Bees, Birds & Butterflies

Winter Gifts

2011-12-23T01:19:00.000-08:00

This time of the year the natural world is more subdued. It is easy to swap the grey and chill of a typical December day for myriad distractions that confound and divert us, moths to the flame of commerce. But putting up lights, careening through stores, and fretting over lists is a practice which fills a need for nature in the same way that foam pellets and crumpled paper fills a box. A package of only crumpled paper is filled and yet empty, an expense and a disappointment. There must be something in the box - how could it be empty? So ... time to fill the nature box.

Nature's winter subtleties are a gift perhaps more precious for all the packaging that surrounds it - or more accurately, us. We watch through windows and under raincoats. We scan the weather channel and the book shelf, or take long wanders through the lighting section of the hardware store and the travel pages of the internet. Observations come not in long lazy meanders but in brisk brief snatches. The kinglet who pops in and out of view - a ruby crown or was it golden - no matter, thanks for the visit. The Anna's hummingbird who chitters vociferously when I step into his domain to replenish the feeder's sugar water -- yeh... well, you're welcome anyway.

There are longer moments. The other morning a mixed flock, including robins, white crowned sparrows, and Oregon juncos, inspecting the underside of most every leaf for the soil micro herd that in turn has come to feed on the decomposing litter. The somehow unfamiliar hum of a fly disturbed from hibernation. Or again the Annas', this time drinking deep on liquid energy before their overnight torpor.

The fleetest moments are moments of recognition: something has somehow changed. Leaftips hint above bulbs. Days turn barely longer. Jupiter inches through the constellations. I struggle with being a patient observer. I want not to observe but to maneuver and manipulate. Isn't there something to assemble or dismantle or design or capture? Perhaps later. Right now I shall be content with what has taken me parts of several days to write, a phrase here, a moment of clarity there, closing a difficult personal year and opening a fresh new one.

Glen Buschmann

Resources: photos by Glen Buschmann

We Follow the River

2011-09-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

It is the last week of summer: not only by the calendar, but also by the weather forecast. A high pressure ridge is building in over Cascadia, and sunny, even hot days are forecast this week. It feels like a last hurrah of the season...

I decided to follow one of my wild hairs. I confess that I get them frequently, and take turns cajoling, coercing or luring various friends and relatives into coming along. My wild chase today is the Black River.

I grew up less than a mile from the Deschutes river; it is the largest river in Thurston county, and I have come to know it well. The Black River is more of an enigma: it arises from some obscure wetlands south of Black Lake, and drains the high country of the Black Hills as it moves south, meandering 25 miles, heading for the confluence of the Chehalis river in south county. The Deschutes river cuts through the heart of our cities (Olympia and Tumwater), behaving like a “real river” with falls, with rapids, with scouring floods and concurrent fire hose velocity. In contrast the Black River shifts and shimmers, seemingly without a current, finding its way south by guess and by golly. There are no cataracts, no surging rapids, no roaring deluges. There are sometimes huge floods in winter, when the Chehalis backs up into all its tributaries, including the Black. In these events, the waters of this river rise and seep, soft water fingers parting pasture grasses and tickling into backwater sloughs. This is a dream of a river.

     This river was an important highway for the Coast Salish peoples on their trade routes. Here is what they say:    “The waterways were our highways, and our people traveled extensively along them, as far north as Vancouver Island and south along the Pacific Coast. As our ancestors traveled by canoe, they listened the elders tell stories that were passed down through many generations and taught important lessons about life.
     Our ancestors also traveled the extensive trade routes of the North American continent, taking well-established trails across the Cascades into Yakama Country, the Columbia River Basin and far beyond. One familiar route ran from the Pacific Ocean, up the Chehalis River, into Black Lake and across the Black Hills to Steh-Chass at the head of Budd Inlet and Squi-Aitl at the head of Eld Inlet. Many of today's highways were built along existing trail routes, worn deep by years of continuous use.”

    And the European-American perspective: “ The Hudson's Bay men knew the waterways well (thanks to Native American guides). As early as 1824 an expedition left Astoria for the Puget Sound country. Led by James McMillan, it made its way by canoe and portage from the Columbia River to Grays Harbor. Through a dark and tangled wilderness, it paddled its way through November rains up the Chehalis River to the Black River, up the Black River to its headwaters in Black Lake, just west of the present site of Olympia. From there the men portaged to Eld Inlet and made their way up Puget Sound to the Fraser River”

Now some 187 years later, I make my first stop along the Black River at 123rd Avenue, north of Littlerock. This is the southern end of the Black River Unit of the National Wildlife Refuge. In the last 20 years, organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, the Capitol Land Trust and State Fish & Wildlife, and the National Wildlife Refuge system, among others, have been scrambling to save the land along this river. So far they are doing an excellent job. Here at 123rd, you can pull off by the bridge and get a beautiful overview of the valley. When the Black River floods in winter, these fields fill with over wintering ducks, finding rich sources of food. In the spring, the willow trees along the edges of the river provide fabulous nectar and pollen to the early native pollinators. And now, in late September, we see (and hear) the occasional loud slap of the tails of spawning salmon, returning to their ancestral breeding grounds, and the fallen leaves of summer, floating on the river, giving their nutrients back to the earth.

I poke along, heading south on the Gate road, trying to find the river wherever I can. I stop where Moon Road crosses the river (previously the Gate wagon road). The thing I’m really struck by in today’s explorations is that it doesn’t seem as if it has changed much. Here is a picture from 1898, taken by Alfred Waite on the Gate wagon road. Today I found the same bridge (now modernized for cars) and looking north, the same viewpoint. Some big trees are gone, but otherwise, it looks pretty similar. Time seems to stand still on this river.

      I spend some time on the Moon Road bridge, now looking south. I feel the last of the summer’s sun warming my back and overhead, the piercing calls of flocks of swallows, migrating south down the river to their wintering grounds in Central America. The river flows beneath me, a quiet, nearly imperceptible current, pulling the summer away and gone.

     There are some lines from a favorite poem from my youth that come to mind:

     “In a wonderland they lie
      Dreaming as the days go by
      Dreaming as the summers die:

      Ever drifting down the stream
      Lingering in a golden gleam
     Life, what is it but a dream?”

     Lewis Carroll says it best.

Janet Partlow
Resources:
• Black Hills photo by Nancy Partlow
• Alfred Waite photo from 1898
• Gordon Newell’s book: So Fair A Dwelling Place
• Poem by Lewis Carroll

Tree Frogs on High

2011-09-06T11:49:00.000-07:00

Tree frogs, aka Northern Pacific Chorus frogs, have been a part of my life from my earliest memories. There were the strident amphibian choruses in spring, rising on the night mists from nearby Hazard Lake. I can still remember being a child, lying in bed, listening to the frogs lull me to sleep. Though today I live in the middle of a much bigger city than I grew up in, I still hear those frog choruses repeated every March, and am transported back to those early days...

Tree frogs have two distinct life phases: the spring water phase, where they congregate in wetlands to sing, to breed and to lay eggs. (See our Frog Blogs from March and April 2009). Then there is the lesser-known phase where they migrate out of the wetlands and back to drier, upland areas, where they spend the winter. I’d learned about this from books. What the books didn’t tell me is that somewhere on the march to the overwintering grounds, the frogs seem to like to find a high place to climb and hang out.

For example, Nancy took the above picture at one of our favorite local nurseries, Bark and Garden. While looking at pollinator plants she came across a "Tomato Soup" echinacea. Her eye was caught by a frog on the topmost flower; stealthily she adjusted the plant racks, climbed up and captured the shot.

This brought back more childhood memories. I remember I was examining our elderly plum tree, thinking about its tree climbing opportunities. As I explored one branch in particular, I came eyeball to eyeball with a tree frog. It was tucked into a crook of branches; it’s hard to say who was more startled. I went back into the house and shared this tidbit with my mother, who remarked that frogs do this in the summer, and that’s why they are called tree frogs.

I remember some friends who lived out on a wetland off South Bay road. In summer, the tree frogs left the nearby pond, and climbed up into their tall roses, tucking themselves into the deep red rose buds. That was quite a thing to see.

Or my friend Rain, who lives on a wetland near Woodard Bay; in late summer, there are frogs all over her deck, including one she found living in a dried flower wreath arrangement on the front door.

One June afternoon a few years ago, Nancy went into her carport shed and stumbled across a Northern Pacific tree frog lurking on top of a shovel handle. Notice the dark brown color it has.

A year later just outside the shed, she discovered a deep green Pacific tree frog perched on a hose rack near the moist faucet bib.

Just recently, another frog of this species was found suctioned to the outside wall of her mobile home. She believes it's the same one she spied several weeks ago in the identical spot, wearing a light green hue.

It turns out tree frogs have skin full of chromatophores, pigment-containing skin cells that can change color, allowing the frogs to be better camouflaged in their surroundings. Tree frogs can vary widely in their colors; notice how the frog on the wall of the mobile has streaks of a pale blue-gray, just like the paint!

This behavior has caused us Olypollinators naturalists to kick around various theories as to why they hang out in trees. One thing we’ve read says that trees are in fact their preferred habitat, and that the spring ponds are only a brief part of their life cycle. Trees and their leaves have pockets of water, even in summer, which can attract insects; maybe this is the reason.

The frog on the echinacea at the nursery was in a fine position to receive the daily spritzes of water from the overhead sprinklers; maybe that was an attractant? Or the frog on the wall was near a patch of active pollinator plants, which could provide food? Or the frog on the shovel handle in the shed was near the one sunny window, which had an active spider web. Maybe the frog was raiding the web, taking advantage of that food opportunity?

All these things seem possible. And it is also true that animals live in their own world, beyond our knowledge and ultimately, beyond our full understanding. And that’s one reason we enjoy watching them.

Janet Partlow

Resources: all photos by Nancy Partlow

The Nevada Bumblebee

2011-08-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

So it was July 29th, a hot sunny Friday afternoon around 5:30 pm. I don’t handle heat well; I was inside sucking down ice cubes and grumpily trying to finish a project on the computer. Glen had been outside gardening, though I noticed he had been taking a break, standing in the neighbors’ front yard by their lavender bushes, gossiping. I was grumpy about that, too.

So when he came barging in the house and bellowed: “JANET” my first thought was that either he had sliced open his foot with the shovel (at the very least) or he had found something good. When he went on to say: “You have GOT TO COME SEE THIS”, I knew he must have something really fabulous.

This is what he had: a Nevada Bumblebee queen (Bombus nevadensis nevadensis), which had flown into the lavender bushes where he had managed to catch her. She was huge in the insect cup, buzzing ominously and oh, so gorgeous! I was struck with awe, and fascination, and a burgeoning, insatiable curiosity about this animal.

      This was a first time for this species for us.    We’ve been dedicated bumblebee watchers for many years, and serious about it since winter 2008. We (Glen, Nancy and I) have seen literally thousands of bumblebees in our well-developed pollinator gardens. We’ve gotten pretty good at identification, too (not easy) and we thought we had seen just about everything Thurston county had to offer. Not so.

     How do we know this species? I didn’t at first; I pulled out my bumblebee identification flashcards for Thurston County (yes, I know, it sounds funny, but it works) and thumbed through them. Nevada bumblebees are large (this was the biggest BB I’d ever seen), with black faces, yellow fur on the thorax with a central dark mark, and yellow on the abdomen from segments 2-4. Bingo. We had a match.

      This particular bumblebee was a queen, based on size, pollen baskets and a few other technical details. Her wings were very fresh and crumpled; she was really too easy to catch and quite dozy as we took pictures. This is strongly suggestive she had just emerged from her hibernaculum in the soil and was getting ready to get her nest going. We’ve worked with quite a few just-emerged queens (usually in February) and they take awhile to get over being buried for nine months in the ground.

     We called Nancy, who raced over with her camera and took several pictures . Again, queen Nevada cooperated, quite docile. After about 10 minutes of this, Glen put her back on the lavender blossoms, where she tanked up on some nectar. You can see her here, almost sleepy on the blossoms; this is typical of a newly emerged queen.

    Finally she took off, flying strongly to the north east. We have not seen her since.

     It’s been several days since then, and we’ve been trying to read up on this species.   The Nevada bumblebee is more common in the Great Plains states and is often found at mid-elevations.   It had been thought to be in Thurston County, though nobody has mentioned any specific sightings before. I think about the Black Hills, which are ~2,000 feet altitude, and perhaps 3 miles away as the bumblebee flies. Maybe this is where she was born?

     In Alberta, Canada, where they have researched these bees, they have found the queens to nest underground in abandoned mouse burrows, or in abandoned bird nests in boxes. So they have a wide range of nest choices. I think of our chickadee nest box, which we hadn’t gotten around to cleaning out. Maybe she will find it?

     For now, her job is to find a nest site and get a brood of ~12 worker bees going. This will take about a month. During that month she will mostly sit on her larvae, warming them and helping them grow. She will make occasional forays for pollen and nectar. Once these worker bees emerge, they will take over the chore of provisioning the nest, and she will spend the rest of her life as an egg-laying machine, finally producing near the end of her life the queens who will carry her genes into next year and the future.

     All of this takes about 3-4 months. While Nevada Bumblebees are known to be a late-emerging species, July 29th is really pushing it. If we have a cold wet September, she may not win her race against time. But I hope against hope that she will.

    I have a picture of this beauty as my screen saver. I keep thinking about her, wondering how she is doing and wondering if we will see any of her daughters.   At night I close my eyes and see her once again, winging her way off into an uncertain future.   And once again, Nature teaches us that there are always new things to see, out in our gardens, if only we keep our eyes open...

Janet Partlow

photos by Nancy Partlow and Glen Buschmann

Early Spring Pollinators

2011-05-03T19:44:00.000-07:00

This hasn't been a great spring for pollinators. The weather has been so cold and wet that there haven't been a whole lot of insects out. They need dry and warm, with temps of at least 50 degrees to emerge and become active. However, on the few precious days meeting that criteria, I emerged to sneak some peeks into the secret lives of insects. Nothing could be more cheering after a long, dark winter.

Some of my favorite pollinators are the first queen bumblebees of the year. Breaking dormancy from their underground hibernacula (latin for "winter residence"), they are hungry for nectar after their many months sleeping in the earth.

Bombus melanopygus was my first sighting, easy to recognize by her bright red stripe around the middle. I was surprised to see her with her head buried deep in a hyacinth blossom, a plant that until that moment, I didn't know offered any liquid nourishment for insects.

My second encounter was with a Bombus vosnesenski queen on a heath bush. Heath is a wonderful early spring pollinator plant, attracting many different types of insects to its multitude of tiny nectar-rich blossoms.

A few days later I spied a Bombus mixtus queen sitting on a sunny wall. She seemed to be shivering, perhaps having just crawled out from her subterranean refuge, although she flew away smartly enough a few minutes later.

Willow catkins offer important early spring sustenance for many insects, like this unidentified fly, which seemed to be either eating or harvesting pollen on the first and only warm day in late March.

Another fly, its body and foot pads flecked with golden pollen grains, rested on an unopened catkin. These young willow trees were planted as part of a wetland buffer mitigation for an apartment complex built a few years ago and are only now starting to flower in abundance.

I was delighted to see our native trillium attracting some attention from a bee mimic, possibly Malota posticata, a member of the large and endlessly varied syrphid fly tribe. How could I tell it was a fly and not a bee? Its short, stubby antennae, and its two, instead of four wings, which is why it is in the order diptera; di: two, ptera: wings. This little critter also flew like a fly - very fast.

I've come to learn that even dandelions can be important early spring pollinator plants, and have been forced to think twice about removing these invasive weeds from the lawn.

When the weather hasn't cooperated for insect watching, I've snuggled in to read the Xerces Society's recently released "Attracting Native Pollinators" which offers an engrossing alternative for learning more about these amazing and important creatures.

Pollinator Week is June 20 - 26 this year. What a great idea! I'd never heard of it until stumbling onto the terrific Pollinator Partnership web site at http://www.pollinator.org/. There are currently no Pollinator Week events listed for Washington state on the site, although we can all celebrate pollinators by welcoming them into our gardens, and by opening our hearts and minds to the incredible beauty of small things.

Nancy Partlow

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Resources:
Xerces Society Attracting Native Pollinators
http://www.xerces.org/announcing-the-publication-of-attracting-native-pollinators/

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Pollinator home page: http://www.fws.gov/pollinators/

Winter Shorebirds of Budd Inlet

2011-01-31T07:06:00.000-08:00

A few days ago Glen and I were taking a walk along East Bay in Olympia. This is the southern terminus of Puget Sound, where Indian and Moxie Creeks pour their waters out, and feed nutrients into the East bay estuary. We happened to take our walk at extreme high tide, and only the boiling turmoil on the surface of the bay showed the outlet of the creeks.

As we walked along, Glen remarked on the squeaky sounds of birds, and pointed out some American widgeons in the distance. Then he stopped suddenly as he realized he was wrong, and showed me a group of birds perched on some rocks just below us: a flock of Dunlins, shorebirds that spend their winter lives around the estuaries of Puget Sound. Here, ten feet away from us, was part of a resident flock in Budd Inlet making their peep noises of alarm.

Dunlins are shorebirds, which means they spent most of their lives on muddy tidelands, probing those long bills into the fine silty muds, seeking by touch a wide variety of polychaete worms and arthropods. They feed as long as they are able throughout the tidal cycle, but once the incoming water covers the mud flats that are the dinner table, they retire to some safe perch. This is their high tide roost, and here they digest, preen out their feathers, take a quick nap and wait out the tide, watching the fall of water that signals that the dinner table is available once again.

