Written by Janelle Wicks, FOMR Director
Photos by Teresa ‘Bird’ Wicks and Janelle Wicks

It takes 29.5 days for the moon to complete a phase cycle from new moon to new moon. This means that typically there is just one new moon every month. Occasionally, because our calendar months are ever so slightly longer than a moon cycle, there can be a second new moon in a month. That second new moon is called a Black Moon which really has nothing to do with how dark the night sky is or is not. 

So, as it were, on the evening of August 22nd 50 people gathered at Sod House Ranch for the annual Malheur After Dark event featuring a night sky with a Black Moon. Attendees of all ages came from as close as the Narrows or Double O Rd and as far flung as Portland and Boise. 

The event kicked off with a free community picnic featuring burgers and hotdogs from Harney County’s own Alvord Beef Company. Of course, there were all of the standard picnic fare, and no one left hungry. Rather, the crowd was eager to get up and moving just in time for an evening bird walk with Teresa ‘Bird’ Wicks of Bird Alliance of Oregon.

Binoculars were on hand for borrowing and the group moved along the path which supports the self-guided tour at the Ranch which is open to the public from August 15th – October 1st. The list of evening sightings included great-horned owls, nighthawks, red-tailed hawk, white-faced ibis, northern harrier, American kestrel, cliff swallows, barn swallows, red-winged blackbirds, and great-blue herons returning to their roost among the cottonwood trees. Herons flying back from their feeding on the lake or adjacent wetlands were greeted by young calling from nests and American kestrels mobbing them.

While the group made its way to the long barn and beyond our partner, Amy Bilbeisi of Oregon Star Safari, was busy setting up her telescope in an adjacent field. Here, participants began setting up their chairs, spreading their camp blankets, and settling in for the main event. First, they got to hear from Tyler McRae of Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. This was Tyler’s second year at Malheur After Dark, offering a presentation on the diverse adaptations which local wildlife have evolved with to survive and thrive through the night. The concepts and activities engaged the audience and even challenged them to better understand their own night vision. It was the perfect transition into Amy’s program as the sky darkened, and the clouds disappeared.  

Now it was finally time to go on a Star Safari! Amy’s presentations cover a wide range of topics, including the history of constellations, the movement of celestial objects, and how to identify different constellations. A trained National Park Service Interpretive Ranger, Amy takes these complicated concepts and shares them in fun, memorable connections with the stars and night sky. Amy’s programs through Oregon Star Safari are essentially a dark sky guide service to exploring some of the darkest skies in North America, providing ideal conditions for stargazing.

Friends of Malheur NWR are proud to partner with Bird Alliance of Oregon, Oregon Star Safari, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to hold this event annually. With the national attention on dark sky tourism and the recent designation of the Oregon Outback Dark Sky Sanctuary just next door in Lake County, we believe there is no better time than now to promote the importance of dark skies as a critical and threatened natural resource. At Malheur Refuge we are actively engaged in a lighting inventory project which will inform fixture removal or replacement to comply with dark sky recommendations. This is something we can all do to better understand and preserve our night sky.