Along the Shores of Puget Sound

It was over fifty years ago that I was a child, beach combing at my great-uncle Wilmot’s bay place on the western shores of Budd inlet. He had a small sliver of land along Little Tykle cove. It was a scary twisty road through a narrow ravine down to his place; those dripping fern-choked hillsides washed down rich sediments each winter into the bay. This created a fertile tidal estuary: it was as if nature herself set a banquet table for all of the marine life of the bay...

Little Tykle Cove, (Olympia, WA)

Shirley Patterson, circa 1930

I loved beach combing along these muddy shores. I came to it quite naturally: my mom Shirley also grew up along Budd Inlet and was an addict for agates and shells. Every low tide in summer she and my grandma would stuff all us kids into my grandma’s 1957 blue VW van and we’d tootle “down to the bay”, where we spent hours exploring the life of the mudflats. My mom was a self-taught beach naturalist and it was to her I would take my treasures and questions about what I saw. She always knew the answers; this magical beach world was as much home to her as it became to me.

One of my all time favorite shells are the Slipper Shells. These are pretty odd shells, fairly ordinary on top but when you turn them over, you see a thin half shelf inside. They were uncommon on Uncle Wilmot’s beach, but I learned to find them in one particular place right on the edge of the Little Tykle Creek as it emerged into the gravel-mud beach. To me these shells were profoundly magical: I thought of them as Faery shoes. Sometimes we also called them cradle shells and I imagined the Faery, packing their youngsters into these shells and floating them off under the starlight night...

Now some fifty years later, I am reviving my passion for beach combing. Here in the southern end of Puget Sound, we are fortunate to have a group called South South Estuary Association*.   For the past few years they have trained enthusiastic volunteers to be beach naturalists. These people take shifts at low tide in summer at several of our local beaches: these include Tolmie, Burfoot and West Bay Rotary park. Here the next generation of young beachcombers can come, pick their way around the tidal mudflats and also have access to people like my mom to help answer questions about the rich diversity of life.

I have joined the beach naturalists and am currently in training. We were asked to pick a “critter” and do a talk on it. I immediately jumped on the slipper shells. Here is what I found:

They are a kind of mollusk, known as a gastropod (stomach foot). They start out life as tiny larvae swimming in the plankton, but after about three -five weeks in the sea, they drop down to the sea floor, living in the deep sub tidal waters where we are unlikely to find them except in the lowest tides. Here they attach to some hard surface, growing into the snail that lives in this unique shell. And where they drop out is is generally where they spend the rest of their lives. They may live up to 10 years.

Slipper shells on a Moonsnail

They are filter feeders. When the plankton-rich tide comes in, they ooze out a fleshy mantle under their shell. This mantle produces mucous to which food particles can stick. They use cilia to reel these food particles back into their radula (tongue) and digest them. As long as they have access to a rich plankton source, they are good to go ( or stay, as in this case).

They attach to all kinds of hard surfaces: rocks, floats, pilings and other shells. Here is picture of several of them attached to a Moon Snail, another common marine animal on our beaches.

There are several species in Puget Sound. Probably the most common is one from the Atlantic beaches that was introduced with non-native oysters. This one with a white chalky outer shell is called Crepidula fornicata, a highly suggestive name which refers to their life habit as sequential hermaphrodites. The way it appears to work is that a female lands on the hard surface first. A male then comes along and attaches to her.

Cluster of Slipper shells, off Cooper Point, (Olympia WA)

Then other males may come along as well, attaching in turn until you can see quite a large pile of slipper shells. This system works well for reproduction: the animal has everything it needs right there and doesn’t have to move. However, if the female on the bottom of the dog pile dies, the other slipper shells have the ability to change sex! This is remarkable system.


The Atlantic species C. fornicata is quite numerous along the eastern seaboard. While they live in the deep intertidal waters, once they die their shells are cast up on the beach. Here is a photo published by "Maggie's Farm" from along the Connecticut seacoast, where literally thousands of slipper shells have washed ashore.