Notice how well their color blends into the surrounding rocks. This is no mistake; they blend beautifully into their surroundings and if they hadn’t made their alarm calls, Glen and I would never have seen them. A safe high tide roost is a necessity, as these birds are the favored prey item of Peregrine falcons, Merlins and pretty much any other hawk that can catch them.

The location of the roost is no mistake either; just below these rocks are the highest mud flats in East Bay, and as the tide turns and drops, these are the first mud flats available to the Dunlins.

Shorebirds are notoriously hard to identify, especially when they are in their drab winter plumages. How do we know these are Dunlins? Some key identification marks include dark legs, dark long bill and dark eyes. The long bill has a characteristic slight droop at the tip. In winter they are a uniform brown; their heads are very round and the dark eye is like a bull’s eye in the middle of that round head.

If you look carefully at the feathers on the backs of many of these birds, you will notice they are very faded and worn around the edges. These birds molted in new feathers last July, while on the breeding grounds in Alaska and in preparation for their long migration flight south to Puget Sound. By now, through many months and the storms of winter, those feathers are both faded and very ratty around the edges.

However, some of these birds are juveniles; born last summer, they molted in a different way and in a different timing, and so their feathers are more fresh. Here you can see a bird of the year, with a few dark, gold-rimmed feathers on its back, and the gold-rimmed flight feathers below. This bird has not yet seen its first birthday, yet it has made it through the long flight south, and the hard winter. It is a miracle of survival.

Over a long and varied life as a naturalist, I have spent many many long days sitting on the mud flats, watching shorebirds as the incoming tide pushes them in. Some of the best memories of my life are these vigils in the wild places, my butt planted on cold sand, beach grasses whipping my face, the calls of wild birds filling my ears. There is a feeling that if I wait long enough, quietly enough, the tide will push the flock all around me and I too will become one of the wild migrants, travelers from an unknown land, making my living on the rich dinner table that is a muddy estuary. Such is the beauty and magic of shorebirds.

Janet Partlow
Resources: Photos by Nancy Partlow

Subtle Signs of Spring

2011-01-16T14:19:00.001-08:00

This Sunday morning we woke to pounding rain on the roof, and sheets of water slobbering down the street in front of our house. It was 53 degrees at 7:00 am, which for the maritime Northwest in January can mean only one thing: a Chinook is blasting through.

These are warm weather events wherein the jet stream entrains plumes of warm moisture straight from tropical Hawaii, shooting them northeast and aiming them (in the classic meteorologist's phrase) like a fire hose on Cascadia. These Chinooks often follow a period of landlocked cold and ice and come as a welcome relief to all living here.

So when the fire hose took a brief sun break at noon, I hot-footed it down to the Deschutes estuary, to take one of my favorite walks through the wetland along the river.

Here, if you look closely, are many signs that winter is losing its hold; the earliest native plants along the estuary are breaking dormancy and getting ready to grow leaves. The Indian Plum is one of the earliest: here the bud sheaths have fallen away and there are tiny green furled leaves, getting ready to unfold. Soon they will produce long chains of delicate white flowers. The first spring I knew this plant, I brought the flowers into the house, but I only did it once: after a few hours inside these flowers left the lovely scent of skunk, permeating the entire house.

The Oregon grape also looks ready to bolt: here the tight buds of flowers are poised to open into early spring sunshine, providing a rich source of nectar eagerly sought by our native pollinators, such as the earliest bumblebees. Notice, too, the prickly evergreen leaves, their flat surfaces turned up to take in every possible bit of sunlight, to photosynthesize and rebuild their carbohydrate stores.

In late winter, sap begins to run up the branches of the woody shrubs and trees; some of them are thin-skinned enough that you can see the color changes. Here the whippy branches of a (non-native) Weeping Willow are showing bright yellow, a clear sign of sap moving up and out.

These Chinook events bring with them inches and inches of rain; as I walked along the river, the nearby hillsides were bleeding out gouts of water. All around me I could hear the sounds of running water, pouring down the hills and into the river. This is a noise that triggers the beavers: they emerge from the winter lodges with a powerful urge to DAM EVERYTHING!! BLOCK IT! STOP IT! MAKE A POND! So all along my walk, I saw evidence of mid-sized deciduous trees sacrificed to this urge; in this picture you can see the typical pointy stump of a beaver chew, and large chips scattered at the base. This is one cherry tree that will not see another year.

My favorite tree ever is willow; each spring I eagerly anticipate the showing of the first pussy willows. My walk was complete when I saw a native willow with some pussy willow catkins; in this picture you can see them, fresh & rain-speckled, behind the sap-filled branches of Red-osier Dogwood.

Then I reached the point where the Deschutes river flows out from under the I-5 bridge. The water here is thick brown with muddy sediment, washed down by the Chinook rains. Here we are at sea level; these are the warmest places in winter, where the maritime influences moderate the icy grip of winter. And here is a Red Alder tree, leaning out over the river, showing its catkins getting longer, getting ready to produce clouds of February pollen. I checked one catkin; it was turning from brown-green to red, and was softening up. Signs of spring, indeed.

Finally I turned around to head home. Looking north I saw some blue sky- YES! A break in the weather! And in the distance a faint half rainbow, trying to find its way through the clouds. It was a much-needed sign of hope that the season of winter is losing its dominion; soon we will see the light and the life of spring return once again.

Janet Partlow
Resources: "A Field Guide to the Common Wetland Plants of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon" by Sarah Speare Cooke

The Coming of the Ducks

2010-11-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

It is now late October. Down the hill from our west Olympia house, where the Deschutes river is impounded behind the Fifth avenue dam, sits its current morph, Capitol Lake. In these days of sunny fall, the lake is very quiet. The autumnal colors of maple trees reflect into these waters, preening themselves in this mirror. The lake shapes itself into its stratified layers of hot and cold water, and only a few ripples stir its gelid form. During these bright October days, the lake is an autumn-colored jewel and there are few signs of any animal life: only a few resident Glaucous wing gulls loafing on a sand bar, screaming their petty squabbles to the skies. It looks like it could go on forever.

But not so: there’s the first big fall storm coming. And for the next few days, everything looks more like the maritime Northwest: lashing winds stir the lake into a froth. The colors fall from the trees into the dark waters, leaving behind bare branches. The rain slashes down in sheets and the mighty dam keepers have to play around with the water levels to prevent flooding . The lake is brim-full, mud-colored and hardly visible through the heavy veils of rain. It is now winter on Capitol Lake.

And somewhere in these nights of pounding rain, where we humans huddle gratefully in our warm houses, large flocks of waterbirds leave their nesting grounds in the interior of Alaska, the Yukon, the Northwest Territory. They leave their freshwater aspen wetlands, and for many, the place of their birth. They answer some wild, internal call and head south, looking for a place to spent the winter. They fly into the teeth of the storm, pounded by winds, often flying at night at high altitudes and calling their mournful cries into the dark. Many of them end up on Capitol Lake. After the storm breaks, after a clear morning dawns, we head back down the hill to the lake, and we find these first migrants of the year.

They huddle together in the north basin, usually the first place new arrivals come to. They have left the deep unpeopled quiet of the Canadian taiga and find themselves on this urban lake, surrounded by people and dogs and cars. They stay closely grouped together; they seem watchful and twitchy and quickly take flight at the slightest sign of possible danger. As we gaze, they splash water on their backs, washing and preening those all important feathers. Some dive to feed; a big food draw in this lake are the seeds left over from the thick summer algae mats.

Many different migrating ducks and geese can be found on the lake. They tend to form their own clubs and keep to themselves. See here, the swans keep a distance from the other birds, while the Buffleheads form small groups a clear space away from the swans.

Some of the first migrants are small flocks of Bufflehead ducks: the males are an eye-catching white and black, with crested heads. These are fiercely territorial ducks, and fight amongst themselves year around: for mates, for territory, because they feel like it, etc. It is said this is why they have only small flocks of 50 or less, because they can’t get along. If you watch the males even for only a few minutes, you will inevitably seen one lower his head and point his bill in a distinctively threatening posture, beat his wings and make a run at another bufflehead. They weigh about one pound, but emotionally they seem to believe they are the size of elephants.

Another common early migrant on the lake are the American Widgeons. As we watch, a small flock comes in, calling in a squeaky burble that is the ultimate rubber ducky sound. They form their own group and seek the lake edge, where they make shallow dives in search of vegetation.

As November comes in and advances, so too will the ducks. By the middle of November, hundreds of ducks will be making a their winter lives on this water. Here they spend much of the next few months, feeding and getting through the year. The different species will find microhabitats they like and hang out there. All the birds will get accustomed to the joggers and cars, and only the occasional pass by the local Bald Eagle pair will be enough to pull them, shrieking in terror, out of the water and back into the sky.

For me, it’s one of my favorite winter birdwatching hangouts. It’s a veritable Who’s Who of the waterbird world and one of the best places in which to learn about ducks and their lives. Maybe this winter, we will meet at the birdwatching bench, down by the lake...

Janet
Resources:
Waterscape photos by Nancy Partlow
Bufflehead: HRHunting.com

In Search of the Wild Field Cricket

2010-10-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

As a child growing up in Olympia, I spent a great deal of time playing outdoors. Yet I don't recall ever seeing or hearing crickets. I never even knew we had crickets in Thurston County. That is why it was such a delightful surprise when I moved to a Tumwater mobile home park to discover that along with some really neat human neighbors, I had acquired some really cool insect ones as well, from the species Gryllus pennsylvanicus - Fall Field Crickets. As the name implies, these crickets are usually found in fields, but I can personally attest that they also flourish in mobile home parks.

For several years I have kept a list of all unusual or notable nature sightings from around my home. The list records the dates of when certain animal species are first heard or seen every year; the first frogs chorusing from a nearby wetland, the first male Rufous hummingbird, etc. Reviewing this log, I note that the first Fall Field Cricket is reliably heard between the last week of July and the first week of August. This year the date was August 4th.

I have always cherished the crickets' songs (one recent and memorable hot August night, my entire house - and heart - resonated with the sound), but I've rarely ever actually seen one of these secretive insects. Occasionally I've glimpsed a cricket out in the open, but I'd never tracked one down in its habitat until about a month ago.

Since they seemed to be more active after sunset, one evening I took up my trusty flashlight and went "cricketing by ear". It wasn't easy. These creatures are masters of concealment and ventriloquism. Not surprising, since the noisy males would provide tasty morsels for inquisitive small mammals, birds, or other predators. In the red landscape rock beneath my neighbor's metal awning (great acoustics), I distinctly perceived two different crickets. Even though I knew they were only a few feet away from me, I still couldn't locate the source of their chirps. If I stood in one place, they sounded like they were in front of me. One step forward, however, and I could swear they were behind me. I never did pinpoint their location.

Roaming the mobile home park, cognizant of my reputation as the neighborhood bug nutter, I could hear crickets all around, but couldn't find them. They were hidden in rockeries or under groundcover foliage. Most of the calls seemed to be emanating from right next to the curb, where the insects were holed up in the gap between the cement sidewalk and the street asphalt. Eventually, I zeroed in on a large, dark insect nestled tightly against the sidewalk rise. Victory! Taking some photos, I really wanted to see what this critter looked like.

Downloading the hard-won camera shots to the computer, what they revealed surprised me. The cricket is an amazing looking animal! From its long antennae, round head, circular garnet eyes, black leather neck choker, yellow wing stripes, cerci and ovipositor, it is obviously a miracle of natural adaptation. But wait! What's an ovipositor doing on a male cricket? An ovipositor is the specialized organ that female insects use to lay their eggs through. The ovipositor on a female cricket is the long, dark, needle-like apparatus poking out dead center from the rear of its abdomen. But this cricket was supposed to be a male. I had tracked it down by ear, and only males "cricket". What had happened?

After mulling for a bit, I was forced to conclude that the female cricket, attracted by a sequestered male's stridulations, had been very near to consummating the procreative act with him when I came along. A male cricket had foiled me once again.

A few weeks later, determined to capture an image of a male, I set out anew with flashlight in hand. I was haunting street gutters when a neighbor out walking his dog saw me and inquired, "Did you lose something?" Explaining my quest, he expressed mild interest in my pursuit. He stood nearby until I discovered a male cricket deep in a crevice next to the sidewalk. I asked my neighbor if he would hold the flashlight and shine it down into where the cricket was hiding, so I could take a picture. He agreed. His previous indifference evaporated when he caught sight of the insect, proclaiming excitedly, "There it is! I see it!" But I still couldn't get a decent shot. Too deep.

As summer wore into autumn, I had pretty much relinquished my goal of photographing a male cricket. The advent of shorter days and cooler nights had reduced the trillings in the park to a precious few. Yet finally in mid-October, at the tail end of cricket season, I heard a very loud chirping directly in front of my house. Investigating the source of the ruckus, I was gratified to identify a male cricket, conspicuously wing-rubbing his amorous serenade into the late afternoon air.

"Kind of risky", I thought, but then I noticed her. The male was stridulating madly to a nearby lady love. Listening intently to his aria through eardrums in her front legs, she approached him tentatively, coyly, then turned away. But unable to withstand his ardency, she soon joined him in discreetly repairing to the shrubbery, from whence emitted a quite different kind of chirping (which I imagined as a sort of drunken ecstasy) as the deed was done.

Two frosty nights later, cricket song ceased from the mobile home park entirely. After more than two months of nearly non-stop activity, the insects had gained their well-deserved rest. But deep within the sandy soil, the females' oviposited eggs abide, waiting for the planet to tilt on its axis once more. Waiting, for the life-giving warmth of the sun to pour upon the earth. Waiting, for the cycle of life and death to begin again.

Nancy Partlow

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Resources:
Observing Insect Lives by Donald Stokes
The Songs of Insects by Lang Elliott & Will Hershberger

At Tongue Point: Goodbye to Summer

2010-10-04T16:20:00.000-07:00

It is the end of September. Glen and I are sitting at the viewpoint at Tongue Point, a rocky protrusion of land poking north into the Straits of Juan de Fuca, just west of Port Angeles. We have been camping at this lovely site for a few days, enjoying the last days of a fading summer.

Around dusk we decided to finish our day by taking our camp cooked bean tacos and sitting at the outlook. This day has been a dream of a sunny day, now fading into dusk. The sunset in the west is sensational. I remark that this is a watercolorist’s dream (I dabble in watercolors); Glen shoots back, “Or a nightmare!” And I have to laugh. How is possible to catch and hold such unearthly colors?

This place is that rare thing along the the Washington seacoast: an easily accessible rocky shore. This is very different than the long sandy stretches of Ocean Shores or Long Beach: here the salt water from the Pacific rides east for 60 miles in great rolling swells that crash upon the rocky shore. All night, bedded down in our warm camp beds, we hear and feel the BOOM POUND THUMP of big swells pushing in a full tide and breaking at last on the stony reaches of the point.

These rocky beaches provide an excellent place for a sea garden of kelp to establish itself and flourish. We were here last spring for a brief visit and there was no sign of this garden; we have the photo to prove it. Upon our return this fall, the bull kelp is thick, floating and swaying some 20 feet from shore.

Kelp is a deciduous plant, like many of our leafy land trees. It starts from a spore deep down in the intertidal floor which sprouts in spring and puts out rootlike holdfasts which anchor to the rocky substrate . The plant then sends up its stipe at an incredible rate (up to 10 inches a day) growing towards the sun. Finally, it reaches the sun, and starts to photosynthesize, making carbohydrates which fuel its continued vigorous growth. It forms a bulb or float, which keeps it at the ever-changing tidal surface. It sends out long blades to collect even more sunlight. Throughout the summer, it grows and grows at a phenomenal rate: some kelp reach 200 feet from holdfast to bulb. Finally in this season of late summer, it reaches the end of its life, loosens its grip on the rocks and the tide casts it up on the beach in great heaping piles, just like the maple leaves in our front yard. Here many beach critters hide in it, and feast on it, helping to break it down, decay and provide nutrients to the next generation.

During its summer life, the kelp provides a floating mat island, and many birds take advantage of it; several gulls with crops full after a day’s feeding, perch on the kelp, facing west and watch the sun sink into the hills. A lone Great Blue Heron manages to balance itself on the mats !*! and continues to fish even in the last minutes of light. The bobbing bulbs of kelp look like so many seal heads and we are fooled, over and over again.

The rocks provide another feeding habitat that many rock shorebirds specialize in using. This is the country of Black Oystercatchers: as we watch the sunset, they vocalize back and forth from rock to rock, a mournful piping call.

This is a season of migration and transitions: we watch Pigeon Guillemots in their white winter coats, getting ready to fly to the north Pacific for the winter. Other birds come in to stay: small bands of Scoters and other seaducks move into the Straits for the winter.

This is a place of breathtaking beauty. This is a time of saying goodbye to summer. There are so many feelings: a feeling of mourning for summer lost, of reveling in in the beauty laid out before us, of anticipation for the change of the season. My heart is full.

The sun continues to sink, painting the sky and the water, too, in ever-changing colors. We watch and wait, until finally, the water turns black.

Janet

Resources:
Salt Creek County Park (Tongue Point), Clallam County, Washington
close up kelp from seaotter.com
Black Oystercatcher from usgs.gov

An Armada of Admirals in the Fall Garden

2010-09-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I was out in my garden taking photos of the pollinators that use fall asters - the very last of the summer bloomers. I was minding my own business snapping shots of bees and flies, when I caught sight of a Red Admiral butterfly drinking nectar from the tall daisies. I gasped and began madly clicking away. I was entranced by its beauty; the underside of its wings were a phenomenal 60's acid trip of pattern and color.

Slowly, I came to the realization that I was actually taking photos of two different butterflies. There were two! I was blown away.

When I had just gotten used to that idea, I looked up and noticed a third! It's so rare to see one Red Admiral per summer, and here were three! I was so jazzed.

