A few Thoughts About Snags Part I

Biological richness of snags and logs

During some restoration work here, we had three largish Douglas firs limbed and topped for wildlife snags. We didn’t kill them, because the thinking at the time was that live damaged trees remain standing longer to provide wildlife habitat. Ten years on, these guys do, in fact, still have a lot of life left in them. One study¹ found that 23% of non-fatally topped Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) were still alive 16-18 years later. Raptors can use them for perching, and the thick growth stimulated by cutting the leader makes a wide nesting area. The height and breadth of a tree provides the structural diversity of vertical space and occasionally cavities, but see below.

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Ten year old conifer snags

Dead trees equal higher biological diversity

I would argue that dead trees might be more useful than live snags. Once dead, biological resources in a live tree’s wood, sequestered during its lifetime, become available to microbes, fungi and arthropods. That is a gateway to creating living space for cavity nesting birds, mammals, bees, and other wildlife.

At first, even a dead tree is still hard and intact. Woodpeckers have to wait awhile before they can really tuck in and excavate nest cavities. Also their prey may not be able to get past a live tree’s defenses, which are many.

Recent heat waves and droughts have hastened death for some trees.

After defensive chemicals leach from the dead tree, wood-rotting fungi (ubiquitous in Pacific Northwest forests) move in to soften up the wood and begin the recycling process. One of these pioneers is a mushroom called veiled polypore (Cryptoporus volvatus). Fruiting bodies (mushrooms) appeared on the snag above, soon after it died, indicating that the mycelium had already invaded the sap wood.

This fungus is called a veiled polypore because it forms a pouch or envelope over the pore layer where spores are produced. The Latin name is more descriptive: hidden pores, covered by a sac-like membrane. At first look, one might mistake it for a puffball type mushroom (I did).

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  Opening in the lower surface of mature polypore

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  X-section of veiled polypore opened to show pore layer inside

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  Immature fruiting body

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  Cryptoporus volvatus

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  Dead tree with marshmallow-sized polypores fruiting on bark

A gallery of fungi on dead standing tree. Beetles have probably inoculated the sap wood with fungus (see below)

Bark beetles and many other insects take up residence inside the moist and nutritious interior. They may be eating or parasitizing each other, or just taking advantage of the warm, moist, and protected space and available mushroom food. Beetles carry spores into the bark when they bore into the sap wood of this or other dead and dying trees. Billions more spores are shed and dispersed via air currents.

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  Note the circular beetle entrance hole to the left of emerging fruiting body.

This fungus colonizes recently dead or almost dead trees, causing sap rot that softens the wood under the bark. That’s the beginning of an explosion of diversity and nutrient recycling: microorganisms, invertebrates, birds, mammals, and others use the resources built by the tree over its lifetime. Some, like molluscs, newts, frogs, and reptiles, take advantage of the spongy, water-retentive rotting wood and physical shade during the dry season. Others forage for insects, eat algae, or feast on abundant carbon in the wood itself. A large log on the ground even attracts nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient in short supply in the soil.

When the wood is soft enough, primary cavity nesters² begin to chip off bark and make holes. Secondary cavity nesters follow: squirrels, owls, and others that don’t excavate but need the holes for nesting and protection. Cavities are in short supply in modern landscapes and birdhouses do not replace the complexity and richness of large dead trees.

Whether as a standing snag or a log on the ground, dead and partially dead trees provide long lasting ecosystem benefits. Snags and large downed logs rule, obviously! Let’s keep more of them (looking at you Oregon Dept of Forestry).

Up Next: Part II – Structural Diversity

Notes

1. Huff-and-Bailey-2009-Longevity-and-dynamics-of-fatally-and-non-fatally-topped-DFDownload

2. WFW-2014-Cavity_Nesting-Birds-v3Download

Photos © 2020 Taylor Gardens. All rights reserved. Please request permission if used. No commercial use allowed without prior permission.

Link

In the article linked below is a concise history, and some current news of human influences on our prairie and savanna ecosystems.