Slipper shells on a Connecticut beach, cast up by winter storms.
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/19620-Slipper-Shells.html

It has been years since I visited Little Tykle Cove, but recently my cousins inherited the place and moved back in. So my sister Nancy and I went down to visit; I knew exactly where to look for Slipper Shells and indeed I found them, right on the bank of Little Tykle Creek. That was a wonderful moment: it took me right back to my childhood, to those hours spent roaming that beach, learning from my mother and having my first naturalist seeds planted in me. My mom has now passed on, but somehow I just know she is having a great time exploring the tidal beaches of heaven, finding all the best shells and looking forward to the time when she can show them to me... .

Janet

Resources: South Sound Estuary Association http://sseacenter.wordpress.com/ 
Photo of cluster of slipper shells by Wendy Eklund

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* South Sound Estuary Association is a local jewel.  They have lots of wonderful (free) education about our local estuaries.  They offer regular summer low tide walks, staffed by volunteer beach naturalists.  They lead monthly Pier walks at Boston Harbor marina, where at night a light is lowered off the dock:  all kinds of amazing creatures are drawn to the light.  There are local experts and volunteers who answer questions about what is seen.
      They also have a small building down by the Farmer’s Market at 608 Washington NE, Olympia.  Here for a small entrance fee you can visit this "estuarium" and see the salt water tanks, full of the wonderful creatures of Puget Sound.  Highly recommended.
     They are planning on moving to a larger facility on State Street, probably later this summer.  They are in the process of raising money and donations are always welcome. You can check their webpage at  http://sseacenter.wordpress.com/ to find beach walk schedules, Pier night schedules, Estuarium hours and ways to donate. 

Geese in the Woodpile

By Nancy Partlow

At Tumwater Falls Park a few weeks ago, I saw a goose wandering around the log jam at the top of upper Deschutes Falls.  It was such an odd sight that I had to take a second look. As I watched the goose settle into a certain spot, it occurred to me she might have a nest there.  Sure enough, when I looked through my binoculars, she was firmly ensconced atop a mound of carefully arranged sticks she had built to incubate her eggs. 

The next day I brought my Dad to see the goose.  At 96 years old with limited mobility, he doesn’t get much of a chance to experience wild nature these days.  I gave him my binoculars and pointed out where she was on the woodpile, since with her coloration she was very cryptic in that setting. 

We both enjoyed observing the bird through binos and camera screen, especially when she stood up in the soft, goose-down lined nest and gently turned her eggs to ensure even warmth from her breast. 

A few days later I returned to see if any of the babies had hatched, and was excited to note that she had three babies beneath her and some still-unhatched eggs in the nest.

I was kind of worried though, because throughout this whole thing, I had never seen a mate for the mother goose.  Could she raise a whole family on her own?

A couple days later, we were surprised to find the nest empty.  There were two adult geese poking around the nest, but no babies in sight.  What had happened to them? 

Just as we were about to leave, my Dad said, “There they are!”  The whole family was together; mother, father and six yellow, cute-as-could-be feather balls. 

      

The gander was very protective.  When two other geese, curious about the new babies, paddled near the nest, he pursued them up the river in an explosive fury of wings and honks.                                                   

The babies stayed near their mother, forming a tight little scrum whenever she moved away a few feet.  But as the mother moved around the woodpile, the babies followed her, struggling their way over the jumble of branches and sticks.  When she rested, they formed a beautiful scene.

I felt honored to have witnessed this process.

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All photos and videos by Nancy Partlow

Life Underfoot ~~ or ~~ The Pyramids of Beeza

Last Spring I was introduced to an aggregation of solitary bees nesting underground, in the lawn and landscape of an Olympia area home.  I was able to watch it regularly last year and this year have observed them a few times more.  The population remains robust as does my fascination for them.  While I have not actually counted, I suspect that there are tunnel entrances near a hundred.

