State guide
Oregon Nature Guide
Oregon is a state cleaved in two by the Cascade crest: a wet, green western third of fog-soaked Douglas-fir forest, the broad Willamette Valley, and a rugged surf-pounded coast, set against a vast eastern high desert of sagebrush steppe, juniper, and the Great Basin. That contrast — rain-forest to rain-shadow in a hundred miles — gives the state extraordinary range, from Crater Lake and the alpine meadows of the Cascades to the legendary migration oasis of Malheur and the wintering eagle-and-waterfowl spectacle of the Klamath Basin. USDA zones run from a frigid 4b in the high Cascades and eastern valleys to a mild maritime 9a along the southern coast.
Every month in Oregon
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The whole year
Oregon Nature Year 2027
Everything Birch Compass knows about a year of nature in one state — the book, the posters, the sky calendar, the life list, and a weekly note through 2027.