The outdoor theater at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland is a marvelous place to view performances. Photo: T. Charles Erickson courtesy of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
This tour is a marvelous mix of western North American birding in wilderness-like areas combined with one of the West Coast’s top cultural attractions in a small and surprisingly civilized town.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival began as a three-day event featuring two Shakespeare plays, but that was 85 years ago. In short, it’s no longer just a festival and it’s far more than just Shakespeare. Away from the Pacific Northwest it seems to be a closely-guarded secret, but it has evolved to be one of North America’s premier acting companies. In recent years, over 800 performances during their eight-month season were viewed by 400,000 attendees. Now offering up to six different plays over the season and occupying three stages twice a day for much of that time, the Tony Award-winning OSF doesn’t have trouble selling out performances, especially during the summer, when nearly perfect weather occurs with almost alarming predictability.
After a glorious morning of birding that includes Rich’s famously delicious picnic breakfasts and lunches in stunningly gorgeous surroundings of mountain meadows and coniferous forests, we’ll return in time for a daily performance in the theaters just four short blocks from our comfortable hotel. We’ll have the opportunity to see four of the year’s offerings including at least one but no more than two Shakespeare plays.
The delightful setting of Ashland is often underappreciated by its loyal theatergoers, many of whom make an annual pilgrimage from throughout Oregon, Washington, and California to see as many as nine plays in a few days. It is located in a natural wonderland hours from any metropolitan area and surrounded by rugged mountains, wild rivers, national forests, and wilderness areas, and it’s within driving distance of Oregon’s only national park (Crater Lake, which we visit), a national monument, and several national wildlife refuges. Despite this, Ashland is also a charming and surprisingly civilized small college town with many fine restaurants within walking distance of our hotel; we’ll sample a different one each night.
This tour can be taken in conjunction with our tour Oregon in Summer.
Day 1: Our trip begins at 6 p.m. in Ashland with an introductory meeting and dinner.
Days 2-3: Our first birding will likely be near Ashland in a valley surrounded by forested hills. The oak and madrone woodlands are home to the common California Scrub-Jay along with the more local California and Spotted Towhees, Oak Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, and Acorn Woodpecker. Bushtit, Lesser Goldfinch, and Black-capped Chickadee are common garden birds in town, and even American Dipper can be found in the city park. As we wander farther from town, the back roads through mixed conifer forests are good for Mountain Quail, Sooty Grouse, and Northern Pygmy-Owl, three of the harder to locate western specialties. We’ll be back each day for our scheduled 1:30 pm or 8:00 p.m. theater performance. Nights in Ashland.
Shows to include The Three Musketeers and Romeo & Juliet.
Day 4: We’ll take a break from the theater to travel a bit farther abroad into the Klamath Basin, famous for its teeming national wildlife refuges. En route are diverse coniferous forests where we should see Dusky Flycatcher, White-headed Woodpecker, Cassin’s Vireo, Pygmy Nuthatch, Mountain Chickadee, and Mountain Bluebird. We’ll drive around the enormous Upper Klamath Lake in search of Ruddy Duck, Western and Clark’s Grebes, and American White Pelican. Staying overnight far from civilization among pine forests and sedge meadows, we’ll enjoy a home-grilled dinner on the patio. Afterward we may be lucky enough to hear Yellow Rail in its only known breeding location in western North America. Night in Fort Klamath.
Day 5: We’ll visit magnificent Crater Lake National Park this morning, checking the coniferous forests on the way up the mountain for Williamson’s Sapsucker and Cassin’s Finch. Birding above treeline at the lodge and the rim overlooking the crystal blue lake (the deepest in North America) could produce Clark’s Nutcracker, Canada Jay, and possibly Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch. It will be a memorable day in one of the most scenic national parks in the country. In the afternoon we’ll return to Ashland and the festival and attend the evening performance of Twelfth Night. Night in Ashland.
Day 6: During the last day we’ll repeat our pattern of birding in the morning and theater in the early afternoon with a viewing of RENT. Options for today’s birding might include Mt. Ashland, where wildflowers attract several kinds of butterflies; searching for Great Gray Owl, which breeds in all the surrounding mountains; or working our way up the Rogue Valley to look for Wrentit, Yellow-breasted Chat, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Red-breasted Sapsucker, and Red-shouldered Hawk. If we have the energy, we can even spend a few post-theater minutes looking for Western Screech-Owl in the park behind the theaters Night in Ashland.
Day 7: The tour ends this morning in Ashland.
Updated: 25 May 2023
Prices
- 2023 Tour Price : $2,650
- Single Occupancy Supplement : $590
Notes
Questions? Tour Manager: Sara Pike. Call 1-866-547-9868 (US or Canada) or (01) 520-320-9868 or click here to email.
* Tour invoices paid by check carry a 4% discount. Details here.
Maximum group size eight with one leader/12 with two leaders