The Once and Future 
Northwest Prairie

Thanks to Pacific Horticulture Magazine and Daniel Mount for this article

The Willamette Valley, SW Washington, Puget Sound outwash prairies, and southern B.C. are all connected (geologically and topographically). This pops out on a foggy day as seen from a weather satellite: note the light gray fogged-in valleys all the way from Oregon to Canada!

In this satellite photo, on a day when fog fills up the Willamette Valley and Puget Trough (light gray areas), you can see the connected prairie landscapes in western Oregon and Washington mentioned in the article above

I speak for the bees

(note: if you receive this post by email you may need to go to the post on WordPress to see all content)

It’s no secret that bees are having a hard time lately.

If the image of a honey bee just popped into your head, you would not be alone. Domesticated and brought here in the 1600’s, honey bees are iconic. They have been our civilized companions for centuries. They tolerate being carted around from place to place, and of course, there’s the honey. However, honey bees are not native to North America, and they are not even the best pollinators!

Native bees do not make honey, they mostly do not live in large colonies, but they are great pollinators. Their diversity is phenomenal: in Oregon (a hotspot of bee diversity) there are at least 500 different native species! Let’s take a look at these fabulous creatures that live here with us.

Our state’s diverse geography contributes to higher native bee diversity than many parts of the U.S. But 500 species may not be all the bees we have! It turns out, entomologists’ knowledge of Oregon’s native bees is based largely on documented collections from only four sampling sites in the state. Enter the Oregon Bee Atlas.

In a fortunate moment for science, the current Farm Bill included funding for the study of native bees, and one goal in a larger project is to train up citizen scientist teams to collect bees and data throughout the season, for four years, to find out how many and which bees are here. This will help experts assess the health and changes taking place in their populations in this critical time of species extinctions and adaptation to climate change.

I am on one of two teams in my county, and our sampling site is our property here in Gopher Valley. I am super excited to have the opportunity to contribute to this important work, which enhances all our conservation work while making a contribution to science and bees. My friend Emily Gladhart has the other site at Winter’s Hill Vineyard which has a fantastic native plant garden and oak woodland.

Why bees are important

Pollination is the first step in fertilization. Pollination occurs when a pollen grain is deposited on a plant’s stigma – the female plant part. Fertilization occurs when the pollen grain germinates and grows a pollen tube down inside the style to deliver sperm to unite with the ovule. That is the beginning of a seed.

Copyright© 2010 by P. Pearle, K. Bart, D. Bilderback, B. Collett, D. Newman, S. Samuels Accessed 4.2018 at http://physerver.hamilton.edu/Research/Brownian/index.html

 

Bees pollinate crops. But biodiversity is also a critical part of the story. Native plants support whole ecosystems and rely on pollinators for seed production. Bees move pollen (genes) and increase genetic diversity. Some bees specialize on certain plants, and without their pollinators those plants can’t reproduce. Other bees are generalists. Some generalists (like honey bees or orchard mason bees) can be managed to pollinate commercial crops. Those that don’t lend themselves to such management can be encouraged to nest near crops by providing good habitat, which is like raising your own crop of bees along with your plant crop.

Native bees are food for nest parasites, birds, spiders, and other creatures that can use the protein-packed snacks of bee larvae, pollen, and bee bodies that help make the world go around. These hangers-on are not necessarily a detriment. They are part of the food web and have co-evolved with their hosts and prey.

Native bees live unique lives

The nests of native bees vary by species, but many are solitary, gregarious, or semi-social. Some species are completely solitary. Others nest in a group but still maintain their individual nests. There are species that live in a communal nest; bumblebees have a nest with division of labor (workers, queen). A typical life cycle involves

1. An overwintering stage. Bumblebee queens overwinter alone, wake up in the spring and start foraging to provide pollen for their eggs.

Solitary bees emerge from cocoons where they have been pupating or overwintering as immature adults. They chew their way out of their nest cells.