These were crisp, gorgeous butterflies fresh from the chrysalis. But where did they come from? Red Admiral butterflies usually lay their eggs on nettles, but I wracked my brain and couldn't think of any nearby stands of those prickly stingers. So I decided to pull out my "Butterflies of Cascadia", to see what Bob Pyle had to say about Vanessa atalanta. In reading his great description, I learned that yes, admirals (which he calls Red Admirables) use nettles as a host plant for their larvae, but they will also use hops, which are in the same plant family as nettles. Suddenly, a big light bulb went off in my head. I had planted hops more than ten years ago only a few feet from where these adult butterflies were nectaring on asters. I remembered that I had specifically chosen the vine in hopes that Red Admirals would lay their eggs on it, but had completely forgotten in the interval. It only took ten years, but the plan worked!

The next day, I went out to the garden again and darned if there wasn't a fourth admiral on the asters. It was a veritable festival of butterflies.

I don't know if it's because we had such a short summer this year, but those asters have been just crazy with pollinators of all kinds - bumblebees, honeybees, wasps, butterflies, syrphid and tachinid flies. I thought the poor insects might perish with all the September rain we've had, but whenever there's a dry spell, they are out there, frantically taking advantage of this last nectar source of summer. There are so many pollinators that they fight for space on the hundreds of flowers. It's quite amazing.

I guess the moral of the story is, if you want to attract pollinators, you can't go wrong planting fall asters. Given room, they will reseed themselves to become a terrific pollinator draw to any garden. One other really nice thing about asters - they're so tall that you'll be right at eye level to witness one of the greatest shows on earth.

Nancy Partlow

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Nancy is our guest writer for this blog. A "silent partner" in our Bees, Birds and Butterflies work, she is a very gifted naturalist and gardener. Janet & Glen

Resources: The Butterflies of Cascadia by Robert Michael Pyle

Beaver ponds and big lunkers

2010-05-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

In the last two weeks, there have been some gloriously sunny days, the kind of spring days that make us remember why we live in the maritime Northwest (and why we put up with months of sullen rain). During this season I scrutinize the Weather Channel carefully, checking out the satellite view and planning ahead for those rare, warm days. We got one on a Saturday and Glen and I took that opportunity to go to McLane Creek DNR park, a beaver pond wetland not far from our house.

I have been visiting this pond for over 35 years, on and off. Our goal on Saturday was to see if there were any dragonflies, emerging from their larval state and taking that first spring flight. But in the southernmost reaches of Puget Sound, it’s still a little early and cold for emergence, so there were no dragonflies on view . But as experienced nature watchers, we knew there would be plenty of things to see. And so it proved.

We perched ourselves on the dock that sticks out into the beaver pond. Here the sun was strong, we were surrounded by fertile freshwater marshlands full of lily pads, and encircled by cattails, sedges, rushes, willows and spirea. Here the wood ducks came eagerly to the dock, hoping for bread. Here one and only one Canada goose roosted nearby, ignoring us and preening its feathers. I kept fretting why there is only ONE goose, and remarked to Glen how weird that is, until he finally spotted a second goose, across the beaver pond, sitting on a nest. YEEES! It is a mated pair, they own this pond and for the time have successfully trounced and driven off all others. That’s why there’s just 2 geese. Soon there will be 2 geese + 6 golden-downed fledglings.

In May, one of the best treats McLane has to offer is the sight of Rough-skinned newts, patrolling the waters below the dock. This is a kind of salamander, common in our area. In winter they live a life in the woods, hiding out under logs, slowing down and finding ways just to get through the icy times. In spring, as the daylight lengthens and the warm rains come, they head for the wetland ponds to breed. The males’ bodies shift from a rough, dry winter skin to a smooth sleek finish suited to life in the water; their tails become flat flexible blades like fins, useful for propelling them through the water. Sexual hormones surge, and their cloaca at the base of their tail swells and protrudes.

Our friend Rain recently saw a spring migration of Rough-skinned Newts. She lives near a beautiful patch of DNR woods and wetland, north of Olympia. A few weeks ago in April she went to walk the trail that runs through these woods, and was startled to see at her feet masses of newts, heading in one direction along the trail towards the wetlands. We speculated that she had stumbled upon a mass migration; there had been a few days of wet, warm rain, which may have triggered the surge to water.

In the water of the beaver pond today, we see only males. They spend the spring and summer months almost exclusively in the pond (some may spend all year there), patrolling and fighting over the rare female. The females come to the pond only to mate, lay eggs along the shallow water edges, and then leave. Discretion is the better part of valor for these females.

We are struck by the sight of one HUGE rough-skinned newt. We hang perilously over the railing, gaping at it and making rude remarks about obesity and BMI (basal metabolic index). It moves well through the water and appears healthy. Glen manages to scoop it up in our dragonfly net and we get a few pictures. It is nearly twice the size of the other males. We wonder if it is diseased in some way and perhaps has trouble excluding pond water from its body.

After we returned home, I emailed Bill Leonard about this animal. Bill is a herpetologist extraordinaire, and co-wrote the book on Amphibians of Washington and Oregon. He looked at our pictures, and said that he and his co-author Bob Storm call these guys “the big lunkers” and that they are not uncommon. He believes that this one is healthy and very well-fed. They speculate these big lunkers may be as old as 50 years (up to 30 is more normal for Rough-skinned Newts).

My jaw drops at this news. Rough-skinned Newts are such small animals, migrating year after year from woods to water, struggling to get through winter, fighting with other males over females, dodging its only predator (garter snakes) . It is beyond belief that they can make it to 50 years of age.

It was a beautiful day at the beaver pond. We spent several hours that sunny afternoon at McLane creek, sitting on the dock. We watched spring come alive, in bird song, bursting green plants, blue sky and quiet fertile waters. We came home with our first sunburn of the season. And later that night, safe asleep in our warm bed, a big lunker prowled purposefully through our dreams.

Janet

In Praise of Unkempt Gardens

2010-05-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

Peering outside from the kitchen window, I consider how much longer I can delay mowing the grass and forbs patch that we call a lawn. I notice movement, and start counting one, two, four, seven birds gleaning seeds off the dandelions, now gone to fluffy seed. I watch one bird as she pops up and with one foot grabs a stem below the seed head. She pushes the seedhead to the ground, quickly picks through the tuft of seeds, and moves on. Although their motions vary, each member of this guild is moving just as quickly, intent on filling up on its share of the plunder. (Eat hearty friends, the larder is FULL in this garden!)

Of these birds, some are clearly Golden-Crowned Sparrows - we’ve been seeing and hearing them pass through for a while now. They are a big gray sparrow with an unmistakable head - a black cap with a yellow patch running as a wide stripe from the forehead back across the crown. In fresh breeding plumage and in the right light, as is my view from this window, the yellow is a strong color and the bird is aptly named. Its call too is unmistakable, almost tedious for its constancy - a few wheezy notes sung like a morse code operator falling asleep as he keys. Daaah dit dit Daaah dit dit dah daah, and over again. No resonant Song Sparrow he, his song nonetheless assures me, for a few weeks anyway, of his presence. Soon these sparrows will fly north to mate and raise young in mountain and tundra areas.

This is, however, a mixed sparrow flock and within the flock is a different bird of noticeable contrast. My eye is caught by a much smaller strongly striped buff-brown sparrow, at most two-thirds as big as the larger Golden-Crowned. As attention-getting as its size is its own distinctive crown. Like many sparrows, it has a colored stripe from its forehead back: on this little sparrow, the crown stripe is a bold rusty brown. Janet, who has joined me at the window, agrees that this is a Chipping sparrow. It is named not for its color pattern, but for its voice. As flocks of these birds move around, they keep in contact with each other by using a distinct chip note, hence their name.

Chipping sparrows are considered a fairly common sparrow, but it is a first sighting in our backyard. It too is passing through, looking for open lands to nest, and gratified to stop in our backyard for a traveling meal of dandelion seeds.

Here in early May, this flock of mixed sparrows is probably in migration. Kind of like us humans who stop off the freeway at the food mart and gorge on nuts and chocolate, (burgers and fries), before getting back on the road, the sparrows have located some high-energy food before resuming their flight. The birds are moving through, quickly grabbing quality snacks to restock their stores of fat, then taking to the skies again, searching for prime breeding habitat. We may well not see them again this year.

Though observing this particular mixed flock is a first for us, watching birds glean dandelion heads in our under maintained garden is something we have seen before. While I do make some effort to weed and mow, I know that an overzealous attempt to pare down our garden to just the most disciplined plants, and to impose too much order, also pares down the number of wild visitors to our garden. Janet insists on keeping some dandelions; in her other life as an herbalist we pick the flowers and infuse them in olive oil, making a wonderful remedy for muscle pain. In early spring I like to nibble the tender new flower buds still tucked tightly at the base of each plant. It is easy to keep some dandelions, (hard not to). As we watch this flock today greedily gulping down the seeds, we are reminded of other uses of this plant, and its role in feeding the wildlife around us.

Here’s to unkempt gardens!

Glen and Janet

Resources:
• Sparrows and Buntings by Byers, Curson and Olsson
• closeup sparrow photos from www.birdseek.com and SDakotabirds.com

Here Be Ssssssssnakes...

2010-03-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

In early March, a friend was out walking the river trail at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. It was an unusually warm sunny early afternoon when he stopped to admire some frogs in a pond. While watching the frogs, suddenly at his feet he noticed a seething mass of garter snakes. He told me he saw several large ones, and then a large wriggling ball of snakes (a mass of male snakes trying to mate with a female). He had stumbled upon a winter snake den or hibernaculum.

This is what garter snakes do in winter. They find a convenient depression in the ground, below the frost line, but above the water table and there with hundreds of their compatriots they hole up for the winter. As cold-blooded animals they do not enter a true hibernation state, but use the protected space and the shared heat of the other inhabitants to get through the winter months. In our area, in early March, on sunny days, you can often find these snakes making their first spring forays out into the world. This is what my friend had found.

I've long had an interest in garter snakes. I grew up with six siblings on the rural edges of Olympia near Hazard lake, and we had miles of abandoned cow pasture to explore. I remember with great fondness how I would catch a garter snake, and then menace my younger siblings with it. Even now, the memory of the terrified screams of the young'uns, running for their lives, warms the cockles of my heart. (Yes, I was a BAD sister.)

My friend JoAnna and I decided to go out to the refuge and see if we could find this hibernaculum. Armed with detailed directions, we walked along the river trail and found a certain middle-aged Black Cottonwood tree, growing out of the raised dike that keeps the Nisqually river at bay. This tree has a fat root that is only partly embedded in the soil; underneath it is a perfect dry location for snakes. And about noon each day, the sun comes out and shines with full strength on this site. That is enough to bring out the snakes.

In our first visit we sat and watched for awhile and saw nothing. We were about to leave when another refuge visitor passing by looked down and remarked: "Look! Snakes!" Apparently it had warmed up enough and the snakes were starting to come out to bask. We got up in a flurry of excitement and watched for a couple hours. We estimate we saw about 30 snakes on that visit.

We've visited the snake den a few times now. Each time we learn more about the garter snakes and their habits. In our most recent visit Glen came along, which was great, because we managed to persuade him to pick one up. Glen is a skilled snake wrangler, and made it possible to get some great pictures. He also held the snake long enough that it got unhappy; it produced a pea-size drop of pink poo from its cloaca and the stench was palpable several feet away. I didn't get a picture of that.

I sent a few pictures along to Bill Leonard, a local herpetologist who very kindly answered my emails. It turns out we have 3 species of Garter snakes in western Washington. It turns out all three species can have a wide range of colors, but if you look at head size, and count the scales above and below the lip, you can sort out the different species. Bill is a co-editor in the book Reptiles of Washington and Oregon, which helps you learn how to do this.

The snake that Glen held is probably a Western Terrestrial Garter Snake, based on labial scale count. These snakes are widespread and commonly found near water. They feed on slugs, snails, earthworms, fish, salamanders, frogs, lizards snakes and even birds. Females are typically larger than males. These snakes may live as long as 10 years.

The snakes we saw at the hibernaculum were probably males. The story goes that on sunny days in early spring, the males emerge first, to bask and to keep alert to the scent of a likely female. If one appears, every male snake in the vicinity will try to mate with her, which is how my friend saw a snake ball. Once mated, the females leave the den and head for likely foraging territory. The males may stick around for awhile, and then they, too, will disperse. Come early October, many snakes will return again to the same hibernaculum, using it to help with their winter survival. We plan to keep our eyes on this hibernaculum for some weeks to come.

You can help garter snakes prosper in your own backyard. At the end of this blog entry, I am posting a link to a description of how to build a backyard rock pile (Glen and I are in the process of putting one in as we speak). A more simple addition is a snake board; this is described in the Washington Fish and Wildlife webpage. We hope you enjoy these fascinating animals!

Janet
Resources:
• Fish & Wildlife info about snake boards: http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/living/snakes.htm
• Info about Rock Piles: http://www.wildlifegardeners.org/forum/habitat/1413-log-piles-rock-piles.html
• Check out Manitoba's Narcisse Garter Snake Dens: www.manitobaphotos.com/narcisse.htm
• Thanks to Bill Leonard for answering my questions.

The Tree of Life

2010-03-09T09:02:00.000-08:00

We first discovered this willow tree in spring 2006. I had just had major surgery and was unable to drive. My sister took pity on me, taking me for an outing. We rambled south and stopped at a favorite birdwatching place along the Black River in southern Thurston county.

It had been a cold, wet, gloomy winter that looked like it would never end (never have major surgery in winter if you can help it). I had had excruciating pain for months before the surgery - the worst of my life. It had been a profoundly difficult journey to the Underworld and at that point of time in late March, just 5 weeks after surgery, I wasn’t sure I could (or wanted) to come back. Then we found the Tree.

It was midday, about 50 degrees, with weak sun pushing through clouds. We parked next to the Black River, and “happened” to park next to a lone willow tree, probably a Sitka willow. We briefly looked at the willow, noticed it had tons of fuzzy gray pussywillows and dismissed it. We wanted to see BIG wildlife: the Red tailed hawks, the Great Blue Herons, the first migrant swallows of spring.

But oddly for this place, none of the big things showed up. And as we sat there, using our binoculars to scan the horizon behind the willow tree, I suddenly noticed: hundreds of bumblebees flying in to the tree. We watched carefully for awhile and realized: they were the new queens of the year, starting up their hives, and flying into this willow. They went to the gray pussywillows that had progressed on to yellow pollen, and proceeded to collect this pollen to provision their young brood of worker bees. In this picture, if you look closely at the sky to the left of the tree, you can see many black dots: these are all queen Bumblebees heading to the willow store.

The sun came through the clouds and the day started to warm up. We then saw a Rufous Hummingbird female come into the willow. We watched, spellbound, as she delicately, carefully inserted her bill into an individual pussywillow, clearly collecting nectar. I was astounded; while it was obvious that the massive amounts of pollen were nourishing the bees, I had no idea that pussywillows could also provide nectar. As we watched, more females came in, then a male hummer, who promptly started a territorial fight. It was quite a show.

Then the sun really started to break through the clouds. Suddenly we noticed a BUTTERFLY flitting through the pussywillows. (Butterflies in March are pretty rare). It was a California Tortoiseshell, coming to the willow to collect nectar. These butterflies overwinter as adults and sneak out on the rare warm sunny days for a quick burst of nectar energy. This one stayed for awhile, and was joined by others of its species. We stared, our eyes glued on the tortoiseshell as it inserted its proboscis (drinking tube) into the pussywillows, clearly finding and drinking nectar.

We sat for a long time, the sun warming our backs, the rich life all around us, the Tree of Life bringing its abundance and fertility back to the Earth and her creatures. It was a profound lesson in the seasons of life: to everything there is a season and the Tree of Life was bringing all of us: the bees, butterflies, the hummingbirds (and me ) back into the warmth and life of spring.

My spirits lifted for the first time in months. Life once again held hope, beauty and possibility. The Tree of Life brought me back from the Underworld and back to life. Ever since, that willow has a special place in my heart.

Janet

Resources:
Photos by Nancy Partlow
Check out the Black River Unit of the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge at: www.fws.gov/nisqually/getinvolved/bru_general.html

The Deschutes Estuary: The Tide Runs Again

2010-03-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I was driving around Capitol lake in Olympia. For those unfamiliar with the area, this lake was formed in 1951 when a dam was put in to impound the Deschutes River at Fifth Avenue. Since this time, the river has backed up behind this dam, only flowing northward to discharge the overflow of fresh water. The impounded lake is a series of three basins, running north to south. You can drive south along these basins, on the Deschutes Parkway.

Before 1951, the Deschutes River met the salt waters of Puget Sound in a tidal estuary. Prior to the first American and European settlers, this estuary was a thanksgiving feast richly laid out for the Squaxin Indian bands who lived along these waters. Seafood, waterbirds and wetland plants all provided great sources of food year around. The Native Americans knew this well, which is why they had their year around longhouses near the lower falls of the Deschutes, at the beginning of the estuary.

By the 1840’s the first European American settlers showed up. In 1908, my grandfather Partlow left the snow-bound farmlands of Michigan and set up a medical practice in Olympia, settling in a house on the bluff above the estuary. A descendant of Scots & Irish emigrants, he planted roots in Olympia, right on the shores of the estuary. I often thought he chose a place that looked very much like the firths (estuary) of the family's roots in Scotland. His grandson my father Bud was born in 1918 in the “old” St. Peter’s Hospital on the grounds of the Capitol campus, near where the totem pole is today, and also, just above the estuary.