I have learned a lot about these bees in the past year.  Tempting to describe this population a "colony", this inacurately suggests (at least according to bee experts) that there is organization and leadership.  So instead a massed population of solitary bees is called an aggregation -- a build-it-yourself housing complex minus the manager.  This aggregation that I'm watching starts where a concrete driveway and gravel parking bed borders a casual, mowed patch of lawn.  Along the gravel parking the (human) residents have placed lengths of round red timbers as a decorative border. Under the timbers the bees push and dig their way along the board and then continue excavating into the soil. Elsewhere are telltale soil mounds that surround each entry and these wonderful little pyramids, called tumuli, (singular: tumulus) extend several feet from the driveway edge into the lawn and garden beds.

It surprises me as to how many years I took for granted the many little mounds of dirt in garden edge and sidewalk crack, of life underground.  Admittedly they are mysterious and a bit frustrating.  Last year Janet and Nancy and I sat with these bees for an hour watching them, and Nancy and I each tried with only modest success to photograph them. These bees circle and circle several holes, forcing us into a guessing game of which hole to watch, and then "poof" the bee vanishes down one of them.  This year I tried again. Blurry as these photos may be, they are for now our best.

Look close - an ant "hitchhiker" on this one's back.
The bee did not fly until after the ant disembarked.

Identification of ground nesting bees begins with how the bee forms her individual nest cells and what physical adaptations she possesses for building underground. Some bees are easy to identify on the wing and in the flower.  Many are not.  Some are bigger than a honeybee, many more are very small.  Of the thousands of species of bees in the world, 70 percent are said to nest in the soil.   Seventy percent!!  That means that even in western Washington there likely are several dozen species of ground nesting bees. 

Bee approaching ground nest. Nancy Partlow 2013

The three main ground-nest building families (in North America) - Andrenidae, Halictidae, and Colletedae, are separated by very different UNDERGROUND habits.  Identification often requires a microscope, a shovel, or both. 

• Halictidae includes sweat bees, are usually very small and metallicly shiny.  Many are communal, sharing a common entrance and for a few there is even some shared provisioning and patroling, though usually every female is an egg layer. Some do not nest in the ground.

drawing from UC Riverside 2003 webpage
 adaped from from Stephen et al., 1969
UCR link no longer works.

• Colletidae bees are a "short-tongued" solitary bee and and also called polyester bees, because they coat each cell wall with an organic polyester that becomes a waterproof sack.  Using glandular secretions, she paints the cell with her very distinctive tongue.  She provisions into the sack a wet mix of pollen and nectar, lays one egg, and seals it up.  Often the food mass is soupy and the egg may be attached to the sack above the food. 

• Andrenidae bees are a "long tongued" ground nesting bee.  The female plasters a (different) glandular mix onto the cell wall with a special paddle part of her hind end; her mixture glues the soil together.  The food mass is typically more solid than Colletids.  Some andrenids are parasitic "cuckoo bees" that rely on others bees to build and provision nests that they then overtake.  There are many different species of Andrenidae bees; the subject of this blog is probably one. *

There are other groups of bees that also nest underground.  Bumblebees often nest in the ground, depending upon what they find that suits them, and have different habits.

When a year ago I started watching these bees I also started this post, then set it aside.  Perhaps it is a character flaw, but if I'm going to write about some creature and pretend that I know something, I want to be to able to identify it at least to family and hopefully to genus.  Here it is, a year later, and still I remain unable to put a name to this bee.  In this last year it did become a minor mission to learn more about mining bees.  The mission will continue.  And, while I still have not identified the subject of this post, I am at least more at peace with my public ignorance.

Glen

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* I have since learned from fellow bee friend Rusty that this is indeed an Andrenid bee. Getting this bee to Genus will have to do, is where our knowledge stops, is as far as her informant is willing to go.  If pressed, we might be able to narrow it down to one of a dozen or two possiblities, based on location, size, etc., but I am pleased that I can get this far -- and presently not driven to go farther.

