Senior Leaders Rich Hoyer and Bryan Bland write from Oregon:

We’ve started our Birds and Shakespeare tour with two days down the coast, coinciding with a rare incursion of Elegant Terns. This group of 32 was at the north jetty of the Siuslaw River:

As usual, all seven of the plays we’ve seen were excellent, with A Midsummer Night’s Dream getting the highest marks.

Meanwhile, mornings in the field have been rich experiences. Crater Lake is as blue as ever, and Mount Ashland’s meadows are full of wildflowers, such as these Lilium pardalinum wigginsii.

Among the feathered highlights: this cooperative Wrentit in the Rogue River Valley.

And one of our picnic stops was enlivened by an exceptionally late Rufous Hummingbird nest.

Photos: Rich Hoyer.