Top, and the Three Sisters. Up near the crest of the ridge, subalpine fir joins the forest mix. The road bends right on a fairly rocky tread and reaches the old lookout site. On September and October weekends, master birders will be plying their craft. You can look at the tally sheets and the HawkWatch information signs. A range of raptors, from golden eagles, vultures, and red-tailed hawks to smaller Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks may be taking advantage of ridgetop updrafts to wind their way south using the long ridgelines to the east of Mount Hood as a pathway. A plastic owl sits in a tree as a lure. The banding of raptors who come down to live pigeon lures is done from a hide up and over a hump in the ridge. They are caught using mist nets and sometimes a naturalist will bring back a bird that has been banded for observers at the lookout site to examine. As the raptors keep coming, the birders call out their IDs "Juvenile female sharpie at 11 o'clock!", sometimes accompanied by the alarm calls of the local ground squirrels, who are both stressed and intensely conflicted at this time - t
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