Copyright © 1995, Don Baccus
All images copyright © 1995, Don Baccus
Back in the late 1800s, Peter French controlled a vast cattle empire in southeast Oregon. His holdings included the Blitzen, Happy, and Catlow Valleys, most of the west slope of Steens Mountain, and the land around Round Barn.
The main headquarters for this empire was at the south end of the Blitzen Valley. While the term "P Ranch", named after French's brand, once properly referred to the whole ranch, today it is used to refer to the immediate area surrounding the remaining buildings of the headqarters.
The main house of the Ranch burned to the ground many years ago, and all that remains is the chimney and remnants of the foundation. Several years ago, I had a woman in an Elderhostel whose family was the last to own P Ranch. She remembers holiday dinners from her early childhood. Her family sold to the Swift Meat Packing Company, which later sold their holdings in the valley to the Us Government during the depression. The land was then added to the Refuge, which previously had consisted largely of Malheur Lake itself.
The Headquarters is surrounded by large poplars and is bordered by a portion of the managed marshland of the refuge. The Center Patrol Road runs north from here, and you are allowed to hike along the main canal even during the spring and summer nesting season.
The entire area is infested with common snipe, which can be heard winnowing incessently during the spring. Look for them perched on fenceposts, too. Various woodpeckers can been seen in the poplars surrounding the headquarters, and the nearby willows are full of birds such as yellow warbler and willow flycatcher. Mule deer are common in the fields and thickets in the area, and I've occasionally seen pronghorn, too.
Overlooking the area is a large metal tower originally constructed as a fire lookout. This tower has been used for decades as an evening roost by turkey vultures, especially in the fall.
If you walk along the dike, you'll have a good chance of seeing two species of bird which are relatively uncommon in Oregon, bobolink and bank swallow. The bank swallows often nest in the eroded, vertical banks of the canal, as do the more common rough-winged swallows. Bobolink can usually be found singing from willows surrounding the open fields about a quarter mile north of the Ranch, or in display flights over them. Their song sounds like a ditty from a video game, to me, and some folks call them the "R2-D2" bird, after the robot in "Star Wars".