By 1925, my father was growing up around the estuary; he well remembers the stinking sewage, the garbage, the shanty houses of Little Hollywood that lined the edges of the estuary prior to the dam. (You can see Little Hollywood in this 1946 photo taken from the hill below the Capitol, looking north). Now in 2010 he thinks all estuaries are dirty, stinking, disgusting mudholes, and he wants Capitol lake to stay an impounded river forever.

In 1921 my mother Shirley was born in Maxwell Maternity home, on the western side of the estuary, where today the 5th avenue bridge becomes a roundabout. (Here is a picture of Maxwell, taken from the west side hill facing east. You can see the estuary at full tide - minus the dam and Fifth avenue.)

She too grew up on the mudflats, and for all the days of her life found them a source of joy, of wonder, of great seashells and fabulous agates. She would not at all agree with my father that estuaries are worthless mudholes. She dragged her children out for regular jaunts to the tidal mudflats and showed us sand dollars and moonsnails, seaweeds and seashells. I have never forgotten her lessons.

By the time I was born in the fifties, the Fifth avenue dam had been built and the river was blocked behind it. That was the end of the tidal estuary.

So when I was driving around the lake a few days ago, I saw an amazing thing. There had been a low tide and the dam had been opened up. The water was entirely drained from the lake, leaving only a thin ribbon of the Deschutes river, snaking its way over a thick muddy bottom.

( This was being done as part of a plan to eradicate invasive New Zealand Mudsnails. Somehow they have been introduced to the north basin of the impoundment and threaten not only that lake but all other local and regional lakes. So the plan is to drain Capitol lake and refill it with salt water, allowing the snails to pickle in a salty brine for a couple of days in hopes of killing them off).

I had some errands to do; it was several hours later when I came back around the impoundment. By this time, the tide was coming in through the open dam with a vengeance: two of the three basins were nearly full of saltwater, and the water was moving rapidly into the southern basin by Tumwater Historical Park. I went to the Fifth avenue dam and stood next to it. The rush and roar of water pouring southward was impressive; it was so loud I couldn’t hear my own voice.

I sat near the dam for a long time, watching the water flow south. I couldn’t quite believe it; it seemed weird to see the water flowing the “wrong” way. Yet, at another level, it felt profoundly right.

As I sat there, I was filled with a sense of an old mistake, an old wrong, being corrected. The vigor and energy with which the tidal waters flowed back into their old grounds spoke to me of a natural system that wants what it wants, and that is to be the estuary it has been for thousands of years.

As I watched by the river, I felt in the marrow of my bones: there are bigger forces in the Creation and they are at work. See the tidal waters, sweeping back into the place that for thousands of years has been theirs, reclaiming the tidal pull and tug that is generations old. Smell the salt water all the way up to the old Brewery. Watch the Cormorants on the lake, calling excitedly, flying up and down, basking on the new logs brought in with the tide.

There are Greater forces at work. Long may they run.

Janet

Resources:
• Photo of Little Hollywood by Merle Junk/Shadowcatchers
• Photo of Maxwell Maternity House -undated photograph from History of Olympia website
• Deschutes Estuary Restoration Team (DERT): check their blog at www.deschutesestuary.org.

Salmon at Kennedy Creek

2009-11-16T09:52:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning we awoke to a deep frost, crusting the grass and roofs with white crystals, cold and still. It was foggy too, with clouds of billowing fog sneaking fingers through the neighborhood trees. I sat inside by the big window, in my warm jammies, reluctant to even think of going outside. But my friend JoAnna and I had made plans to go to Kennedy creek, to see the annual flood of Chum salmon making their way upstream to spawn. This was an invitation from nature not to be refused.

Kennedy creek is a beautiful healthy creek that flows out of the Black Hills in northwestern Thurston county. If you head northwest on highway 101 towards Shelton, about ten miles out of Olympia, the highway drops down to sea level and you cross the Kennedy creek estuary. I have spent many happy hours at this estuary, counting shorebirds and watching the tide flow in and out.

On Saturday, the tide was coming in strongly, a new moon high tide swollen with the recent rains. This is the kind of flow that triggers the Chum to go up the river. Here in November, this is their month: all month long they will run the river of their birth, seeking places to spawn.

So here in this amazing place, JoAnna and I found a quiet place by the rain-swollen creek and settled in to watch. At first we saw nothing and thought we'd missed the fish. But as we quietly settled in, suddenly we heard the wild splashing of nearby salmon. The splashing, churning, chasing behavior is usually done by the males, in perhaps a territorial or dominance display. I never see the females do it; JoAnna and I remarked to each other how females in general have better things to do.

Among salmon, there is sexual dimorphism: the females are small and more gray. The males are larger, much more brightly colored in mottled green and red, and among the Chum, the spawning males develop an elongated snout and enlarged teeth, which give them the look of fighting dogs. Hence their other name: Dog salmon.

The name of Chum comes from the Chinook jargon language "Tzum", which means mixed colors, spots or stripes. This certainly fits the Chum in this fall season.

The females look for likely gravel beds in which to make their salmon nest or redd. The gravel must be clean of sediments, well-oxygenated, and protected from the main stream of the creek, to avoid washing out in flood times. This sort of real estate is at a premium in Kennedy creek; where the females find it, they congregate, along with a swarm of males all eager to participate in fertilization.

In general, there is a dominant male who guards the female and sticks close. He often chases off other intruding males - hence the splashy displays. He wins by virtue of his size and ferocity. When his female completes her redd and lays her eggs, it is his sperm that will fertilize them.

Other smaller males, called jacks, cannot hope to win these battles of size and temperament. Their strategy is to lurk in the shallows, making use of their lighter colors to blend into the murky water. When the dominant male has his back turned, chasing off other intruders, the jack sneaks in and fertilizes the eggs. It is strategy that works more often than you might think.

After the eggs are laid, the female is done and she dies. The males hang on a little longer, traveling up and down the stream to look for other fertilization opportunities. Then they, too, die. Sometime in their long journey from ocean to Puget Sound to Kennedy creek estuary, the salmon stop eating. They digest their own stored fat, and later, their own protein to survive just long enough to spawn. As they stop eating, their immune system weakens and their bodies are attacked by a wide variety of pathogens. You can see in the picture, the dead male is a blotchy white-red: the white is a fungus that overwhelms the salmon's immune system.

Along the banks of Kennedy creek, bloated white carcasses of salmon lie. They provide a crucial last service to the ecosystem; in our temperate rain forests, rain washes away a lot of the nutrients. The bodies of salmon fertilize the streams, providing nutrients to all of the forest. The caddisfly larvae in the stream, the young salmon smolts, the nearby threads of fungus, the tree roots all feed from these dying salmon bodies. And when the caddisfly molts into an adult fly, it is the nearby Wilson's warblers who catch them to feed their young, while the young salmon grow up and head out to sea. All these animals carry within themselves the life that was gifted to them by the death of the salmon.

JoAnna and I sit quietly in this frosty morning, looking on this dance of life and death. Overhead, the Bald Eagles lurk in the trees, their high-pitched loony cackle drifting through the lichen-shrouded trees. There is the damp sponge of Earth in fall, the leaves dropping off the trees, the smell of damp and fungus and dying fish, all wrapped around us. And in front of us, in the greatest nature show of all, we watch the last days of these magnificent animals, creating the future in the waters of Kennedy Creek.

Janet
Resources: webpage of Kennedy Creek salmon wildlife watching area:
wdfw.wa.gov/fish/chum/viewingchum_kennedy.htm

Autumn Meadowhawks

2009-09-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the last day of summer. This string of endless sunny days has been a phenomenal opportunity to go out and watch animals that love the sun. For us, right now, that means dragonflies.

So my friend Jay and I went out to McLane Creek beaver pond once again. We decided to go out a little earlier this time; females and males use the pond differently at different times of day, and we wanted to see if we could observe these shifts in the daily use of the beaver pond.

When we got to McLane around 1:00 pm, it was about 60 degrees, and the sun was shining fully on the pond. It was very quiet, dragonfly-wise. We watched a few drab-colored female dragonflies whisking around the surface of the pond, occasionally dipping their abdomens into the water, most likely dropping off eggs. From my reading, female dragonflies tend to avoid the ponds (and the herds of sexually eager males), so those that are ready to lay eggs (oviposition) show up early and later in the day, when the males are less likely to be around.

As the afternoon warmed up, we started to see Shadow Darners (see previous blog) and Jay made a skilled swing with her net and caught one. Here is a photo of her gently extracting him from the green net bag, holding two wings on one side to prevent his escape. We took a few quick pictures, then let him go on his way, watching as he seemed to shake off the indignity of capture, then return to his previous circuit of the pond.

Around 2:00 pm we were surprised when several tandem pairs of red Autumn Meadowhawk dragonflies started to appear. In reading Dennis Paulson's book on Dragonflies of the West, it appears that when some Meadowhawks are ready to mate, they "hook up" with their partners near their night roost sites in the woods, then fly in tandem to the ponds, where the male flies the female low over the water, where she then curves her abdomen down and deposits her eggs.

The male has a special pair of claspers at the end of his abdomen, which are readily seen in this photo. When he makes hopeful ventures to a possible perched female, he is said to flutter and do a kind of courtship dance. If she is duly impressed, she cooperates, by allowing him to hook his claspers on her prothorax, a kind of narrow neck area behind her eyes ( it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "hooked up"). This is called the tandem position.

If she is willing to mate, she then curves her abdomen up and touches the tip to the second segment of his abdomen, which is the genital bump. He then transfers sperm to her to fertilize her eggs. This is called the wheel position. They may then return to the tandem position, where he flies her to the pond to lay eggs, ensuring that HIS sperm are the ones that fertilize her eggs.

We saw many pairs in tandem, and watched a few hovering over the pond, no doubt laying eggs. It was amazing to see. Even though we were not able to net many dragonflies that day, we saw a lot of interesting dragonfly behavior that was new to us. For nature watchers, this is nirvana.

As the afternoon wore on, we saw more male Autumn Meadowhawks, by themselves. There was a lot of basking going on (perhaps post-coital). They were sunning themselves on the railing of the dock, on nearby cattails, even on my knee, briefly. September is late for dragonflies to be out and mating. I have read that the Meadowhawks who flourish in northern climes do so in part by spending a lot of time basking in the available sun. We certainly saw signs of that on this field trip.

By 3:30, activity was slowing down a great deal, and it was time for us to head home. That night my sleep was deep, drugged as I was with hours of sun and fresh air. Through my dreams, red dragonflies danced and wheeled in the last sunny hours of summer.

Janet

A Passion for Dragonflies

2009-09-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about being a nature watcher is that there is so much to see and so much to learn, that it would take a lifetime to learn all the things out in nature. This could be considered discouraging, but in fact, it means that there are always new things to focus on. Which I love.

A few weeks ago, Glen and I signed up for the Northwest Naturalists' weekend workshop at North Cascades Institute, on Diablo lake in the North Cascades. This is a yearly event; for this year they brought in two of my favorite expert naturalists: Bob Pyle (butterflies) and Dennis Paulson (dragonflies). We followed Dennis around on an all day field trip to Lake Campbell and Pipestone canyon in the Okanogan, to explore dragonflies. These were pretty new to us. We were astounded by the variety, the colors, the behaviors. We decided that when we got home, we would seriously pursue dragonflies. Which we have been doing.

I say "we" loosely. Since I am in recovery from hip surgery, my contribution is to strain my brain for good places to go to watch these amazing animals. Glen is the chauffeur, the tracker, the stalker, and ultimately the catcher (and yes, these insects are HARD to catch). We have also had our friend J come along; she has studied these animals for some time, and is a dab hand at catching them.

So we have been to various areas on the Black river, to Scatter Creek and to McLane creek. Here are some photos of some of our first successful catches (we catch them for a few minutes, take a photo and then release them). We then go home with our pictures and I spend several days pouring over books and photos, to identify them. It's been a lot of fun.

Enjoy!

This is a male Paddle-tailed Darner Aeshna palmata. Dennis caught it at Lake Campbell on August 14th. Look at that striking green face and the HUGE blue-black eyes. Darners are the biggest and most visible dragonfly species, and my personal favorites.

This next one is a Blue-eyed Darner Rhionaeschna multicolor. Dennis also caught this one at Lake Campbell in August, but we recently saw this same dragonfly flying at McLane Creek beaver pond. This one is very easy to identify: of the ten species of darners in Thurston County, this is the only one with huge blue eyes and lots of blue splashed everywhere.

This next dragonfly is one of the group of the medium-sized red meadowhawks. It is called the White-faced Meadowhawk Sympetrum obtrusum. It was perched on some low vegetation along the Black River. J did a fabulous sneaky stalk on this dragonfly, dropping her net on it from behind. It has the bright red abdomen of all meadowhawks, and a distinctive pattern of black triangles edging that abdomen. And of course, a white face. Unmistakable.

Glen and I saw a lot of this species of dragonfly at McLane creek a few days ago. We were walking along a shaded path on the wooded edge of the beaver pond, when suddenly in front of him he saw and caught this dragonfly. It is a Shadow Darner Aeshna umbrosa. I struggled to identify this one, but with the help of Dennis Paulson's fabulous field guide to dragonflies, was finally able to figure it out. Shadow Darners tend to be quite dark, with limited blue splashes on the abdomen. They also prefer to hang out in shadowy edges of slow-moving streams, and this is exactly what we saw with this darner.

Finally, we did not catch this dragonfly, but we saw several big males flying over the pond at McLane Creek. This is the Common Green Darner Anax junius: the biggest dragonfly we have in our county, it has an unmistakable olive-green head and bright blue abdomen. We watched a few of these patrolling the pond, no doubt looking for females ready to mate.

Janet

Resources:
Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West by Dennis Paulson
Dragonflies through Binoculars by Sidney Dunkle
North Cascades Environmental Learning Center - wonderful nature classes on many topics

Alligator Lizards

2009-09-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago I had hip replacement surgery. It has required me to take it easy, to allow healing to take place, to limit my activities. And in general, in this time of beautiful Indian summer, it has been a real pain. And boring, too.

So when Glen stumbled upon this Northern Alligator lizard sunning herself on the back porch, I was wildly enthusiastic. Well, I probably would have been pretty enthused anyway: I love all the "herps" ( lizards, amphibians, frogs, snakes, turtles). Twenty years ago I was a volunteer zookeeper assistant at Point Defiance zoo, and worked in the building that housed these animals. I got to see and work with some amazing snakes, tortoises, geckos, etc. These are animals that truly are from another planet.

But my fondness for herps was planted even earlier. In 1955 my parents moved to the outskirts of Olympia, near what is now Olympia High School. From our place looking east, all you could see was abandoned cow pasture and a few cow-chewed Douglas firs. This was the playground for me, my six siblings and all the neighborhood kids.
We saw Pacific chorus frogs in our apple trees, and chased after garter snakes. Nearby Hazard lake had salamanders and bullfrogs. All in all, it was a wonderful haven for herps and children alike.

One time we caught a huge bullfrog roughly the size of a dinner plate. I took it into the house to show my mom, and was surprised to see my normally unflappable mother become unglued when the bullfrog jumped out of the shoebox onto my arm. My surprise turned to a calculated glee as I stalked closer to her, menacing her with the bullfrog, despite her freaked out attempts to assert parental authority and get me to back off. It remains one of my better memories.

Anyway, back to alligator lizards.

Lizards are cold-blooded animals, so they especially like heat and sun, both of which are generally in short supply in western Washington. What this means is that lizards are also in short supply here; only the Northern Alligator lizard is considered widespread and common. It likes damp Douglas fir and Hemlock forests with sunny edges, where it can sun itself, and also catch its insect prey. If you, like us, find a lizard in your back yard, chances are very very good that it is this lizard.

They are active in the day, but tend to be secretive, so it's not common to find them. As I talked with a couple of friends who had seen them, I was told that they like houses with high exposed foundations, especially if those foundations are sunny. These flat concrete surfaces act as a rock face against which the lizards can soak in sunshine, but also pick up the stored heat the in "rock". Since our house is built on a high foundation, this probably helps bring in lizards.

The other factor is Schneider creek. I have written about this creek and its proximity to our house in previous blogs. Schneider creek emerges into a deeply forested ravine about one block from our backyard. This may provide the wet woodlands that Alligator lizards like; I speculate that these lizards use the forest edges of Schneider ravine, and venture into connected sunny backyards.

This particular individual is a fat female. Females bear live young as late as early September, and it is possible she is pregnant. Or not; she has clearly had a prosperous summer, and laid down lots of fat stores, which will help sustain her as she goes into an underground den to hibernate in October, slowing her body metabolism down to get through the winter months. Come next March she will re-emerge from her den, eat voraciously and find a mate. And so the cycle begins again.

Janet

Resources:
• Washington Herp Atlas: www1.dnr.wa.gov/nhp/refdesk/herp/
• The Reptiles of British Columbi: www.bcreptiles.ca/lizards/alligator.htm
• Reptiles of Washington and Oregon; authors Storm, Leonard, et al
• Many thanks to Bill Leonard for answering my questions.

Shaggy Manes in the garden

2009-06-13T21:13:00.000-07:00

About 5 weeks ago, we decided to plant our vegetables in concert with mushrooms. We wrote about it on April 26th (see the blog). We dutifully followed the instructions from Fungi Perfecti, enriching the garden soil with steer manure, worm castings, etc. then putting down layers of alder sawdust and mushroom spawn.

Since then we’ve been wondering what to expect as far as mushroom production. The household skeptic (Glen) has been uttering dire predictions of complete failure. I say that we don’t know what is happening in the ground under our feet and it might be a year before we do know.