2. Reproductive stage. Bumblebee queens lay eggs to start their nests. When enough eggs hatch, the queen switches to egg-laying only and lets others take over the tending and foraging duties. New bumble bee queens then mate at the end of the season, the old queen will die and the new queens will find new nests in which to spend the winter.

Solitary bees mate on emergence in Spring, and begin building nests with cells containing one egg and a food packet (pollen loaf) in each cell for the larva that hatches.

3. Nest activity: bumble bees live in larger cavities such as rodent holes or inside trees or buildings, because they need space for the group nest.

Other bees may have nests inside twigs, soil, or cavities, composed of individual chambers for each egg and pollen loaf package. They deposit an egg on the pollen ball and close up the cell (generalized illustrations below), never to see their offspring. Some bees line their nests with leaves, cut in neat circles from plants. Bee nests are varied, amazing, and species-specific.

Soil nest with chamgers

Twig or cavity nest

 
Illustrations by Steve Buchanan from Bee Basics:An Introduction to Our Native Bees USDA Forest Service and Pollinator Partnership

Clearly, protecting bee nests is a big part of conserving the mind-boggling number of bees we have.

The easiest way to do this is to:

• provide undisturbed areas for bees to excavate for soil nests
• maintain cavities in rocks or wood, and have softer pithy dead stems for them to excavate (elderberry, blackberry and other canes, roses, wildflowers, etc).
• there should be a concentrated source of food, such as blocks of flowering plants throughout the season.
• pesticides are a particular danger to bees, so using none is best; there are less-toxic pesticides, and application guidelines are available to minimize the effect on bees. There is information on alternatives at the Oregon Dept of Agriculture website here: http://www.oregon.gov/ODA/programs/Pesticides/Pages/PollinatorIssues.aspx

In no case should neonicotinoid pesticides be used or tolerated in nursery stock. Be sure to ask your nursery if they can certify that their wholesalers do not use these persistent, deadly chemicals when they grow plants. More info available here, for landscapers, gardeners and foresters.

A hedgerow is an excellent way to build a successful bee haven.

Here are a few scenes from our collecting project so far. It has been cold this spring, and blooms are a bit scarce, so it’s a slow start but weather effects are also important to document. It’s a long game, and data gathered over years or decades will show important trends. Click for more info below.

Bee nest entrancess can look like this in gravelly soil

A bumblebee nest entrance. They like rodent holes and larger cavities

Entrances to ground nests in mud. How many entrances can you see? I think 3 or 4

Sasakatoon or serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia) with bee collector

A bee on tall Oregon grape (Berberis aquifolium) One of the first plants to provide food for native bees in spring

Leave stems for bees to nest in after bloom. Foliage will cover them when growth resumes

Photo of bee entering stem nest by Oregon Bee Atlas participant Ed Sullivan.

Neighbor Sherry McConnell crafting anatomically correct bee and flower props for my bee talk at Conservation District Earth Day event. So grateful for her skills!

Airlie winery owner Mary Olson showing off her Buzz Box with bee-friendly native plant seeds. Agricultural land is heaven for bees if pesticides use is controlled properly

A great book if you really want to delve into the bees around you.

 

Some action shots from our collecting activities:

https://www.facebook.com/TaylorGardens/posts/1753753841314691

 

A special thanks to Ed Sullivan for his photo of the Ceratina bee featured in this post’s header and gallery above. See more of his work at https://www.flickr.com/photos/canoebait

 

Links to additional information

https://www.arboretumfoundation.org/getting-to-know-our-native-bees/ A great article on all the important things about PNW native bees.
https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/plant-lists/pollinator-plants-maritime-northwest-region/ Fact sheet on native plants for pollinators in maritime PNW
https://xerces.org/fact-sheets/ A page of fact sheets. For clarity and brevity I recommend 4 Principles to Help Bees and Butterflies

Birds Tell All

I follow another blog called Cutter Light. It is a chronicle of an extraordinarily adventurous couple’s life working and living in remote locations. Illustrated with high quality photos and good writing, it is always a pleasure to read. I want to share two recent posts here that capture the essence of living in nature (whether urban, rural, or wilderness). Both essays involve birds and what they mean to us personally but also how birds are, uniquely, messengers from beyond the world where we are tethered.

