Umatilla National Forest Fauna Birds Aves Animals Postcard

This video still was taken from our expedition video, The Umatilla National Forest Expedition shot on location in Oregon. I'm Michael C. Clark Naturalist, Explorer, and Cinematographer. My compañero Loganapithicus and I travel the world in search of unique ecosystems to explore and document cinéma-vérité style. Our expeditions usually take place in an area of five square miles or less within a duration of 7-21 days and we focus on the entire ecosystem plants, animals, geology, weather, and more. We do not specifically seek out, bait, or wait for species, we film what we encounter as we explore the ecosystem on foot. The purpose of our expeditions is to help in homo sapien's ceaseless quest for knowledge by documenting the ecosystems as they are forever changing with plant Earth as they have for billions of years. Our ecosystem videos can be viewed FREE by anyone and used for nonprofit educational instruction and testing purposes as well as scientific study of the ecosystems. Therefore we have left out narrations and used music in the background when no natural sound is available, ultimately leaving the videos for self interpretation, individual discovery, and for professors to explain or show as examples in a classroom setting. We are unable to film every species in the selected ecosystems, as it is impossible to get everything in such a short time frame, one could spend an entire lifetime studying an ecosystem of planet Earth and still never see it all. No plant or animal species were harmed during our expeditions, all species are filmed in their natural habitat and are not coerced or paid for any performances. This is Mother Nature's movie if you have script questions please direct them toward her.4 million acres (5,700 km²). In descending order of land area the forest is located in parts of Umatilla, Grant, Columbia, Morrow, Wallowa, Union, Garfield, Asotin, Wheeler, and Walla Walla counties. (Columbia, Garfield, Asotin, and Walla Walla counties are in Washington, while the rest are in Oregon.) More than three-quarters of the forest lies in the state of Oregon.[4] Forest headquarters are located in Pendleton, Oregon. There are local ranger district offices in Heppner and Ukiah in Oregon, and in Pomeroy and Walla Walla in Washington.[5] The Umatilla National Forest takes its name from the Umatilla Indian word meaning "water rippling over sand." Explorers Lewis and Clark passed through the area in 1805 on the Columbia River, and Marcus and Narcissa Whitman passed through in 1836 to establish a mission at Wailatpu near Walla Walla, Washington. Thousands of emigrants later followed the Oregon Trail west, and many remained in the Blue Mountain region. Discovery of gold in Oregon in 1851 led to the settlement of the North Fork John Day River area. More than $10 million in gold and silver were mined, and remnants of the era are still visible in the National Forest. Some claims are still being mined.[6] Umatilla was established on July 1, 1908 from part of Blue Mountains National Forest and all of Heppner National Forest. Wenaha National Forest was added on November 5, 1920.[7] The forest was the site of the School Fire, the largest fire in the contiguous United States of 2005. Common wildlife in the Umatilla National Forest include Shira's moose[8], rocky mountain elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, mule deer, whitetail deer, gray wolf[9], cougar, coyote, badger, Merriam's turkeys, transplanted wild rio grande turkeys, blue and ruffed grouse, Franklin's grouse, chinook salmon, silver salmon, steelhead, rainbow trout.[6], brook trout, and lake trout. Birds (class Aves) are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic (warm-blooded), egg-laying, vertebrate animals. With around 10,000 living species, they are the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. All present species belong to the subclass Neornithes, and inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) Bee Hummingbird to the 2.75 m (9 ft) Ostrich. The fossil record indicates that birds emerged within theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic period, around 160 million years (Ma) ago. Paleontologists regard birds as the only clade of dinosaurs to have survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 65.5 Ma (million years) ago. Modern birds are characterised by feathers, a beak with no teeth, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a lightweight but strong skeleton. All living species of birds have wings—the now extinct flightless moa of New Zealand being the only exception. Wings are evolved forelimbs, and most bird species can fly. Flightless birds include ratites, penguins, and a number of diverse endemic island species. Birds also have unique digestive and respiratory systems that are highly adapted for flight. Some birds, especially corvids and parrots, are among the most intelligent animal species; a number of bird species have been observed manufacturing and using tools, and many social species exhibit cultural transmission of knowledge across generations. Many species undertake long distance annual migrations, and many more perform shorter irregular movements. Birds are social; they communicate using visual signals and through calls and songs, and participate in social behaviors, including cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of bird species are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years, but rarely for life. Other species have polygynous ("many females") or, rarely, polyandrous ("many males") breeding systems. Eggs are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents. Most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Many species are of economic importance, mostly as sources of food acquired through hunting or farming. Some species, particularly songbirds and parrots, are popular as pets. Other uses include the harvesting of guano (droppings) for use as a fertiliser. Birds figure prominently in all aspects of human culture from religion to poetry to popular music. About 120–130 species have become extinct as a result of human activity since the 17th century, and hundreds more before then. Currently about 1,200 species of birds are threatened with extinction by human activities, though efforts are underway to protect them. Modern birds are characterised by feathers, a beak with no teeth (ancient birds had teeth), the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a lightweight but strong skeleton. All birds have forelimbs modified as wings and most can fly, with some exceptions including ratites, penguins, and a number of diverse endemic island species. Birds also have unique digestive and respiratory systems that are highly adapted for flight. Some birds, especially corvids and parrots, are among the most intelligent animal species; a number of bird species have been observed manufacturing and using tools, and many social species exhibit cultural transmission of knowledge across generations. Many species of modern bird undertake long distance annual migrations, and many more perform shorter irregular movements. Birds are social; they communicate using visual signals and through calls and songs, and participate in social behaviors including cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of bird species are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years, but rarely for life. Engagement in extra-pair copulations is common in some species; other species have breeding systems that are polygynous ("many females") or, rarely, polyandrous ("many males"). Eggs are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents. Most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Based on fossil and biological evidence, most scientists accept that birds are a specialized subgroup of theropod dinosaurs.[10] More specifically, they are members of Maniraptora, a group of theropods which includes dromaeosaurs and oviraptorids, among others.[11] As scientists have discovered more nonavian theropods closely related to birds, the previously clear distinction between nonbirds and birds has become blurred. Recent discoveries in the Liaoning Province of northeast China, which demonstrate many small theropod dinosaurs had feathers, contribute to this ambiguity.[12] The consensus view in contemporary paleontology is that the birds, or avialans, are the closest relatives of the deinonychosaurs, which include dromaeosaurids, troodontids and possibly archaeopterygids.[13] Together, these three form a group called Paraves. Some basal members of this group, such as Microraptor and Archaeopteryx, have features which may have enabled them to glide or fly. The most basal deinonychosaurs are very small. This evidence raises the possibility that the ancestor of all paravians may have been arboreal, may have been able to glide, or both.[14][15] Unlike Archaeopteryx and the feathered dinosaurs, who primarily ate meat, recent studies suggest that the first birds were herbivores.[16] The Late Jurassic Archaeopteryx is well known as one of the first transitional fossils to be found, and it provided support for the theory of evolution in the late 19th century. Archaeopteryx was the first fossil to display both clearly reptilian characteristics: teeth, clawed fingers, and a long, lizard-like tail, as well as wings with flight feathers identical to those of modern birds.