So it was with great pride that two mornings ago Glen went out to the garden for the daily sunrise inspection and found two mushrooms pushing out of the sawdust. Glen brought in a photo he’d taken. I felt a burst of pride in our “children” and got all excited. Then a few hours later I went out to look for myself. The mushrooms had continued to grow and develop, making them easier to identify. What we had was a species of edible Coprinus species mushroom called Shaggy Manes.

I admit it - I was disappointed. Where were the mushrooms WE planted? But this is the classic lesson for nature watchers, and one that I have to learn over and over again. It can be covered by that classic proverb: Man proposes, God disposes. I go out into the natural world all the time with my carefully wrought plans about what I am going to see. Then nothing I planned on shows up, but instead, there are other powerful things to experience and learn from. I need to let go of expectations.

And I do love Shaggy Manes. I’ve seen them rise at McClane creek, along the trail edges where all the nutrients wash down and collect. In moist, foggy fall mornings, under the shadow of the trees these mushrooms rise like ghostly battalions, foot soldiers in the battle of decay & nutrient recycling They are a powerful life force and will not be denied; we have seen them push through asphalt in their drive to fruit, produce spores and ensure the next generation.

I wrote Fungi Perfecti about what had occurred. Jim Gouin kindly wrote back and concurred that indeed these were a Coprinus species of mushroom, and that the spores of this mushroom had most likely hitched a ride in on the steer manure. He also told us that the companion mushrooms that we had “planted” in April were now active in the interface between soil and alder sawdust. He suggested we leave it alone for now, but come fall, dig down to that boundary and see the mycelium thriving.

I am looking forward to that day.

Janet

The Lure of Kale

2009-06-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

I am very fond of kale, how it overwinters through almost anything, pushes out scores of dark tasty leaves in the lean frosty days of early spring, and infallibly follows with handfuls of succulent stems and flowers like undisciplined broccoli. When allowed to proceed to the next step, kale then bursts forth with hundreds and hundreds of bright yellow flowers and finally thousands of seed.

These yellow flowers are a bounty for any number of insects, lured by pollen and nectar and even tasty greens. On just a couple of plants in ten minutes of watching I have easily observed at least five different species of bee, as well as hover flies, jumping spiders, and cabbage butterflies, (these butterflies a mixed blessing I admit). A dedicated nature journalist could easily tally dozens of different species over the course of its six week bloom time.

The lesson of the story of course is NOT to replace our gardens with fields of kale, (or any other one plant). The point is how easy it is to increase diversity in even a small garden by letting small bits of the garden go. There is a wondrous array of plants which draw in and nurture insects if we let them. The mustard and carrot family are insect magnets. Herbs like thyme, mint, dill, and lavender attract multitudes. Let a garden get a bit “seedy” and likely it will reveal some delightful surprises.

Glen

------------
photos by gb
kale in garden
weevils mating

Peregrines at the Port of Olympia

2009-04-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

This morning I got a phone call from Ann, who works in a building near the cranes at the Port of Olympia. Ann is a devoted birdwatcher, and for years from her office window has watched a pair of Peregrine Falcons, who have a nest box on the orange southern-most crane at the Port. This year they are back, defending their nest and likely they have eggs they are incubating, soon to hatch.

Ann had several questions about what she's been seeing. Over the years she has gotten accustomed to seeing the same pair of birds: Peregrines mate for life and the adults stay year around to defend and re-use a successful nest-site. Individuals also have distinctive unique markings, so Ann has gotten to know the birds at the Port. This year, however, she called and told me that one of the birds was different: she had noticed it was much bigger than the other. She was wondering what that was about.

Among Peregrines ( and many other birds of prey) there is a factor operating called sexual dimorphism. What this means is that there are strong differences between male and female birds. You can easily see this in mallard ducks: the male has a bright green iridescent head and other bright feathers, while the female is a dull, dun brown, better for camouflage.

In Peregrines, females are often much larger than males. Their feather markings are the same, but there are distinct size differences. As Ann and I talked about this, it became clear that the female of last year had probably died. Ann remembers hearing that a peregrine falcon had been found dead this winter near the Port. The remaining "widowed" male must have courted and formed a pair bond with a new female, who happens to be gi-normous.

Ann has a great window out on the lives of these birds. She was watching the other day and reported a typical Peregrine hunt. The big female was hunting, zooming at high speed just outside Ann's window. Ann did not see the target prey bird, only a burst of feathers when the female falcon dove at high speed right into it (It was probably a city pigeon. Remember when Randy Johnson aka the Big Unit pitched a 95 mph fastball into a hapless pigeon at Safeco Field? Bird explosion.)

The female then deftly retrieved the stunned pigeon (all of this happening in flight, at speed) and took it off to a nearby light standard, where she perched and began to pluck the breast feathers. Ann reported that feathers were flying in great abandon. The Peregrine then ate voraciously, pulling out choice breast meat, then diving in further for the rich organ meats of heart, liver, spleen, etc. This whole process took about 20 minutes.

Finally this female left her plucking post, carrying a choice chunk of meat back to the nest box. Ann did not see what she did with that token: it may have been for her mate, who was perched, guarding the box & eggs. Other falcons such as kestrels are known to cache their extra food, storing it away for times of hunger. So it's possible this bit of pigeon ended up in a falcon cache nearby.

I remember hearing another story some years ago, from a crane operator at the Port. He has a good view from his perch, both of the Peregrines, and of Budd Inlet. It was during nesting season, when the Peregrine pair are especially, ferociously territorial. It was near dusk; the operator was looking out over the inlet and saw a Great Horned Owl, flying low over the water, heading east and making a fatal mistake of moving near the peregrine nest box. He watched as one of the falcon pair saw the owl and took off after it with deadly intent; he saw the falcon hit the owl at high speed, driving it into the waters of the bay. The owl was unable to get out, and drowned.

From the perspective of a nesting falcon, this was a smart move. Great Horned Owls are known to take falcons at night, when the owls' sense of hearing and night vision tips the predatory balance to them. From the perspective of the owl, it would have done better to wait until it got darker to start its night work.

A good place to watch these birds is from the waterfront near the observation tower. Look north for the huge orange crane: it is supported by a large concrete brace. Look at that brace and follow it up to the highest, southernmost edge. There is a gray nest box up on that cement ledge; often you can see the peregrines perched nearby, or flying nearby.

Another great resource is the Falcon Research group: www.frg.org. Based near Bellingham, this group was founded by Bud Anderson, who is a raptor biologist with a special expertise in falcons. Click into the page on Urban Peregrines; it gives a lot of insight into the lives of our local falcons. Also, FRG has a live falcon camera at the WAMU building in Seattle: look at FRG's website to find the link.

Janet
Resources: photos from the Internet

In the garden

2009-04-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

Sunday was one of those sunny weekend days that are starting to be not so much of a surprise anymore. A quick trip to the Farmer's Market, where we drooled over plant starts, and then Glen and I went out to the garden. Our goal ( I say "our" loosely, as he does all the work, and I provide supervision from the side) was to get the early season cool crop veggies into the ground. Starts of leeks, onions, bok choy, and broccoli all sat by me, brave in their small pots, ready to face wind and hail and slugs in their own drive to flourish and produce seed...

We also had another idea. I'd been reading Paul Stamets' book Mycelium Running. This book is highly recommended, full of deep insights into the vast web of mycelial threads running through the soil right under our feet. One of his experiments some years ago was to do some companion planting of certain veggies with certain edible mushroom strains. It turns out that the veggies and mushrooms formed mutually beneficial relationships: the mycelial threads go a long distance collecting water and dissolved nutrients, which they then pump into the root systems of plants, while the veggies contribute their stored carbohydrates, converted from sunlight. It turns out that all members of these community flourish: the veggies are bigger and better, and the mycelium sends up big fruiting crops of edible mushrooms.
I was enthralled by this idea, so Sunday was the day to implement it.

We had to get some supplies: a yard of alder sawdust from Great Western Supply, and we also ordered (from Fungi Perfecti) mushroom sawdust spawn of Garden Giant Stropharia annulosa and Elm Oyster.

First Glen had to clean up the gardens, pulling weeds, chasing down quack grass and clearing out old brussel sprouts (ugh). Then we needed to provide some soil amendments: this garden is only a year old, and the soil still needs to be built up. He mixed in steer manure and some wonderful soil amendments from Gary Cline's Black Lake Organic line- a mix of nutrients, and glacial rock grindings. Finally he put on a layer of alder sawdust, then scattered the mushroom spawn, then another layer of sawdust. Finally it was ready to plant; he shook little starts of leeks free from their pots and buried them down.
At the end of the afternoon, two new beds were ready, full of good soil, lots of nutrients, alder sawdust and mushroom spawn. I could almost feel the mycelium start to reach out tentative threads, testing the ground and finding it good, very good.

So then I sat for awhile in the sun, admiring our work and feeling the novel sensation of warm sunlight on my back. I flashed back on just six months ago, 2 feet of snow icing over the garden. And now? Mason bees droning away, laying eggs and building their homes, Yellow-faced bumblebee queens hover over the newly turned soil, looking for a likely abandoned mouse hole to make this year's hive, the male Song Sparrow sings territory songs near his nest, a streak of thin white cirrus clouds drifts across the deep blue bowl of the sky. Under my feet, the mushrooms are stirring, and the soil is returning to life. It is a good day to be alive and in the garden.

Janet
Resources: Fungi Perfecti, Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets

On mason bees and other distractions.

2009-04-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

A conversation with a friend the other day brought to mind Fiddler Jones of Edgar Lee Masters "Spoon River Anthology". The poem in part follows; I relish its ode to distraction.

Fiddler Jones

THE earth keeps some vibration going
There in your heart, and that is you.
And if the people find you can fiddle,
Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.
What do you see, a harvest of clover?
Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
...
How could I till my forty acres
Not to speak of getting more,
With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
Stirred in my brain by crows and robins
And the creak of a wind-mill--only these?
And I never started to plow in my life
That some one did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle--
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.

Nature keeps throwing distractions in my path which I am loathe to ignore and which continually interfere with well-intended plans. Over the last year I've been writing and rewriting a handout on rules for mason bees. Sometimes there are seven rules, sometimes ten, sometimes eight. I am content to abandon it as finished whenever I don't need it for a few months. I trot out one version for a class, revise it for a lecture, reconsider it in a display. The thing is, at different times of the season my interests wander to other bees and other gardens and other wild things altogether. With these wanderings my opinions also change and develop. It is hard after all to describe a landscape in one visit. One day is drab and grey and the daffodils pop with cheery sunshine, the next day the sunshine highlights the swelling buds of a cherry tree, another day and I'm brought up short by the accusatory chatter of a chickadee or drawn in by the enticing scent of Daphne odora. I guess I forgive myself for noticing all this abundance.

Writing rules for nature is a misnomer anyway. It is not so much an effort at writing rules as an attempt to discern them - to see rules already in place. My first "rule" for mason bee success - the bold print, unflinching, never-changing one - is also one of the more interesting ones to test. What is "Rule One"? It is that mason bees (any bees really) require fresh clean housing every year. Fail to annually replenish their nesting tunnels and along come a progression of parasites and interlopers. The thing is, after working successfully with multiple thousands of mason bees, it is the interlopers and oddities which intrigue me almost as much. Right now I am trying to successfully raise some tiny tiny parasitic wasps which I removed as larvae from some mason bee cocoons. Once I get them to adult, (if I get them to adult), I will then collect them and attempt to mount them. They will join the carpet beetles and the moths and all the others who comprise my “pests” collection. And I will continue to probe out new rules and accept new distractions and be grateful for them.

Glen

photo, male mason bee, 4/09

Frog Blog (2) The Singing of the Frogs

2009-04-05T09:46:00.000-07:00

Last night my friend Nancy and I went to a local frog pond to spend some time sitting with the singing Pacific tree frog males. With the onset of warmer weather in February, male frogs head to the ponds and start to sing, calling in females to mate and start the next generation. As the days have lengthened into April, the singing has gotten more intense. Last night we decided to pay an after-dark visit, to experience the chorus, to look for frogs and hopefully, to find some egg masses. We were not disappointed.

My friend Barbara lives on the edge of a wetland, which also next door to a place where wetland plants are commercially grown in "wet beds". These wet beds are shallow temporary freshwater ponds, which for the tree frogs are ideal for raising tadpoles. Barbara has been hearing frogs singing from the wet beds for several weeks now. This was our destination.

So last night we left the house at 8:45 pm in the near-dark. It had reached 60 that sunny spring day and was still fairly warm. As we drove through the quiet night, the skies were dark and clear with a gibbous moon; the stars showed a frosty light, and Orion stalked the Lepus the Hare in the western sky.

We arrived at the wetland and parked, getting quietly out of the car, hoping we would not alert the frogs. Not a chance. As we sneaked up on the wet bed, it was silent as the tomb and we thought we'd blown it. We tiptoed around, setting up our chairs, fumbling with our flashlights, cameras, hats and trying hard not to giggle in the enforced silence. We didn't succeed at that, either.

We used our flashlights to scan the surface of the water and found a couple of frogs, looking very dead, but just playing possum. As soon as the light moved away, they hid themselves away.

We also searched for egg masses: I'd been checking the wet bed several times over the last 3 weeks and had not yet seen any. But viola! we were rewarded: several small clusters of greenish gel, containing fat round white eggs showed up, attached to the hardware cloth lining the bottom of the wet bed. These looked very new, very freshly laid.

Finally we settled down, turned off the lights and prepared to wait. I was not hopeful, thinking it might take 20 minutes or more. But I underestimated the hormonally driven males: within 2 minutes the chorus began again. There was one frog about 2 feet away from us who started things off. This was likely what they call the choirmaster: the leader of the band who gets things going. Several times over the 45 minutes we were there, the frogs quieted briefly and always, when they started up, his was the first voice to start up the songs.

We turned our flashlights on occasionally, trying to find all these calling frogs. We could only find two: one we believe was the choirmaster, sitting just half-submerged about 2 feet away from us, at the far corner of the wet bed, facing in. He kept his throat pouch inflated throughout; even when not singing, it was inflated. Unlike the other frogs, he did not move when we had the light on him. We speculated that these males might actually divide the wet bed into good calling territories; perhaps he had a primo one, and was unwilling to abandon it.
Other frogs were hiding under the plastic containers that held the plants. That seemed like a good choice for a couple of reasons: they were protected from predators, and the thin plastic might act as a resonating chamber, allowing their calls to be even more alluring to females ready to mate.

So we sat, in the dark, the frog song drumming on our bones. Overhead, the stars wheeled around the sky in their own ancient dance, and Orion almost caught the Hare. We felt a sense of deep honor, to be able to sit with the frogs and share their songs. And when the cold started to seep into our bones, we took ourselves home to warm beds, leaving the frogs to the night...

Janet

Rufous hummingbirds in migration

2009-03-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

Early this Sunday afternoon I was sitting by the window feeder in the living room, pretty much minding my own business when SHAZAAAM! Our first female Rufous Hummingbird of the season showed up. Eighteen inches away from my fascinated view, she sat and drank for a couple of minutes. I quickly unscrambled my brain and reviewed her field marks: the most telling identification cues for her are the rufous wash on her flanks and wing pits, along with a few scattered deeply colored feathers on her throat and a muted green back.

Ten minutes later, it was our resident male Anna’s hummingbird Big Red. I wrote about this bird on February 16th; he had a hellacious fight with the then dominant female in our yard (Big G). He won and has been the big cheese in our yard since. His field marks include the distinct fuschia helmet over his head (green or black in low light) and an iridescent emerald green back and gray vest over his chest. He has no rufous whatsoever.

Ten minutes after Big Red flew off, a male Rufous Hummingbird flew in. He too sat and drank at length. He is vividly rufous - almost everywhere, except for a large scarlet-green iridescent patch that covers all of his throat and wraps around the side: this is called a gorget, which is a great word: it truly is gorgeous. All this within 20 minutes.

As the day has progressed, we have continued to see this variety of these hummers coming and going. I called with my friend Cynthia who has eight nectar feeders, and she too is seeing big numbers and varieties fighting and feeding at her nectar stations. We talked about the sheer numbers we are seeing; it is Spring migration season and we speculated that we are seeing a flood of migrating Rufous hummers coming through.

Some hummer watchers believe their migration movements are tied in part to the blossoming of Red Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum). Hmmm, is it a coincidence that we have one big bush in bloom in our garden as I write this?

Seeing this surge of hummingbirds in our garden reminds me of some field work I did years ago at Cape Flattery. In spring 1989 - 1991 I volunteered for a hawk watching project on a hill called Bahokus, overlooking the town of Neah Bay. This was a two-week stint starting at the end of March, since this is when the hawks tend to migrate through in the biggest numbers. The hawks would only migrate over Bahokus is certain unusual weather conditions, which meant that many days we were skunked as far as hawks. However, many birds use this same migration corridor, so a lot of time we sat around and watched whatever showed up (not a bad gig).

Rufous hummingbirds were regular migrants on Bahokus, and would suddenly show up at the hawk-watching hill. They had most likely followed the coastline north on their spring migration, only to arrive at Neah Bay, which is the northwestern terminus of Washington state. In front of the hummers was the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and to get further north meant they had to cross 13 miles of cold salt water to Vancouver island.

So we watched to see how they would handle this problem. Hordes of them would start to build up, hanging around for a few days fighting and feeding, mostly on thimble and salmonberry blossoms, probably restocking their fat stores. There were hummers everywhere, including in front of our spotting scopes, making hawk watching a little challenging. Finally one day we’d show up in the morning to start our shift and the hummers had disappeared, completely. That was the end of the migration.

But we don’t have to go to Cape Flattery to watch migration. It is happening right now, right in our own gardens, as herds of Rufous hummers move through. In a couple of weeks, the bulk of them will have moved on. Probably one male Rufous will take over your garden and feeder, and a few females will sneak in on occasion when his back is turned. So enjoy the spectacle of jewels in flight: it will soon be over.