Visit Rusty Burlew's page http://www.honeybeesuite.com/andrena-mining-bees/ for better photos and more detailed info as to why these are Andrena.
GB 5/23/14

Bugguide - Native Bees of North America

Photos Glen Buschmann unless otherwise credited.

Foreigners Looking West

Last year Janet and I took on a big summer adventure that still prods us. Our travel was outside of Cascadia and so we kept it out of this blog, (up until now) and drifted away from posting on these pages. We continue to be pulled by other interests - the world ebbs and flows with many stories and much work. But there are reasons to "get back to work" on this project, and so we start again.

This adventure is smaller, more within our borders. Our present trip has not required four airports and eight timezones, nor unfamiliar currency and opposite road driving. Telephone numbers and road signs are less baffling. We have reached the eastern edge of the northern Pacific -- as far west as we can be and still be in the continental United States.

Near Dunquin, Western Dingle, Ireland looking west

But for a moment, we are pulled to the Dingle peninsula and the eastern edge of a different body of water. We want to compare -- so different and yet similar.


As visitors to Cape Flattery we ARE foreign visitors, on Makah tribal lands. But there is no border security here, no ceremony: at the Museum we buy an annual visitors pass and proceed. Janet and I have both been at Cape Flattery before, I a little and she a lot. We do not hope to find ancestral lands, and although we know some of the deeper histories of this land, our reflections are more personal.

At Cape Flattery looking west from a trail outlook.

It is a dry day, and we are as lucky for it here as we were that week in western Ireland.  Our present location is more familiar and less foreign. The plants and animals here we can all identify.  But while our home in Olympia is less than 100 miles to the Pacific Ocean, to reach this particular jagged coastal tip of land we have had to drive twice that distance over often winding roads.

Chickaree (Douglas squirrel)
Walter Siegmund (Wikimedia)

Storyholder

Outlook from Cape Flattery trail

Here there are no stony treeless hillsides cropped by sheep.  Only bits of the world are exposed.  We feel our foreignness in a deeply different way.  In this great temperate rainforest we are swallowed up by the enormity of trees, and by the history their sometimes twisted growth suggests.  We quiet ourselves to the lengthy chattering conversations and songs from Douglas Squirrels and song sparrows, chicadees, and winter wrens. 

We come to the end of the path, or at least our hike. The terrain becomes more difficult, and seems to balance on edges of roots and rock. It is not the easy hike hoped for.   It probably does not matter that we can only glimpse bits of sea and sky.  Much of the living world is hidden from view, hinted at by a nose surfacing above the waves, the rattle of a woodpecker and the blow of a whale, by holes in sand and bark, feathers strewn in a hungry pile, excavations gouged in a dying tree.  There is mystery here, life revealed by a raven's croak and a sparrows chip.  We pause, we listen, we guess. We are grateful for the gift of where we are.

Glen

Photo of Chickaree (Douglas Squirrel)
By Walter Siegmund, via Wikimedia Commons
All other photos Glen Buschmann

The Mystery of the Funny-colored Bees

If you have a pollinator garden, after a while you become familiar with the cast of characters that frequent it. That is why one late summer day of 2011 I was mystified to notice that some of the bumble bee guests to my garden were looking kind of strange, colorwise. A species of bee called Bombus vosnesenskii, or, the “yellow-faced bee”, which should have a cream-colored face like this: 

was showing up in my garden with an ochre-colored face, like this:

 

Not only that, but on some of the bees, even the pale yellow stripe on the abdomen was this same orangish color.

My first thought was that it had to be pollen staining. But looking around my garden, I could see no flowers that would stain a bee like that. I thought about any native plants that could cause it, and could come up with nothing. Besides, in looking at the bees, there didn’t seem to be any actual pollen on them, just color.