Birds travel, migrate, sing. Their messages to us are as loud as a blaring siren and as obvious as a giant billboard if we tune in. These beautiful essays show us that language at work.

Memory and great horned owls:

2:00 AM: The Owls of Chignik Lake and Clarion River’s Gravel Lick Pool

Climate and species expansion, also limits to our knowledge of species at the edge:

The Week a Grosbeak Landed on my Head, a Chickadee Perched on my Tripod, and I finally got good Photos of Golden-Crowned Kinglets

 

Creature and Blooms update Fall 2016

A quick post to showcase creatures we are enjoying here in Gopher Valley in NW Oregon.

Note: if you get this post by email, the videos will not show up. So try coming to the blog page to read.

Crickets this year are abundant.Their chirps monopolize the bandwidth of evening sound. We have two kinds: the slow-singers and the fast-singers. Perhaps bush and tree varieties. During hot late August and Sept evenings, one highly successful individual got the volume past the point of enjoyment for us mammals indoors.

In this video below you can hear the fast singer competing with the slow guys in the background. Apologies for the low res, but you can get the idea.

Snowy tree cricket or maybe another kind.

Evening primroses (Oenothera sp) are not a native flower, but they bloom their hearts out all spring and summer into fall and the extended color, fragrance and nectar is a gift to insects and humans. Crickets perch on the stems, light evening primrose fragrance is released into the air each night when they open after dusk. Flowers open so quickly you can see the petals move! Easy to grow from abundant seed, too.

 

A couple of snakes. Some gopher snakes are very tame, but others are aggressive and defensive. I found a baby on the road that gathered all of it’s 6 inches into a compact spring and leaped toward me as I stepped back from taking a photo. This big one we petted as it toured the patio methodically looking into each and every corner for some dinner, and it hardly noticed us.

Adult gopher snake

A rubbery rubber boa. They are usually underneath something.

Rubber boa

 

Despite the heat, good old Oregon sunshine (Eriophyllum lanatum) came up from winter-sown seed in the hedgerow-in-progress, and bloomed by the end of the summer. Thank you, best native plant friend! And that is narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) keeping right up with it. Easier to start this year than the showy milkweed, and still native to our region. Contact me if you would like growing or seed source info.

See How Native Plants Deal With Drought: Two Native Plant Walks in August

For anyone within shouting distance of Yamhill County, Oregon (Portlanders out for a day of wine tasting, I’m talking to you), make your trip to wine country memorable and instructive by attending a Taylor Gardens native plant walk on August 27. Or, if you work near McMinnville, take a stroll with me in the evening at Miller Woods, the Soil and Water Conservation District property just outside town. That’s on August 29.

Here’s why it will be fun: you will learn to recognize 10 native plants that you might see in a landscape, or on a hike, even if you can’t tell a nasturtium from a petunia. You will find out how these plants can be used in your garden, and why they are great for wildlife!

Please come with us and enjoy the native flora up close. Oh, there are birds too – have you ever seen an Acorn Woodpecker? The plant walk at Winter’s Hill Winery on Sat, August 27 offers a chance to see and/or hear these birds of oak woodlands that look like clowns and sound like one of the Three Stooges. At Miller Woods, there are hawks, harriers, Pacific Slope Flycatchers, swallows, and red-winged blackbirds galore.

Did I mention wine? The Saturday, August 27 walk is at a winery famed for its luscious Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Rose, among others. They will let you taste for a small fee. Picnicking is free. And the view, well, you have to be there to believe it.

Here is a link to sign up for both or either of these walks. They are $10 each, and the kids are free.

Delving into mollusks, a little

I was cleaning logs for mushroom inoculation and I came across a large snail. The logs had been sitting around so I thought it might have taken refuge there after foraging on pots of seedlings nearby, as slugs do. My first impulse was to toss it out into the hot gravel on the driveway and let it fry (I know, so cruel. I regret these thoughts, right after they pop into my head).

