The clouds of Harney County form dramatic backdrops to the High Desert landscapes of eastern Oregon. I just returned from the four-day Harney County Migratory Bird Festival. Though I was there to see birds, the cloud formations draw your eyes to the skies.
Layers of fluffy clouds hung over the Battleground Buttes. Higher elevations in the county received 200% of their normal snowfall. Days before I arrived, these fields were covered with snow.
Farther south, on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, wispy clouds drifted in the wind. You can see part of Steens Mountain in the background. This 50-mile long mountain dominates the landscape.
To the north, Great Horned Owls huddled in their nest while soft clouds filled the skies. This well-known nest site is on a main road, but the owls return every year to lay eggs and raise their young.
West of the refuge headquarters, thin clouds pointed in multiple directions. Golden eagles nest in the rimrock cliffs lining the basins in this area.
Near the town of Burns, herds of clouds lined up to graze in the skies. The Burns Paiute Tribe proudly live here on part of their ancestral lands.
The clouds of Harney County blanket this land of wide open spaces. They vary in personality, much like the people who call this place home.
Great clouds Siobhan!
Thank you, Anne!
Your clouds are so beautiful this week Siobhan, the bird festival must have been amazing. I’d love to see the Great Horned Owls one day. A marvelous environment for them and for us!
Thanks, Tina! This year I did a Bird Crawl with five stops for passport stamps. There just happened to be Great Horned Owls at four of the stops (!) 🦉
Great great cloud photos. Love it!
Thank you, John!
wow – such great skies
Yeah, it’s hard to keep your eyes off of them. 🙂
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Wonderful cloudscapes! And I especially love that shot of the Burns Paiute Reservation with the sky reflected in the water. This is definitely Big Sky Country 😯
Thank you, Sarah! Yes, lots of wide open views.
Beautiful! Maybe you can make some suggestions for me when I travel to Summer Lake next month. I’ll have a few days on my own and I’m not afraid to get in the car and go somewhere new. Hoping for puffy clouds and blue sky days!
Yes, you’ll get great views from Playa and on your field trips. Not sure if you’ll visit Fort Rock with Pepper, but it’s a great place for photos. The Painted Hills are a bit out of the way, but definitely worth a visit. 😄
Wow!
All of these captures are just so amazingly mesmerizing. The landscapes are certainly adding a wonderful touch in these photos.
Thank you very much for sharing these with my challenge 🙂
Thanks, Hammad!
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Beautiful cloudscapes, Siobhan! The first one is my favourite among these!
Thanks so much, Ann-Christine! 🙂
Hope the migration festival was good to you – recently returned from Dauphin Island – started a bit week, but a few days into the birds started showing up.
Yeah, it went well. Guide told us higher # of species, but fewer quantity of each due to weird weather. Maybe you saw some weather effects on the island.