So I then hypothesized that perhaps the bees were color morphs, meaning insects with a color variation from the norm. Yet I could find nothing in the Bombus vosnesenskii literature that mentioned such a thing. Finally, I considered that these bees could be the result of interbreeding with some other bumble bee species, but again, nothing I read could confirm this possibility.

The summer ended, and with it, the pollinator season. The mystery remained unresolved, a fun riddle that I would occasionally ponder when looking my photos of the “funny-colored bees”.

In late August of the next summer, the same thing happened. Some of the B. vosensenskii coming to my lavender bush had the same weird hue. The mystery deepened in my mind, yet I seemed no closer to finding the truth.

Then in August of this year, some of my neighbors, knowing of my interest in bumble bees, invited me to their garden to see the bees that were “all over our dahlias”. You can probably guess where this is going.

The first thing I saw when I entered their garden was a Bombus vosnesenskii perched on a spent dahlia blossom looking gob-smacked.

The hairs on its face were absolutely loaded with orange pollen. I wondered if the pollen had somehow “jammed its frequencies”, making it unable to function. In that instant I knew I had the answer to my multi-year mystery.

In looking around, a saw several more pollen-stained bees, and the specific dahlia that was causing it. It wasn’t a particularly showy variety, but it did have a few attributes that made it attractive to bumble bees.

First, like all dahlias, it had a composite flower, which means that the centers of the big, daisy-like blooms are actually made up of many tiny flowerets, each of which has a nectar gland its base. Two, this hybrid hadn’t had the nectar bred out of it, or the petals made so numerous that the nectaries were blocked. Three, the pollen on this particular species was particularly thick and plentiful. Pollen is the protein-rich substance that bumble bees gather to feed their larval young.

All good reasons for Bombus to frequent these dahlias, but what these particular bees were after was nectar. And to get at it, they had to stick their tongues and faces deep into the flowers, which put them in contact with the pollen-laden stamens. The effect was similar to sticking one’s face in a bowl full of spaghetti to eat it. Orange pollen was everywhere, staining the bees' hairs.

One of the bees, I noticed, was a very large, beautiful, newly-minted B. vosnesenskii, the hair on her body as sleek and shiny as a black cat’s. She was a next-year’s queen, who would spend the winter in the ground until emerging in the spring to start the subsequent generation of bees.  She was stoking up on dahlia nectar to help her survive the cold, dark months beneath the soil.

No messy eater, she, though. As befits a queen, and with benefit of her long tongue, only the very front of her face, looking like a dainty little powder puff, bore a pale orange dusting of pollen. I was charmed.

I’m always on the lookout for great new pollinator plants, so when I asked my neighbors if I could have a dahlia tuber to plant in my garden, they kindly agreed. With any luck, by next August I will be getting a buzz from watching my own episode of the nature documentary called The Funny-Colored Bees.

 
Here's some additional video of the B. vosnesenskii queen on a dahlia:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR-oBFif4jc&feature=c4-overview&list=UUG3jWO8v65u8iJuwiX2blSA











  

The Pollination Trap

Bumble bees are so cool. One facet of their lives I find most interesting is their interaction with flowers in their role as pollinators. A bee covered in pollen grains is a magical sight to me, but a couple of summers ago I discovered that the floral kingdom can be endlessly inventive in creating methods of insect pollination.

A perennial I really enjoy in my garden is the July-blooming Asclepias tuberosa. A member of the milkweed family, it is also known by the common name butterfly weed. Its thousands of tiny, bright orange, nectar-filled flowers are a trifecta for attracting pollinators – hummingbirds, butterflies and bumble bees all love it. So I was kind of surprised to discover that asclepias has a darker side.

One day a few years ago I was observing a yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii) perched on a sneezeweed flower. I noticed the bee was acting strange - stumbling around while frantically trying to groom itself.

When I leaned in for a closer look I saw that its claws were covered with teardrop-shaped flakes of what I assumed to be nectar and pollen. I'd never seen anything like it. I tried to figure out where this weird-looking, sticky pollen was coming from but couldn’t fit the puzzle pieces together So I decided to take some pictures and a couple of videos and send them on to Carol Anne Kearns, a bumble bee expert who wrote the book The Natural History of Bumblebees.