On second and better thought, since it was tucked up in thick moss on a log that came from the woods, maybe it was a native from the woods and not one of the many invasives that plague our gardens. Turns out (thank you internet) it probably is a native forest snail, Pacific Sideband (Monadenia fidelis), but I should probably confirm that with an expert.

Three things I learned while keeping it in a dish: it moves pretty fast (for a snail), I left the lid off its prison for awhile so it would come out of its shell and had to peel it off the bottom of the bookshelf far below. It took a little over a minute to scoot over the side of this container when I started to photograph it. That and it poops a lot. At 30 mm across, it’s not small. It seemed livelier in the evening, so nocturnal?

From the most helpful field guides here and here I learned that it grazes on lichens usually, so I was right not to persecute it. Perhaps more thought-provoking is that it has several cousins or subspecies that are endangered or rare in Oregon, mainly because their habitats are threatened. They live in discrete regions and locations. The Columbia River is one region of endemism for snails, as it is for many plants and animals.

Since I wasn’t out looking for snails and the like, I might never have found this guy/gal (hermaphrodite) if I hadn’t handled logs for the mushroom project. The snail somehow survived its tree being chainsawed down and cut up into logs, and then tossed in a wheelbarrow, stacked, and cleaned. I am daily reminded of the diversity beneath our feet and how valuable and delicate it is.

I will probably have to collect a hard copy field guide for slugs and snails. I admit to a love of field guides. And I have many. One of my favorites is on oak galls – yes, an entire field guide packed with arcane information. I devour introductory chapters on how the animal or plant fits into its ecosystem, taxonomy, photos, fascinating life histories that others have spent whole lifetimes working out. If you like to go down rabbit holes of information, you can’t do better than a nice field guide.

I took the snail back out to the woods today, it’s probably enjoying a bite of lichen now before sleeping off the adventure. I’ll recognize it when I see it again.

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Skinks in the rock pile

Earlier this spring I realized we had accidentally created some nice habitat for western skinks, an entertaining, exotic looking little guy with a beautiful blue tail. There was a lot of driveway gravel and random small rocks piled at the base of our crumbly basalt bank. I saw one weaving in and out of the rocks, and thought myself lucky to have a long look. Then I realized there was a second one, and they were playing hide and seek and chasing each other around, oblivious to me!! Ahh, spring.

According to Reptiles of the Northwest blue color in the tail is temporary – bright on juveniles, fading to grey or grey-blue in adults. I always see the blue tail disappearing in a flash. I have no idea how Alan St. John, author of the field guide, is able to capture them. But capture he does, and writes lovingly and entertainingly of skinks and other reptiles. A great read.

Weeks later I was gardening and flushed one out of the undergrowth. It immediately dashed for a rodent hole, but poked it’s head right back out again. We had a stare down, but the skink had the better skills, because if I looked away for one second, it would advance a centimeter and then freeze. I could not see it move, but there it was, inching forward. At the right moment it disappeared into the rockpile.

These guys are fast – like other lizards they can dash so fast that they can’t be caught, but are unable to keep up the pace, so their strategy is to dash, freeze, dash, and if all else fails sacrifice their tails, which can regrow if they are detached. The detached tail even wiggles to distract the predator while its owner gets away.

You can create habitat that snakes and other reptiles use by hollowing out a protected and dry place in a sunny area and covering it with stones and a little woody material. They will find the spaces beneath and this hibernaculum will be a refuge in the winter too for slug-eating garter snakes and others.

Skink skinking

Imperceptibly scooting forward….

A blue tailed skink’s blue tail is usually the only thing you see as it dashes away

Link

Here, a brief article featuring local wildlife, natural history, and important local ecosystem connections. Thanks Statesman Journal!

Gophers, moles, voles and … bumble bees.

For a previous item I wrote on gophers, see this post.

It’s Raining – But Only Under This Tree

I had an arresting experience when I went out into the woodland the other day. It has been extremely dry this winter in Oregon, but there is often a lot of fog. As I walked under one of the larger Douglas firs there was a sound of dripping rain on dried oak leaves and yet, it was not raining.