Janet

The Crocus Pantry

2009-03-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

Last week on one of the two rare sunny afternoons I had a yen to find some bumblebees. I thought about what flowers might be blooming, and remembered that at Olympia’s Woodruff Park there were several fine beds of crocus. So I decided to go over and check them out.

The crocus grocery had opened its doors for business: it was flourishing. At 4:15 on a sunny afternoon, temperatures close to 50, there were several customers.

First I noticed some narrow-bodied flies, of an unknown species, actively clambering around on blossoms and drinking nectar.

Then there were the honeybees, flying in from the west (someone in the neighborhood west of the park must have a hive.) The honeybees were only interested in pollen, probably collecting it to feed their new brood. Crocus flowers have lots of orange-yellow pollen, and this pollen was completely coating the bees, making them look like tiny fish sticks ready for the fry pan. As the bees completed their pollen loads, they lifted off slowly, heavily, with dangling pollen baskets stuffed full. Then they headed west, back to the nearby hive.

As the afternoon wore on, the honeybees left and did not return. But a late afternoon visitor appeared: a queen yellow jacket. She had probably just emerged from her winter sleep, and appeared a little slow and clumsy. She landed on a crocus, took some nectar and then stayed there, stupefied, for awhile. As the sun started to sink in the west she finally stirred herself and took off, no doubt finding a place to shelter for the night.

Finally I heard the old Brewery whistle, blowing five o’clock from down the hill at Fishtale Ale brewhouse. The sun was sinking and the temperature was rapidly dropping. I was disappointed that I had not seen any bumblebees. But as I was walking back to the car, my eye was caught by a HUGE black bumblebee: a Yellow-faced queen posing nicely on a white crocus. She allowed me to take her picture before buzzing off at high speed. That made my day.

And once again, the crocus has come through to feed our emerging pollinators.

Janet

The Swallows Return

2009-03-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my 90 year old Dad and I went for an afternoon drive. He doesn't drive anymore, and he likes to get out of the house. He particularly like to get out of the house when it's a sunny day and 55 degrees, and it's still winter. I can't say as I blame him.

So we took Old Highway 99 south, wending our way down into the more wild areas of south Thurston County. My dad was born and raised in this county, and he's seen most of it, but when we take him for drives we are always trying to find something new, some area he hasn't seen. It's rare that we succeed.

Today we ended up on 123rd where it crosses the Black River. This is one of my favorite places, especially when the sun is shining. In the midday sun, the Black river becomes a deep ultramarine blue, which contrasts nicely with the russets and rufous-browns of the surrounding hardhack shrubs. In this picture, to the right, you can also see the sole willow tree, which is full of pussywillows (male catkins). I'd been hoping to see bumblebees here, but the catkins so far lack the yellow pollen that the bees love. I'll have to come back. Which will be real hardship.

The highlight of the visit was when we spotted the first swallows of the year. A small group of seven Tree Swallows were flying over the Black river drainage. Their flight was erratic, with lots of changes of direction and altitude: they were hunting for flying insects. They chase these bugs with verve & vigor; if you are close enough you can hear their bills snap together as they make a catch.

These are the first insectivorous migrant birds of the year, back in our county, and soon to be filling the skies of our neighborhoods. I can hardly wait.

Tree swallows are distinct for a dark blue top half, and a pristine white bottom half. This extends to the head, which is half and half. They are similar to Violet Green Swallows, but they are bigger, and they are completely dark on top from head to tail. They also come earlier than all other swallows; one reason for this is that they can and do eat berries (which is weird for a swallow) and so if they come a little too early, and the insects are not yet abundant, they can find other food.

They pair up and make nests in abandoned woodpecker holes in trees. Failing that, they use wooden nestboxes, and are particularly fond of nestboxes placed on pilings over water. You can reliably find them in East Bay south of the marina, squabbling with the Purple Martins over the nest boxes that have been placed there.

In a few days, spring officially arrives. But for me, with the swallows, it is already here.

Janet

Resources:
Birder's Handbook by Ehrlich, Dobkin & Wheye
Bird photos by Bill Thompson and Bet Zimmerman

Bats on the Wing

2009-03-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

On Sunday my friend Rain called us up. She lives out near Woodard bay at the southern terminus of Henderson Inlet; here in late spring/summer there is a nursery colony of several bat species, living under the crumbling Weyerhauser dock. These bats show up sometime in March, pregnant and ready to give birth. Since Rain lives near Woodard bay, she benefits from their fly overs. She saw her first bat a few days ago. They are BAAAAAAACK...

It was 15 years ago when we moved into a house along Garfield ravine. This house had two large picture windows placed next to each other to form a corner. In that first summer we were there, it took us awhile to get curtains. So one night I was sitting near those picture windows, reading, shortly after sunset. My eye was caught by something flying in the dark - and it wasn’t a bird.

I called Glen and we started watching: the animal flying up to our window was a bat; as we watched, we saw about 20 passes of these bats. They flew in at high speed, flared their wings and swooped up and over the house. It was a virtuoso turn of speed and flight skills. It turns out that our big lighted (uncurtained) windows had called in flying insects; the bats had found these insects by echolocation, and came in their turn to our windows. I have been fascinated and thrilled by bats ever since.

We lived at that house for several years. We learned to go to the back patio at sunset, and look to the sky in the west, to the setting sun. About 20 minutes after sunset, the bats would fly in, leaving their daytime roosts in attics, and swooping through the skies, looking for insects to eat, but also, heading to water. On a good night, we saw 30-40 bats. From that experience, we believed that all backyards had similar sightings.

It turns out not to be true. A local animal-tracking expert named Greg Falxa started putting radio transmitters on our local bats, and tracking their movements. From his work, we have learned that many of our local bats are heading to the insect feast at Capitol Lake. The bats from the westside seem to orient and travel to the lake using lines of tall trees, which include Garfield ravine. It turns out our house was on the freeway on-ramp to Capitol Lake. That’s why we saw so many bats.

You might be able to see these same sunset movements by going to Garfield Elementary School playfield and looking north, watching the tops of the trees along Garfield ravine.

Or you can join us in our bat class, which is starting in April. (Details on our blog to to the right) We will be teaching about our local species of bats in the classroom, then going out for 3 field trips to see these amazing animals in the wild. We invite you to come along and begin your own journey of exploration into the lives of these amazing animals.

Janet Partlow

Resources:
Bats Northwest
Bat Conservation International
Bats in Thurston County: http://capitollake.com/

Frog Blog (1)

2009-03-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

In this nature blog so far, we have mostly written about the things we know pretty well. However, I was thinking recently about this: no naturalist, no matter how experienced, knows everything. There is always plenty more to learn. And so it is for us.

My newest enthusiasm is that I want to learn more about our local amphibians. I know very little about these amazing animals. For me, it is important that my knowledge is based on formal training, supplemented by lots of hours of "dirt time" aka field experience. We have neither with amphibians. And yet they are CALLING to me (literally, from the nighttime ponds). So I thought I would write about my explorations, so other people can learn about how we learn about nature.

I decided to focus first on Pacific tree frogs. I have been fascinated for years by the idea of how they migrate in spring. Late one January, on a warm, wet night, Glen and I were heading to Millersylvania State Park for a weekend singing camp. As we headed down the narrow access road to the camp, we saw ahead of us in our headlights several frogs jumping across the road. I slammed on the brakes and we got out to check them out: Pacific Tree Frogs were hopping across the road, heading to the breeding ponds. I was enthralled.

Look at the picture of this frog: these frogs generally do not exceed 2 inches. They are often green, but can vary from deep brown to tan; from my reading it appears that they can change their color, depending on the habitat they live in, though these color changes may take several days or months. Two key field marks you can see in this picture: all Pacific tree frogs have a dark line/mask running from the tip of the nostril, over the shoulder, duplicated on both sides. They also are frogs which can climb, so they have small suction pads on the tips of their toes, clearly visible in this photo. This is how you know it is a Pacific tree frog.

I've been interested in the timing of migration of these frogs; typically their winter life is spent in upland woods, but when the time comes to breed, they move to the vernal (spring/breeding) ponds. I sent an email around a nature listserve asking about migration: one fellow near Bremerton noticed a mass migration across his road on Feb. 22nd. This fits, as my friends Barbara and Rain who both live near wetlands, reported the beginning of the deafening choruses about 2 weeks ago.

The females follow the calls of the males, and then mates. She begins to lay her eggs in a mass of gel: she attaches the egg mass to a floating stem. There may be as many as 10-70 dark eggs inside. From this picture you can see some of the early round eggs, but most of this eggs have developed into tiny tadpoles and are close to emerging. When they emerge, they leave the gel, and are free-swimming in the pond, where they are vegetarians.

Frogs are famous for using temporary ponds as their breeding grounds. Sometimes they even choose mudpuddles. I was puzzled about that; why use a mudpuddle that might dry up when you likely have a permanent lake nearby? It turns out the frogs know what they are doing: permanent water bodies tend to have fish, which eat frog eggs. A temporary pond does not, so there is better survival of the young.
Many amphibians also display something called site fidelity: like salmon, they remember the waters of their birth and it is to these waters they return when the times comes to breed.

So right now, the males are at their breeding ponds. You can hear them whooping it up much of the night. Soon the females will follow and egg masses and tadpoles will, too. I look forward to seeing these things, and I will share them with you when I do.

Janet

Resources:
Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife photos
Amphibians of Washington & Oregon by Leonard, Brown, Jones, McAllister and Storm
Amphibians of Oregon, Washington & Oregon by Corkran & Thoms
A Natural History of Amphibians by Stebbins & Cohen

The Red-backed Spider Strikes

2009-03-04T19:14:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have read our earlier post on our overwintering visitor: the Red-backed Spider. This subadult female has been hanging out in our house for a couple of months. Most of the time she has been hidden away; I suspect she has been using a cool dark place down behind a bookshelf.

Except in the last 10 days she has suddenly been showing up: dropping down on a six foot length of silk from the ceiling, not far from where I was sitting. I've seen her on the wall, not far from the bookshelf. She has appeared in the corner, above the clock. With all these appearances, she, like the clamoring spring birds filling up our yard, is announcing that she thinks spring is coming.

At the same time, Glen has been getting his mason bees ready for the spring. He has been a mason beekeeper for 15 years, and nothing says spring to him more than getting ready for their emergence. So he has been bringing in some of last year's bee boxes, cleaning them out, inspecting for insect pests, and preparing new housing. In the process, a few cocoons have been accidentally left inside our warm house. The warmer temperatures combined with sun pouring in the windows has awoken these sleeping mason bees. They have been chewing their way out of their tiny, leathery cocoons and are making their way to the sunny window. Often we come home at the end of the day to find a few in the window, which we then put outside the following morning. So far the system works.

However. In last few days, we are coming home to dried up bee carcasses scattered on the inside of the window sill. We were surprised at this, but were speculating that maybe the bees just did not have enough stored resources to make it through the day. But today, we happened upon the crime scene, literally catching the culprit bloody-fanged: the Red-Backed Spider has been stalking and feeding on these newly emerged bees. In this picture you can see that she was successful: here we have a detailed picture of her fangs deep in the head of this (mercifully dead) bee, sucking away the life fluids.

As I started to write this, the feeding process had been going on for over 90 minutes. I just went back to check; she has moved on to the abdomen and continues to drink deep. It appears to me that her red abdomen is swelling, getting bigger with each passing minute. I went back to check at the two hour mark, and there was only the desicated bee, its corpse leaning against the glass.

This is the end for this bee. For the Red-backed Spider, this is a much-needed source of nutrition that will jump-start her (excuse the pun) into the new season, and her life to come.

Janet

Raccoons in the City

2009-03-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

Glen and I have been thinking a lot about raccoons lately. The frequent snows of this winter have provided opportunities for watching tracks. We have especially enjoyed looking at raccoon tracks.
From our tracking it appears we have one regular raccoon in our yard. From the last snow we were able to backtrack it to the alley behind our house. It looks like we are part of its regular circuit. It comes along the alley, cuts through our back yard, alongside the house and then out to the street. From the snow record, this appears to be its usual path. I have yet to find scat or daytime sleep roosts.

However, that all changed last weekend. We went to the Burke Museum of Natural History for a Mammals of Washington workshop. We were immersed in the life of mammals, looking at skulls, and bones and furs. Perhaps this is why we were paying good attention when we left Saturday afternoon.

We were leaving the area by their little cafe. Our eyes were drawn to a pair of oak trees planted along the parking area. About halfway up these trees, the trunks start to branch off. There is a commodious crotch at this point. If you look closely, you see a bundle of brown oak leaves stuffed into this crotch. If you look even more closely you will see a gray fur bundle, splayed out over those leaves, sleeping away and oblivious to the life going on 20 feet down. Yes, this is a raccoon, doing its daytime kip. There is another raccoon in the oak nearby.

Later I was talking with my friend Cynthia who lives near Garfield Ravine. She said that if you take the path down into the ravine and keep looking up, you can see raccoons sleeping, right in our own Olympia backyards. Glen & I also live near Garfield ravine. This may be where our raccoon is headed, on its nightly circuit.

Watching these animals, and thinking about their lives, reminded me of a quote from Henry Beston's The Outermost House:
"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals...For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of time and life, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth."

Raccoons are one of many many animals who are caught with us in this net of time. We need to remember that. We need to keep watching their tracks. We need to keep looking up.

Janet

Crocus Hotels

2009-02-18T17:34:00.000-08:00

Today was another bumblebee hunt day. I was sitting in the sunny south-facing living room window around 2 pm, sluggish and trying to get myself out of the chair. Suddenly a Red-butt bumblebee queen (B. melanopygus) came bouncing around the window. The hunter-gatherer in me woke up abruptly and was more than ready to go outside.

So I gathered up camera, binoculars, sketchbook and insect collecting cup and went out the front door, juggling all these things as I went down the steps. Suddenly, eight feet ahead of me I saw a Red-butt: she seemed to be checking out some early orange crocus we have blooming along the walkway. I promptly dropped everything but the camera and managed to get a few shots of her, with her head deep in the flower taking in nectar, and her wide-load butt hanging over the edge.

Until last year, I was never much of a fan of crocus. But some field work last March changed my mind. I came home from a bumblebee survey around 4:15 pm. The sun was leaving the yard and the temperature was dropping rapidly. My eyes happened to catch the sight of a Red-butt bumblebee curled up in a white/purple crocus along the walkway. As I approached closely to check, she did not move. She almost appeared to be dead, though groggy movements of legs convinced me otherwise.

I knew the night was expected to get down in the 20’s. In a panic, I collected her along with the flower and brought her inside. I put her in a box away from the bustle of the house, and let her stay overnight. I did some quick research and found out that bumblebees like a solution of half sucrose, half water. I quickly made some up and added it to the box.

Throughout all this she barely moved. The next morning she barely moved. I put a dry towel in her cup, as she appeared both wet and disheveled. By noon, when I checked again, she had clearly groomed the wet off her fur, along with some crocus pollen, and looked normal, albeit groggy. I decided to put her outside in some heath flowers. She continued to be very sluggish. I left the house for work; by the time I returned around 3:00 pm, she had disappeared.

What I now believe is that these late winter queens spend much of their time in a torpid state, holding on to their reserves until better conditions arise. I think their active time of day in late winter is between 2 and 4 pm. I think now that as the temperatures dropped, she chose that crocus. Now I believe that I should have just let her alone. She knew what she was doing.

As it turns out, crocus flowers CLOSE UP at night, wrapping the bee in a protective floral cocoon. The crocus are full of both nectar and pollen so if the bee does wake up, she has food ready at hand. Finally, the crocus flower is tuned to the sun; it will not open up the next morning until it has the full life-giving rays of the sun on it. So in a way, it acts as a wake-up call for the torpid bee.

The bees know what they are doing. My job is to learn to trust them.

Janet

Resources: The Xerces Society www.xerces.org

Anna's Hummingbirds: Red in beak & claw

2009-02-16T18:23:00.000-08:00

We have had Anna’s hummingbirds in our yard since last Thanksgiving, when one made a memorable appearance in our front window. I was hugely surprised to see a hummer in late November. I went outside and checked the garden: we still had fuschia, figwort, penstemon and snapdragon all blooming, so in retrospect, it was not a huge surprise that hummingbirds would come to the table we had laid for them.

A few weeks later, in early December, we decided to put up perch-type window feeders to allow us some up close views of them. From my reading, it turns out that Anna’s each have unique and individual patterns of feathers, especially in the neck part called the gorget. From our close up views, photos and drawings, we determined that we had one female dominating in our yard.

She has a big gorget for a female, and some distinctive white feathers over her shoulder (scapular). We named her Big G, both for the gorget and also her supersize, dominant personality. There is another female with a miniscule gorget, a slightly shorter bill and a strong post-ocular spot: probably a first year female. We call her Little G. Finally there is at least one male who visits occasionally: he lives across the street at our neighbor’s feeders, and only every once in a while intrudes on Big G.

So this has been the pattern in winter. Big G rules the roost, chasing off all other birds. Little G sneaks in for occasional sips ( what David Hutchinson mentioned in his talk on Anna’s hummingbirds: “the sneaky acquisition of resources”). And I have watched on several occasions as Big G chases off the male from across the street.

So now we are in mid-February. Today was President’s day, a beautiful 50+ sunny day where spring makes some tentative steps forward. My friend Cathy and I came home from a happy day of watching hawks and were standing in the front yard around 4:30 pm, near the feeders. This is the time when we tend to see more of the hummers at the feeders as they fill their tanks to get through another cold winter night.

