It is migration season here, and the lakes are full of waterfowl, the fields have cranes and snow geese, and the air has an impossibly large number of red-winged blackbirds. In this bowl of the sagebrush desert is an oasis of marsh and lake, fifty miles long, following the course of the Blitzen River. It emerges from Steen Mountain and meanders through marshland into Malheur Lake. There is no exit to the sea for any watercourse here.

We watch a Harrier tangle with a Rough Legged Hawk, a hawk half again as bulky but less maneuverable. An immature Peregrine soars over me, then later a Prairie Falcon. The marshes have tons, literally, of Shoveler, Mallard, Wigeon, Pintail and Coot.

I am an intermittently serious birder. For long stretches lasting months I pay little attention to the seasonal movement of birds. I am satisfied with observing the nuthatch at the feeder and the bushtits that dribble through the fennel in the garden. Then I go to the coast in late April, or hit a world-class site like Malheur and I become the equal of any hard-bitten twitcher. My skills don't match the full-time obsessive, and I miss a fair bit out there (some birders have a native charisma towards birds and see rarities and vagrants on every outing, which rarely happens to me), but at such moments the pursuit of birds (and a fat trip list) becomes the organizing principle of my waking and sleeping hours.

We check in at the Headquarters to see who the new arrivals are. The first White-faced Ibis was seen today, and an Osprey has arrived, lording over the parking lot. I notice that the Brewers Sparrow I saw was not on the list, and add it. We are here a month early for the rarities, when Malheur turns into a serious birding destination. The trees around the headquarters area are famous as a vagrant trap, for rare eastern warblers. It is the only grove of trees for many, many miles. If you’re a lost forest bird, you’ll end up in it. So will scores of birders, eager to add to their life list.