I’m not sure if I have ever experienced fog drip first hand in quite this way. I learned about it many years ago as a very significant (in the statistical meaning) source of ground water and soil moisture in the western Cascades.

Have I ever been in the woods when they are dripping? Yes, but standing under one single tree, that is collecting and dropping water is kind of eerie when everything else is quiet, the ground is dry, and it’s just very foggy. Being present as a tree essentially waters itself and channels the water into ground storage, reveals how trees = water = more trees and life.

So, come along with me and experience it for yourself. You might be able to see the raindrops falling in this cellphone movie:

Here, stand in the open where no rain is falling, and look back toward the mixed oak and the big Doug fir in the ravine. These trees were left behind when the forest was logged the first and/or second time in the last century. We left them too, when we thinned trees to revive the oak woodland. They protect a riparian zone of seasonal streamflow – the source of some of that flow is now apparent! That’s a Steller’s Jay imitating a Redtailed Hawk in the background.

So, why fog drip under conifers and not oaks (I asked myself)? I believe that the answer lies in leaf architecture. Moisture runs off the vast surface area of thousands of needles intercepting fog. Oaks are leafless in winter, but besides that, they support a huge biomass of lichens and mosses, which are designed to soak up nutrients and water from the air, as it’s their life support. Hence, lichens and mosses may tend to increase the humidity around a tree, but they sponge up rather than repel moisture like fir needles. Fir needles don’t need the moisture – they send it to the roots where they can use it.     Wow.

From Someone Who Loves The Rural Life

This short, wonderful message from the Times editorial writer Verlyn Klinkenborg floats off the page into the mind. His beautiful, simple style conveys, as it has many times in the past, meaning, imagery, feeling. And as he says, we all have our own farm in our mind’s eye. We make our own meaning daily. This reminded me of our Gopher Valley home, and also the place in my mind that has always been with me. I hope I can always see and share “something worth noticing and … (have) nearly always words to suit it” here in these pages too.

Farewell – NYTimes.com.

Western Oak Looper – Beginning A New Generation

If you missed the news this late summer about the patches of oak devastation near Sheridan and other places in the Willamette Valley, here’s a hyper-local update (our property). When the damage is in full spate (i.e. the larvae are making oaks and doug firs look dead and blighted) it’s all about the caterpillars. Right now (mid November) I am seeing these moths everywhere flopping around on the ground. Their diaphanous wings seem hardly up to the task of finding a mate and laying eggs, particularly when they are rain-soaked. However, I’m sure we’ll be seeing their leaf-chewing offspring soon enough. By the way, there is a nice description of life cycles in that first link above. I highly recommend.

Perhaps these adults arrived from Dupee Valley or even as far as Red Prairie, where the oaks looked blasted last summer, carried on the wind of fall storms? They seem to be weak flyers so it’s hard to imagine them making the trip under their own steam.

It will be interesting to see whether our oaks get the same treatment next year, having escaped till now. See previous post for a good control method: our beloved brown creepers.

Western Oak Looper adult
Used with permission:Jerald E. Dewey, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org
Lambdina fiscellaria somniaria

Swallow update

Current news from the Yamhill Birders’ list. Wowwee.

Four birders and two local folks gathered at the BARN SWALLOW roost site on Grand Island Loop Rd. this evening. We saw few birds until sunset about 7:55. Then they gathered from all compass points and went down into the cornfield as advertised. I estimate about 80,000. The show lasted from about 8:00-8:20 PM.

Some (approx) migration schedules here http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/swallow/News.html

See the swallows go out for breakfast – on radar

How many swallows does it take to create a radar image??

I just found out about a migratory event taking place in SE Yamhill County not far from our place. According to the Yamhill birder’s newsgroup, a scientist in B.C. alerted them to the radar signature of 70,000 to 100,000 swallows leaving their nighttime roost in a cornfield at around 6:10 am.