Suddenly, we heard a distinctive TZZZT song repeating over and over again: this is what David had described as the spring territorial song of male Anna’s hummers. Suddenly there were two males in the yard, circling around and around, chasing and TZZZTing each other, buzzing their wings with great abandon, puffing up their gorget feathers at each other and in general, displaying zero tolerance towards the other.

This went on for a good ten minutes, as Cathy and I tried to sort out who’s on first, what’s happening, where are they perching, etc. After awhile, we noticed Big G in the yard, perched in her usual spot on the south side of the lilac shrub ( not coincidentally 8 feet from the feeder). Contrary to her usual behavior, she sat very still and quiet. There were none of the usual chittering chip calls she makes to express her annoyance at any intruder.

Then we noticed that the census of males had dropped down to one: he perched in the maple tree maybe 8 feet from her and made nonstop TZZZT sounds, which she seemed to ignore. Finally he made a lunge straight at her: there was lots of chittering buzzing calls, swirling closed circling flights around each other. I had the sense they were beating each other with their wings, if not beaks and claws. One bird drove the other bird to the ground, under the low deck beyond our vision, but we continued to hear lots of vocalizing and beating of wings against the wood of the deck. Finally one bird shot off; we didn’t see what happened to the other bird. About 10 minutes later I saw Big G at the feeder, apparently none the worse for wear. I don’t know about the male. (When I told Glen about it later, we looked at each other with and speculated about how maybe he should go under the deck with a flashlight. We decided not to; I don't wanna know).
So Cathy and I stood there with our mouths agape, deeply stunned by the ferocity of the fight. I think we humans tend to think of hummers as delicate and sweet birds. Au contraire.

I include in this blog a picture I found on the internet; according to Sheri Williamson, the hummer expert who interpreted this photo, this was most likely a territorial fight, and the young bird lying dodo on the ground was the loser. The person who took the photo said that both birds got up and got away.

Janet

Resources:

The Rough skinned Newt and the Mallard

2009-02-05T12:10:00.001-08:00

Mike from Maple Valley wrote in about Rough skinned Newts. He had heard that they could be toxic, and was wondering about this. It reminded me of a nature experience I had had.

It was in May several years ago that I was out at McClane Creek. For you out-of-towners, this is a DNR park with a freshwater stream and series of beaver ponds, enclosed by second-growth forest and surrounded by the Black Hills which rise west of Olympia. Local nature watchers love this place, Glen and I included.

In May there's a lot to see. On sunny days, the beaver ponds warm up and you can watch the Rough skinned Newts in great numbers.

So one sunny day, I'm sitting there, watching the birds, the newts, the blue sky overhead, enjoying the season. My attention is caught by some vigorous splashing by an adult male mallard duck, who has just come up with a Rough skinned Newt, and is happily chowing down on it. I watch in horrified fascination as this mallard gums and gags it down, softening it up enough to get it down his throat.

I had heard that these newts are extremely poisonous. I continued to watch the duck for some time, but it showed no ill effects. I later contacted Kelly McAllister, one of our local herpetologists who lives in Olympia. I told him this story; as I recall he said to me: "Well, that's one dead duck".

Apparently there is enough toxin in one rough skinned newt to kill 25 people (or ducks). That's how toxic they are. The toxin is extruded through the skin of the newt, and then has to get into the victim's stomach and be at least partially digested: it's when it hits the liver that it does its damage. That's why the mallard showed no ill effects right away. It also may be true that if you handle a newt, and you have a cut on your hand, it is possible enough toxin could get in to cause some trouble. So the rule of thumb is: either wear gloves when handling these guys, and/or wash your hands well afterwards.

Now I wouldn't necessarily give male mallards a membership to Mensa, but I still don't get it: how does this duck who spends his whole life in wetlands not know these newts are a problem?
Did he not taste the toxin on the newt's skin? Was he blind to the warning coloration?

You got me.

Janet

Photo by Miguel Vieira from flickr creativecommons

The First Queen Yellow-Faced Bumblebee

2009-02-04T16:24:00.001-08:00

Okay, now I know that spring is starting to ramp up. It was 60 degrees today, a full sun in a hazy sky and so warm I didn't need a coat. I had a bazillion other things to do, but by 2:30 pm I knew I HAD to go back to my favorite heather patch to look for more bumblebees.

Well, yesterday's Red-Butt Queen didn't show up. That was the bad news. The really great news is that a second species of just-emerging bumblebee queens was there: Bombus vosnesenkii. They are also called the Yellow-faced Bumblebees (for fairly obvious reasons)!

I love these queens. They are huge, as bumblebees go. They are big black bumblebees, with a distinctive thin yellow stripe on the lower abdomen, yellow shoulders and a fuzzy yellow face between black compound eyes. Their temperament is usually pretty mellow and this queen allowed me to get right up next to her, so I could actually get a good look at her. I watched her for ten minutes.

So keep your eye out for a likely patch of heather on a sunny, south-facing slope. You never know what you might find.

Janet

Resources;
"The Natural History of Bumblebees" by Carol Kearns and James Thomson
"Humblebee Bumblebee" by Brian Griffin

The First Queen Red-Butt Bumblebee

2009-02-04T08:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a good day to go hunting for queen bumblebees. I’d been watching the Weather Channel, looking ahead for the right kind of day: early February, sunny, 50 degrees+, so I knew this day was coming. The spring bumblebees have also taught me that 2-4 pm on such days is the prime time, so I scheduled my day accordingly.

I went over to the mobile home park in Tumwater that is one of my preferred hunting grounds. I drove up to an old, very well-established hedge of heather that gets strong afternoon sun. And viola! As I drove up, I saw my first queen of the season: Bombus melanopygus. It was a great moment: full of joy, and a certain pleasure that I had learned enough about the bees to be able to predict how to find them.

This queen Red-Butt ( yes, we call them that, however rude it is: it’s very memorable) was probably born in May 2008. She came out of her hive a virgin; she probably spent a month or so feeding on pollen & nectar, especially from rhododendrons, helping restock the hive. She also likely found a male drone and began to carry his sperm. By the end of May, she found a place to live for the next several months: she chose a protected shady bank of soil, and began to dig. She dug out a long tunnel; finally at the end, deep enough to protect her, she created a small chamber called a hibernaculum. Here she curled up and sank into a deep torpor.

After eight months underground, the lengthening, warming days have helped her stir from her torpor. I also believe she may be able to smell the fragrance of the first flowers, and this may call her out. However it happens, she awoke. She dug herself back out of her hibernaculum and emerged into the sun. Here she angled the top of her thorax to warm herself from the sun’s rays, groomed off the dirt, used the scent plates on her antennae to find the smell of nectar and launched herself into the world once again.

I watched this queen bee for ten minutes. She was moving a little slow, but was very purposeful in her activity, clambering over the tiny heather blossoms, unfolding her tongue sheath, and probing inside the flowers for nectar. This life-giving nectar is critical to her survival in the next several cold weeks.

As the sun lowered in the sky, she finally took off, heading west northwest. She may return to her hibernaculum, or find another sheltered place to spend the night. As the days go on, she will start to seek out a place to build her hive: a mouse hole in the ground, a birdbox with last year’s chickadee nest, the wall of a cedar house where her mother may have nested the year before. Here she starts her own small hive, and the whole cycle of life begins again.

Hunting these bees has been a solitary pleasure, as few other people even know about them. But Glen and I have been teaching a class on our native pollinators; it was with great pleasure and pride that I arrived home after my own successful hunt and found an email/ photo from one of our students Bill Hansen, who had also seen his first Red-Butt Queen today.

And so the cycle of life goes on...

Janet
Resources:
Thanks to Bill Hansen for his photo of the Queen on the white heather.

The Red backed Jumping Spider

2009-02-02T08:25:00.000-08:00

So it was Sunday morning. Glen was reading by the sunny front window, when I heard him say: "Whoa, Janet, get in here quick, there's a jumping spider with a red back!" That was enough to get me into the living room, grabbing the camera as I went.

He was right. This one is called (appropriately enough) the Red backed Jumping Spider, or Phiddipus johnsoni. At least, probably. A quick email/photo sent to Rod Crawford, our local spider expert from the University of Washington Burke museum said it was probably this species, one molt away from adulthood. He thought it might be overwintering here, and advised the best thing we could do for it was to let it find shelter in a cool place to finish out its winter life.

We caught it and took a few bad photos of it, (in the process making the decision it's time to get a macro lens for the camera). The spider withstood our curiosity quite well. Some sources describe this spider as "fearless" and indeed, that was my impression as well.

We have had a special fondness for jumping spiders for many years. My first memorable encounter was one summer. I was sitting in the living room reading, and my deep concentration was disturbed by a house fly, buzzing around me, the lamp, the windows, with that typical fly annoying behavior. I made a mental note to try and catch it to put outside the next time I got up, and went back to my book.

My concentration was again broken when I suddenly heard a very loud, very persistent odd buzzing from that fly. I got up to check it out (naturalists are hugely curious) and found it in the grip of a jumping spider. Apparently the fly had blundered into the window edge near a hunting jumping spider. The spider jumped out, seized the fly, wrapped all 8 legs around the fly and bit it, injecting its venom.

Until the venom took full effect, the spider could only squeeze all of those eight legs around the struggling fly, hang on grimly and wait for paralysis. I watched for about a minute, listening to the frantic buzzing, until finally, the fly went limp. The spider then scuttled off with its unwieldly prey.

Maybe the story is gruesome for some, but not for me. Predators have a place in the world, too. The only true difference between human and spider predators is that we humans hunt our meat in the local supermarket.

So Glen & I happily tolerate jumping spiders in our house, because they do a fine job of keeping other annoying insects under control.

So what happened to our Red backed visitor? It managed to get away, and drop somewhere behind the bookshelf. We hope it takes Rod's advice, and finds a cool, sheltered place to spend the rest of the winter. I look forward to seeing it again.

Janet

Resources:
=Photos and background from Wikipedia
=Check out Rod Crawford's webpage: http://staff.washington.edu/tiso/index.html

Tracks on the water

2009-01-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

Today was the kind of sunny day the winter produces: weakly yellow sunlight, streaming through haze, cold but paradoxically producing a faint warmth. I am in a grumpy mood, and ready to be anywhere else. The sun lured me outside, down to Percival landing, where I stood by the 4th avenue bridge, watching the tide retreat north.

Years ago I studied with Tom Brown, the tracker, at his farm near the Pennsylvania/New Jersey boundary line. He taught his students how to read animals tracks; this forever changed the way that I walk through nature. I bring some of those long-ago tracking skills to today's nature watch on the salt water.

Today the Deschutes estuary is calm. I start tracking on the water, looking for animal sign. I had hoped to see a harbor seal, and am rewarded with the dark glossy head of this one, sculling purposefully through the water, heading north to an unknown destination. Off in the distance are Cormorants, Grebes, Buffleheads and Goldeneyes, too far away to get a good look. But then, right below the wooden planks under my feet, a small flotilla of four female Hooded Mergansers emerge.

In this picture there are only 3, but if you look to the right of the front one, there is a swirl of water that tracks her abrupt dive and disappearance. Under their paddling webbed feet, unseen to our eyes, is a small school of tiny silver fish, probably salmon fry recently released. These mergansers are doing their own tracking, seeking out that school, and having some success in catching them.

Mergansers are fish specialists; they have flat bills with tiny serrations, which allow them to keep hold of their slippery prey. As I watch, they dive over and over again, coming up with their tiny breakfast items. A local gull lands nearby and attempts to steal some of the breakfast in an act biologists call kleptoparasitism, but the mergansers swallow quickly, eluding the gull.

As I watch, the mergansers head south, under the bridge, beyond my sight, probably continuing to follow the fish. Gusts of icy west wind push against my face and my eyes are cold and full of wind tears. The sun beats down on my back and warms me faintly through my black jeans. My bad mood is cleared; I feel a profound sense of homecoming, and also gratitude for this life and this place.

Janet

All hail the returning sun

2009-01-26T08:24:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up at 7:00 am and was surprised to see light leaking through the blinds into the dark bedroom. I immediately thought it must have snowed last night, but no: it was the returning sun.

I immediately leapt out of bed (not a common occurrence in these gray, cold gloomy days) and went out to the front picture window. I pulled the blinds and saw a beautiful sunrise starting to emerge out of the southeast sky. We've not seen one of those, either, for many long cold days.

Last night I also noticed the longer light. My friend Roderick had led a beautiful Native ceremony to honor our dead Ancestors. This ceremony was held near Spurgeon Creek, deep in south Thurston County. I was not looking forward to driving home in the dark, but at 5:15 pm, the light held. It felt like the Ancestors kept the country roads well-lit and I found my way home safe and sound.

So this morning, I went outside in my jammies to take this picture, foolishly expecting it would be as warm as it looked. It wasn't: 19 degrees. Yowie. The Anna's Hummingbird that has a night roost in the rhododendrons near the feeding stations started chittering at me. She thinks she owns the yard and it is the faeries that bring her the fresh sugar water. We are merely intruders on her world. I took the hint (from the Annas and also the cold) and quickly returned inside.

Biologists talk about this time as a time of lengthening photoperiod. The light returning the sky, the lengthening days, are known to play a key role in the lives of many animals, including humans.

I am most familiar with it for birds. This is the time I expect to hear the song of the Winter Wren, wafting out of the woodlands. He (the males are the ones who sing) finds a stump in the woods, with good acoustics bouncing off nearby tree trunks, opens his bill and lets fly with the most glorious singing. For him, this is a song that is about establishing territory, and perhaps attracting a mate. To this human who is listening, it is a song of returning light, of hope and possibility, of believing that the dark times are retreating, and a warmer, sunnier time is to come.

Janet

Resources:
Photo by Suneko from Flickr.com creativecommons
"Bird Songs of the Puget Sound and Washington State" a CD by Martyn Stewart

The Kestrel and the Vole

2009-01-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

Today was a holiday and a rare sunny, almost warm day in January, so Glen and I decided to get outside and look for salamanders at McClane Creek. But in the way of nature watching, our best plans went awry: the pond was still half frozen and the ground frosty - not good salamander weather. So we left, a little disappointed and were driving home along Delphi road, enjoying the sun as it painted the late afternoon fields a golden hue. Suddenly we spotted the distinct silhouette of a hawk on a telephone wire; as we passed under it we identified a male American Kestrel. Glen grabbed the camera, while I stopped the car and watched for traffic. He managed to get some great silhouette shots of this bird, and also the dead vole this falcon was clutching in his talons.

This is a real treat. These birds are uncommon residents in Thurston County; in my experience I only see them in pasture habitat, which is increasingly rare. This particular field had telephone wires strung along the length of it, which makes it especially attractive to kestrels: They hunt from their wire perches, keeping those hawk eyes trained on the grass for the slightest twitch of a vole.

Clearly, this kestrel had just succeeded in catching a sizable meal for himself. We had missed the actual hunt, but it is likely he hovered over the grassy field, keeping an eye out for an unwary vole, then dropped down at speeds of up to 60 mph and pounced on it. Kestrels like all falcons have a special notch on their upper beak, called the killing tooth. The special tooth is designed to slip down into the prey’s cervical vertebrae, snapping it, breaking the neck and causing instant death. From the limp hanging quality of this vole, we speculated that the killing tooth had been applied to great effect.

From long years of experience watching kestrels, I knew he would then fly off to a favored “plucking post”. These are usually flat tops of fences or telephone poles, where the kestrel can prepare its dinner, and also keep a wary eye out for predators or food thieves. At the post, the fur will fly as the kestrel plucks its vole, taking special care to clear the abdomen area. Then the kestrel will dive in, feasting on choice blood-dense organ meats.

Since it was late in the day, we speculated that this kestrel would quickly eat the best bits, then cache the rest of the vole away in a hollow tree: someplace where it could be easily retrieved in a few hours or days. If our recent cold foggy weather pattern continues, this kestrel may well ensure its continued survival with this cache.

After feeding, this kestrel will most likely find a hidden place for a night roost, perhaps deep in an evergreen tree near the trunk: a place safe from owl eyes.

We know this is a male: male kestrels have a distinct blue back. He probably is holding these fields as a winter territory. He will continue to hunt & feed, keeping himself going until warmer days bring on migration and seasonal shifts of territories. With these shifts, other kestrels, perhaps a female, may venture into these fields and a new season of life for all.

Janet

Resources:
"A Field Guide to Hawks of North America" by William S. Clark
Kestrel on wire photo by Glen
Hovering kestrel by Kevin Cole at flickr. creativecommons
Kestrel on fence post by Lip Kee at flickr.creativecommons0

Annas & the Paperwhites

2009-01-18T21:32:00.000-08:00

So I was talking to my friend Cynthia. She and I have been sharing the joys and obsession of having Anna’s hummingbirds in our gardens this winter. I’ve spent time at her house and together we have watched the birds at her feeders, starting to get a sense for the individuals that grace her yard. There’s at least 3, and probably more.

Cynthia loves her hummingbirds and only gives them the best. She uses organic sugar to make their nectar ( and they do seem to prefer it). She uses glass feeders rather than plastic: she doesn’t use plastic for her own food, so why use it for hummers?

She is also a superlative gardener: a Master Gardener in all senses of that phrase, so it makes sense that already she is plotting a large hardy fuschia hedge, and other plants for the winter hummingbirds.

A few months ago in the cold depths of winter, she planted the bulbs of paper whites: a kind of highly fragrant narcissus that you can encourage to bloom by planting early, and keeping in the warmth of your house. In the last week her paperwhites bloomed, filling her house with white flowers and fragrance. She decided to put them outside on her day off and share these flowers with the Annas she loves.