See below to be amazed! The swallows are the burst of green in backwards L-shaped Yamhill County, next to the I-5 marker. On the two mornings I have looked at it, they disperse slightly differently. Today, they veer SE and back NW before dispersing.

Just take a minute to imagine what this looks like from the ground! I am sorry to not be able to go there right now to witness the departure, or the evening return.

If you want to try this at home, go to the weather radar for this area, click “previous” to back up from the current time until you get to 6 a.m. on the clock (upper left of the map). Then you can click “animate” and watch it happen. Yikes

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Mr. Handsome

Great birding this spring and early summer here in Gopher Valley.

Since I finished Birding by Ear with Lisa and Don through the Corvallis Environmental Center, I have been obsessed with all the bird conversation going on. I took the class so I could learn to listen in on who is here, and I was not disappointed! I have been making some recordings (to come in future posts) and have identified many formerly unknown songs.

I found out there are birds out there I’ve never seen, and may never be able to see – Pacific Slope Flycatcher for example. Tom finally pointed out the elusive Swainson’s Thrush yesterday, when we visited Miller Woods, but we can’t seem to see our own, despite the fact that they sing practically all day long.

One great thing about our newly cleared oak woodland, is there is space between the trees – through which birds fly, and when they land, we can see them. Thus I was able to photograph the exotic, tropical-looking Western Tanager today. I think they live behind our house, because I hear their crickety chirping call from the trees. There seem to be two adult males here in the photos, the less exuberantly colored one is a non-breeding male, I think. Perhaps one of the kids. All the bird babies are out trying their wings and hunting skills.

Western Tanager adult male

Western Tanager left profile (showing off?)

Western Tanager non-breeding male

Link

I am glad I can give back a little for all the assistance the Conservation District has given us. We are on the Prairie Field Day Tour – Check it out!

http://yamhillswcd.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/join-us-for-the-2nd-annual-prairie-field-day/#respond

BEFORE

AFTER

New Information Has Come To Light….

Just when I had given up on new discoveries, up pops a plant not yet seen on our place (by me anyway). Here is it in bud:

Fritillaria affinis ? Chocolate lily/checker lily

It’s quite impressive at a foot or more tall, still in bud. How long has this bulb been growing in the deep shade, getting large enough to bloom? Was the ivy and Vinca from the yard smothering it all these years and now – like the plants on the savanna and woodland – suddenly released, it appears? Wow. Another name for it is rice root. Indigenous tribes used the bulbs for food. The plant also produce small, rice-grain-like offsets.

Here’s another. I thought we had just one patch of these in the woodland. Now, on the hill above the house where we had trees removed almost 2 years ago, they appear magically! Shooting stars (Dodecatheon hendersonii)  – recognizable by their spoon-shaped, slightly succulent leaves. This is a photo from 1 month ago just before bloom time.

Again, from one month ago (late March), a medley of wildflower leaves and shoots:

Although not new, here is a reminder of what emerging Rein orchids (Piperia elegans – the fat leaves), sweet cicely (Osmorrhiza sp), hairy cat’s ear (Calochortus tolmiei – single grass-like leaf), sanicle (Sanicula crassicaulis – lower left), and self heal (Prunella vulgaris – lower right) look like as they’re just waking up.

East hill orchids, mariposa lily, sweet cicely, sanicle, and self-heal.

“The ecological vitality of a forest can be judged by how many large trees are lying around, feeding beetles, hiding salamanders, growing fungi”

I am reblogging this story by David Haskell, a scientist and natural history author that I follow. It is a great example of good ecological sleuthing, nice descriptive prose, and ecological principles that are very applicable to our own PNW forests. Read on!

http://davidhaskell.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/dead-wood-ashes/

Things Are Looking Up, (I think) Here in Gopher Valley

This is unscientific, because their appearance coincided with an improvement in my birding skills, but I noticed three bird species last summer that might be new arrivals: Purple Finch, Western Wood-Pewee, and Lesser Goldfinch, plus the aforementioned White-Breasted Nuthatch this fall and winter.

Hoping that we had some rare and important new species, I cracked open the Land Manager’s Guide To Bird Habitat and Populations in Oak Ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest  (note that link goes to part II). Of the six “obligate or near-obligate” species (don’t live anywhere else, or if they do, then much fewer outside this habitat), only two – Acorn Woodpecker and Slender Billed White-breasted Nuthatch have ranges in our part of the Willamette Valley. When we have a resident Acorn Woodpecker, we’ll have all two of them and the champagne corks will pop.

Moving into the more numerous “highly associated” species part of the list, we’ve seen or heard 13 of 20. The authors note that “highly associated species are those that are abundant in some other habitat(s), but reach some of their highest densities in oak habitats.” So not all of these are bell-ringers, so to speak.

The 13 in our neighborhood:

• Bewick’s Wren*
• Black-capped Chickadee*
• Black-headed Grosbeak
• Bushtit*
• Chipping Sparrow
• House Wren
• Lesser Goldfinch
• Purple Finch
• Spotted Towhee
• Western Bluebird
• Western Scrub-jay
• Western Tanager
• Western Wood-pewee

*For the record, these are pretty common in urban Seattle neighborhoods too

I think the neighbors’ 92 acres to the south are providing a lot of this habitat. We are watching closely for signs of a land sale at that location. It would be a tragedy if it was cleared, following the trend to plant crops on former woodland.

So, back to the ones that cropped up on the radar recently. Lesser Goldfinch prefers tree/shrub and shrub/tree edges and open areas. We saw them foraging on the open savanna area last summer on weeds (weeds!). They like the thistle and sunflower-family (Asteraceae) seed, and they were dancing around over the false dandelions in the savanna.

Purple finch

Purple Finch Listed as a short-distance migrant. Abundance is higher in larger patches (>25 acres). Since ours is 20 acres, the adjacent habitat is probably improving the chances of having them here. Here is a fuzzy photo of one at the feeder last summer.

Western Wood-Pewee. The guide lists this species as a “potential ‘early responder’ to overstory thinning or conifer removal that opens up the canopy of oak or oak-fir forest”. Ah-ha, I’ll take credit for that! I watched one fly to a nest in the fork of a tall skinny oak in the newly thinned woodland. They may have been here previously and we mistook it for some other sort of flycatcher, but they are making the most of the new habitat. They are really easy and fun to watch when they’re feeding because they perch near an opening and fly out and back catching insects. There is an audible ‘snap’ of their beak as they make contact.

Here is someone else’s Youtube video of one in Arizona

I was sorry to learn from The Sibley Guide that “recent population declines in…the Western Wood-Pewee may be due to major losses of wintering habitat in the South American Andes, the result of human activity”. The double liability of habitat loss for long distance migrants  in both breeding and overwintering areas is a very complicated issue for conservation.

White-breasted Nuthatches are residents (non-migrating), and they use edges and small habitat patches. So they should be better off if the acreage in woodland restoration continues to increase. If I do nothing else this year, I am going to get a photo of ours that’s in focus.

Lesser Goldfinch. Another resident and edge-user. Good prospects for our population because we’ve got edges galore! Here is someone else’s Youtube video of one at the Tualatin River NWR not far from us – and a really great place to visit.

Great Horned Owls

When I was out on the hill killing scotch broom the other day, I heard the great horned owls spooning. There is something comforting about these big birds still choosing to nest among our firs. They are one of the most melodious owls – so pleasant to listen to.

Later I heard a sound at dusk behind the house in the woods. When I went to investigate, it stopped and started up again down by the pond. Just enough time for one bird to fly down there. I thought it might be one of the owls, since they fly away like that in the daytime, but the call was just a short, rising couple of notes. After much searching through recorded bird sounds, I finally found the little short call I had heard, not included on most recordings at all, but very distinctive.

Until I can record our own owls on my phone to post (can’t say I’ll ever get a good photo), let me introduce you to the professionals: Feathered Photography and bird calls at the Neighborhood Naturalist.