Now, you’ve probably all seen those scenes of shark feeding frenzies in PBS nature specials during Shark Week? Well, Cynthia ended up with an Anna’s hummingbird feeding frenzy. Hummers kept zipping through, very excited, very fast. Some stopped to feed, but there was a lot of activity they didn't stay long. Cynthia said they flew by so fast they were a blur- hummer warp speed. There was probably a lot of hummer chatter. It’s as if the hummers were throwing a party to celebrate the first flowers of spring.

When she told me about the frenzy, we spent some time talking about it. It makes sense that while hummers can get through winter on sugar water, it must be fabulous to be able to have that first real drink from a real flower, with real nectar, full of complex flavor. We laughed at how hummers are so tuned in to their environment, and especially the excitement and energy they brought to these new items on the menu. But then we thought about how humans are: back in the days I could eat chocolate, if someone showed up eating a glorious truffle, I would immediately hone in on her, ask her where she got it, and plan to get some myself at the earliest opportunity. Hummers and humans: not so different after all.

Photo: Jessicafm @Flickr.com CreativeCommons

Townsend's Warbler on the hummingbird feeder

2009-01-15T08:52:00.000-08:00

So I'm sitting at the computer, just having posted the blog on bats, and feeling that sense of satisfaction that I had some great stuff about nature to share. I'm ready to close up, go do the dishes, etc. when WHAMMO! Eighteen inches in front of me at the window hummingbird feeder an adult female Townsend's Warbler lands ON TOP of it. I sit with my mouth agape, staring at it, trying to encompass the idea of this amazingly beautiful bird so close I could touch her (except for the glass). She marches around the top, peering carefully at the openings for a way in to the goodies. Naturally my camera, which usually I keep nearby, is buried somewhere in the house. Sigh...

Now our neighbor Thera across the street has a hummingbird feeder that is more suitable for warbler bills; she tells us that she has seen a Townsend's warbler drinking at that hummingbird feeder for three years, and has sent us a photo to prove it. So it wasn't a complete surprise. Still...

After about a minute of searching, this female left. I'm left wondering: how did she find it? Is she, like hummingbirds, tuned in to the color red? Or did she watch the other hummers and follow them in?

The other thing I noticed: normally I consider warblers a small and delicate bird, but after watching the Anna's at this feeder, this Townsend's female looked like the size of a horse.

Wow. What a blessing on my day.

Janet

Resources:
• photo Slodocents at Flickr.com CreativeCommons

Big Brown Bats of Winter

2009-01-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

Last night I got a call from a former student Kathy. She had been down in the Chehalis area in the last week, visiting a friend. While outside around 4:00 pm, they saw a bat flying around. She noticed that it was fairly large: about the size of a small swallow. She was very surprised; she had thought all bats leave the area by September to overwinter elsewhere. Her friend remarked that she frequently saw bats in winter, especially around the Boisfort area. Kathy wanted to ask me: what’s going on here?

Kathy was right: most bats do leave the area in September, heading for a place to hibernate over the winter. We don’tknow where exactly they go; it is thought they go to mid-altitude caves and abandoned mines in the Cascades, where they can find steady state temperatures of 40-45 to hold them while they hibernate.

But small numbers of some bats do stick around in winter, particularly Big Brown Bats (Eptesicus fuscus). Glen and I remember one winter we were living near Trosper lake wetlands south of Tumwater. We had a pair of Big Brown bats that lived in the roof over our living room. For the most part they were quietly sleeping, but every once in awhile we would hear the distinctive flap & scritching scrabble of toenails as they hoisted themselves, shifting into a different position.

One night in February was quite different. A warm Chinook wind had been blasting through the Northwest, and it was 55 degrees or more, pouring warm rain. We were sitting, quietly reading, listening to the rain in the living room. About 9:00 pm we heard these two bats flap & scrabble around. Not just a brief resettling, but they actually worked their way over to the exit site high on the east wall (we had previously figured out where that was) They left for awhile, presumably to stretch their wings and to remember they are animals of flight, to drink, to excrete, and to find meat on the hoof (insects on the wing). We went to bed before they came back, but by the next night we heard them again in the roof. They stayed in our roof all winter.

So yes, Kathy, some bats overwinter here in our area. And from our experience, they mostly sleep. But when the temperatures warm up into the fifties, some bats do leave their warm hibernaculums and venture out into dusk for food, water, and a brief constitutional.

Janet

Resources:
• Bats Northwest
• Bat Conservation International
• Photo by Furryscaly @ Flickr.creativecommons

Hazel: the first blossoms of Spring

2009-01-13T07:35:00.000-08:00

I don’t know about you all, but for me, right around this time, I become REALLY eager to find signs of spring. Maybe even a bit obsessed: I make a point of checking out all the Hazel shrubs in the neighborhood, looking for those first tiny blossoms.

Now if you blink, you might miss those flowers. Less than a quarter of an inch, tiny magenta petals burst bravely forth from the bud tips of the hazel branches. I have seen them as early as December in some years. Not this year; it was January 10th when I found the first flowers.

How do they do this, after the bitter ice & snow of last month? How do they put themselves out there in this weather, and how do they prosper? It seems like a true act of faith: putting out their blossoms in a gesture of faith & hope that there will be warmer days, and more sun, and the wind will bring pollen, all so that they can make hazelnuts. With luck a squirrel buries the nut and viola! This particular hazel has paid off all that gambling by passing on its genetic material.

So when I see those first blossoms, there’s something about them that is profoundly magical: it’s as if the winter ice encasing my heart starts to melt, things start to flow, and once again I feel the possibility of a green and healing time to come...

Janet

Resources: Photos by Chavala of Seattle, from Flickr.com

Salamanders in Snow

2009-01-11T19:48:00.001-08:00

A few days ago, Glen went to McClane Creek DNR with Erica Guttman of the Native Plant Salvage Project. Erica was helping him brush up on his winter twig identification skills in preparation for teaching a class .

The road at McClane was closed; this park sits in a cold pocket under the edge of the Black Hills, and is always the last place the snow melts. As they walked down the snow-packed road, Glen was quite surprised to see a Rough-skinned Newt on the compacted snow, in the middle of the road. It lay unmoving on the icy surface as they saw it; he wondered that it might be hypothermic. As he went to check it out, it got quite lively, though he was still able to pick it up.

Those of us who love McClane know all about these newts in May. As the ponds warm, and the sun rises more and more over the Black Hills, you can stand on the docks and stare down into the peaty water, watching a great deal of salamander sex.

April and May are the beginning months of their summer lives: they lead two different lives. In their spring/ summer life, their bodies take on a sleek. smooth outline suitable for living in water. During these months, they spend most of their time in the water. They have lungs specially adapted for this part of their life; they seem to hold their breath for a long time, but as you watch, you will see them come to the surface for a breath, leaving telltale tiny bubbles on the surface.

Summer is the breeding time: it’s common at McClane to see large swirling balls of salamanders in the water: all males clustered on one female. Once fertilized, the primary goal of females is to lay their single eggs on floating blades of vegetation.

By late fall, the falling temperatures urge the newts out of the ponds; they move into the woods, finding places under logs, under the leaf litter, stones and stumps to live out their winter lives. The thin, sensitive skin suitable to a water life morphs into a thick, warty hide, especially on the top. This tough skin is much more appropriate for living life on the forest floor. In the photo we see a Rough-skinned Newt in "winter plumage".

They continue to be active, even in winter, exploring the forest leaf litter for food. They are carnivores; I remember learning that salamanders eat “anything they can get their mouths around”. They specialize in small slow-moving prey, which they find by smell. While they are generally considered nocturnal, some will also hunt during the day.

Seeing this winter salamander reminded us of the years when we lived at Trosper lake wetland. We noticed that when the warm wet Chinook winds blew in February, it seemed to trigger mass migrations of frogs and salamanders to the breeding ponds. It could be the recent warm wet weather got this salamander moving. If true, it didn’t bargain for the snow pack. It may have been following its nose as it hunted, then strayed onto the snow and perhaps got too cold.

It was this salamander's lucky day. Glen picked it up and put it back in the forest.

Janet

Resources:
"Amphibians of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia: by Corkran and Thoms
"Amphibians of the Pacific Northwest" by William Leonard

Photo: From Miguel Vieira at Flickr.com CreativeCommons

The first pussywillows

2009-01-10T10:29:00.000-08:00

It is January 9th. As I drive through the neighborhood in the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a regular check of the male Scouler’s willow trees in a nearby alley. These are always the first ones I’ve found anywhere in Olympia to produce the classic pussywillows. In the 15 years I have lived in westside Olympia, I notice that the arrival of the pussywillows is coming earlier and earlier. Today I saw the first ones: this is the earliest date ever.

This is a plant that has spoken to me from childhood. In high school, my best friend Geva and I would keep an eye out for these, and gift each other with them. We considered the soft grey catkins a powerful badge of the best kind of friendship: “The Royal Order of the Pussywillow”. Just last year, she sent me some from California.

Also last year I spent quite a bit of time sitting with willows. I was doing a field survey project for our local bumblebees. I had read that the earliest emerging queen bumblebees seek out pussywillows for food. So near the end of February, I parked my camp chair in the alley beneath these blooming trees. I chose a sunny late afternoon, on one of those freakish warm days. I was astonished by what I saw: the bumblebees were out in herds.

I had read that they love willow pollen. Bumblebees use nectar and pollen to fuel themselves, and in late winter, there are few sources of either. But some willow catkins break dormancy early, morphing over a few weeks from fuzzy grey into producing long yellow stamens stuffed with bright yellow pollen at their tips. This is a fabulous late winter food. For the early emerging bumblebees, it’s as if the only local food market opened its doors for the first time since fall. These early willows may make the difference between life and death for these queens.
It also turns out that even male willow catkins produce nectar. Bumblebees find food by smell; though I could not see the fragrance drifting on the slight breeze, I am guessing that an irresistible willow fragrance drifted out into the neighborhood, calling in all bumblebees. This is likely how they found these trees.

As I sat there drowsing in the sun, the bumblebees came and went; the willows were buzzing with queen bumblebees. I was entranced and enraptured, totally engaged in these bees and the amazing spectacle of new life they were showing.
In the neighborhood nearby, people were out washing their cars, looking at their gardens, tinkering with their projects. But no one saw the bees. Here at these willow trees, bees from all over the west side are pouring in, finding critical food, and getting read to build their nests for the year. This is a spring miracle, the festival of the returning bumblebees. And only I, sitting on my chair in the late February sun, noticed.

Schneider Creek (1)

2009-01-07T19:14:00.000-08:00

We live in west Olympia, on the shores of Schneider Creek. I say shores loosely, however. A full half of this stream has been placed underground, in culverts for many years. It finally emerges from underground at a small filtering station on Giles street. We probably live over the culvert as it heads for Giles.

In early Olympia history, this stream found its headwaters near what is today the Decatur Woods park. Patricia Pyle of Olympia Stream Team told me that it seeps up from the groundwater and used to flow north, on the flatter parts of west Olympia. When the west side was developed early in Olympia’s history, the stream was deemed inconvenient and was put underground.
Today it leaves Decatur Woods in a pipe. It heads north to Division and Harrison, where it is joined by culverts from other westside feeder streams. The culvert carrying all these streams is then is routed over to Giles filtering station, where it finally emerges into daylight, goes through a cleaning process, and then is a wild stream once again.

The City of Olympia does an excellent job of cleaning and filtering this stream. As an urban stream, it is very prone to picking up oils, etc. from the streets. In the past, this dirty city water ran straight into Budd Inlet. Today, thanks to the City's hard work, Schneider creek is relatively clean on its exit. And it is still a source of grief for me that we have inherited these historical choices about culverts and it is unlikely Schneider creek's upper reaches will ever be daylighted again.

From the filtering station, Schneider creek crosses under Giles street and heads north, crossing under Bowman and finally into a deep ravine that cuts through the neighborhoods east of Division. Finally the stream encounters the high rise of land that forms the big hill on West Bay drive; it cannot surmount this hill, so it turns east and eventually runs out of land, emptying out into Budd Inlet.

Today is a day of pounding rain - perhaps as much as 5 inches in the last 24 hours. I had wanted to see my own watershed Schneider creek in a full spate, so I pushed my way through sheets of rain, and swam over to the Giles Station. Today the water bursts from the culvert there in a rushing flow, then is diverted immediately to an overflow channel and under Giles street. There is little filtration going on when the flow is so intense.

I then looked across the street where wild Schneider creek sees its first daylight for several miles. The water is so high: peaty brown, rushing between tangled branches of snowberry. There is a powerful sense of freedom here.
Then I went down to West Bay drive. At the bottom of the big West Bay hill, behind the Smythe condos on the west side of the road, you can see Schneider creek pouring headlong down the hillside like the flood it is. The sound of rushing water was so strong, I could barely hear the traffic along the busy street.
Finally I crossed West Bay drive to the tiny pocket park across from the Smythe condos. I got on the tiny overlook deck, and looked down to the final culvert that had carried the stream under West Bay drive. There was a huge surge of opaque brown water pouring out into the bay. I could see the massive plume of brown water flowing into the bay, showing its boundary starkly where it pushed against the clear blue salt water.

This is our watershed, our wild stream which on this stormy day shows all her wild nature. This is our estuary in process, bringing the nutrients of the land down to the sea, dropping them on the tidal flats and creating opportunities for new life. This is our water. This is our life.

Janet

Resources: An excellent article by John Dodge in the "Daily Olympian", writing about the silent killer of untreated stormwater discharge to Puget Sound: http://www.theolympian.com/570/story/361799.html.

Tracks in the snow

2009-01-05T09:35:00.000-08:00

The eye of the naturalist is an odd thing. We can be in the middle of doing something really critical like the dishes, only to look out and be completely derailed by something we see in the outside world.
Today’s distraction was not only the snow, but also a set of beautiful animal tracks on the snow. Glen bolted outside with the camera and caught these photos of the tracks before the snow melted. (Natural history is so much more entertaining than the dishes).
It looks like the animal took shelter under our deck before the snow started, because Glen couldn’t find any entry tracks, only the exit ones. At some point after the snow fell, probably after midnight when temperatures rose enough to leave an impression of melting, the animal tracked from out under the deck, across our front yard, and towards the Cedar of Lebanon along the street, leaving only tracks and a faint sense of a story lingering...

These are raccoon tracks. The front paws are quite different from the back: the front ones are smaller, and very hand-like, with deep nail imprints. The back are much longer, looking more like small versions of our feet, and in length as much as 3 inches. I notice in looking at this particular set of prints that the raccoon put most of its weight forward, sinking deeply into the snow, and mossy grass underneath.
Raccoons have several different gait patterns as well. Sometimes the front paws are central, and the big legs swing around, planting outside for the push-off move. Sometimes they reverse the pattern, and the front legs are planted outside, and the big back legs are central. Lots of different patterns, depending on how eager they are to move.
This was a fairly large, weighty animal: the size of the tracks, and the way they sink in tells me that. It was alone; most likely a single male.

These prints tracked over to the cedar. Raccoons are stellar tree climbers, and often spend the night sleeping in a crotch of a tree. It’s possible that this animal ambled over to the cedar, climbed up 20 feet to the first crotch, and had a sleep. It’s also possible that this raccoon skirted the tree and headed down the street. The tracks don’t tell that story. Back to the dishes...

Resources:
Wilderness Survival School - Tom Brown - Pennsylvania
Wilderness Awareness School - Jon Young - near Seattle
"Animal Tracks of the Pacific Northwest" by Pandell & Stall
"Animal Tracks" (Peterson Field Guides) - Olaus Murie

Janet

Greeting the morning

2009-01-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

"I watched prairie dogs every day, rise before the sun, stand with their paws pressed together facing the rising sun in total stillness for up to 30 minutes," says Williams. "And then I watched them at the end of the day take that same gesture 30 minutes before the sun goes down they would press their palms together in perfect stillness. I don't mean to anthropomorphize, but when you look at a creature that has survived over the millennium begin and end each day in that kind of stance, it causes one to think about one's own life and speed and rapidity in which we live."

Finding Beauty In A Broken World by Terry Tempest Williams, an environmentalist committed to showing man's impact on the land.

My friend Geva sent me this piece from Terry Tempest Williams. I really love it.
In my science training, we are taught not to anthropomorphize- not to put human feelings, ideas, behaviors on other animals. This is a fairly strict rule. While reading Terry's beautiful writing and looking at her picture, I remembered an experience I had in Joshua Tree one hot summer.
It was August 2001, and the daytime temperatures were reaching 110+. (That was the day the air conditioner broke down at the retreat center).
It was a beautiful natural area, and I'd been looking forward to seeing lots of animals during that week, but because of the heat, I rarely saw any. But there was one day, at dusk; it had been marginally cooler that day and I was out enjoying the sunset. I suddenly noticed all kinds of birds, flying in, perching on nearby cacti. I also noticed they were all facing towards the sunset. They were unnaturally quiet, still: no bird song, no twitching, no territorial fights: just facing the sun in an attitude of reverential quiet. In that moment, I knew absolutely, without doubt: the animals were honoring the setting of the sun (and perhaps giving thanks that the fierce heat was abating). I felt goosebumps on my skin, and I also felt the sense of being in the presence of something deeply sacred.

Janet

Winter Hummingbirds

2009-01-02T07:35:00.000-08:00

These are Anna's Hummingbirds, (Calypte anna), at our feeders in Olympia during the recent snowstorms. We feed two females in our yard, and several more - male and female - are in the neighborhood.
In "our" yard the one perched is boldly dominant. She owns the feeder, chases her competition, and is giving the stink eye as Janet take her photo.

Her "competition", perhaps her daughter, spends far less time at the feeders, sneaks in for quick sips and darts off again. GB