I asked her, "I'm wondering if you have ever seen this before? I couldn't find anything online about it. It kind of looks like the bumble bee is wearing clown shoes. I was trying to figure out which flowers in my pollinator garden were causing this. I think it must be the butterfly weed, because that's what all the vosnesenskii bumble bees are focused on right now. They will nectar from the sneezeweed as well, but they also like to use it as a place to groom, since it's right next to the Asclepias."

Ms. Kearns kindly wrote me back saying: "Butterfly weed produces pollinia - sticky packages made up of many pollen grains, rather than individual pollen grains. That seems to be what is stuck on this bee!
See http://www.backyardnature.net/fl_milkw.htm for a photo."

Pollinia, eh? I’d never heard of it. But now I wanted to find it in an asclepias flower. That turned out to be easier said than done. I went to my garden and harvested a few of the tiny flowers. I tore them apart but couldn’t find any pollinia. Where were they?

I decided to dissect a few more flowers, concentrating on the very base of the blossom. Finally, I found one

No wonder I had difficulty - they’re really tiny – no bigger than Franklin Roosevelt’s nose on a dime! They’re pretty cool looking though – like miniature wishbones.

According to the information that Ms. Kearns sent me, pollinium (plural pollinia) is a pollination strategy that only a few species of flowers utilize, asclepias and orchids among them. From what I’ve seen and read, it can be as sticky as velcro onto a bee’s legs and so resistant to release from the blossom that occasionally a bumble bee will pull its leg off in the struggle to free itself.

There is always something fascinating going on in the pollinator garden, and this year I will again be looking for bumble bees wearing clown shoes. But at least now I’ll understand what it is I’m seeing, and appreciate anew the complex and wondrous interaction between bees and flowers.

Other Resources:

Wiki on pollinium:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollinium

Beautiful photo of milkweed pollinium:

http://dkphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Milkweeds-Life-Cycle/G0000rgA8YA11KGg/I0000d1IVywb4vuk/C00006iIlXsmpZqE

Showing how a pollinium is removed from a milkweed flower:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/h5zQo7wTSyM-removing-pollinium-from-milkweed-flower.aspx

The effectiveness of different pollinators that come in contact with milkweed pollinia:

http://www.restoringthelandscape.com/2013/02/milkweed-pollination-sticky-situation.html

The Water Sprites

The Water Sprites

By Nancy Partlow

The first in a series called, “Shoot the Deschutes; Photographing the Fauna and Flora of the Deschutes River Valley and Beyond”

We are so blessed to have a wonderful park in our midst; a park that, thanks to the dedicated work of the Olympia Tumwater Foundation, is experiencing a rejuvenation. English ivy is being pulled and replaced with the native plants species that originally flourished there.  Needed infrastructure improvements are taking place.  I’m beginning to love Tumwater Falls Park again the way I did when I was a child.

But as much as I love the park for its beautiful scenery and nourishment of spirit, there is another who loves it more.  An enchanting and unique little creature, it is North America’s only aquatic songbird – the American Dipper (Cinclus mexicanus).

Also known by its older, more charismatic name of Water Ouzel, the dipper thrives in a beautiful and ever-moving world of cascades and cataracts. Observing it from riverside, this is clearly a being at one with the element in which it abides – cold, rushing water.

I’ve always been aware of dippers at the Falls, but it wasn’t until recently when I sought them out for my Shoot the Deschutes project, that I really got to see them up close.  What I discovered was captivating.

The dipper is a slate-gray bird whose cryptic coloration helps it blend in with the water and weathered basalt of the river.  It is a couple of inches smaller than a robin but larger than the wren it resembles with its short, often-cocked tail.  Compulsively flexing its legs in a bobbing motion reminiscent of deep knee bends, it perpetually genuflects to the river from which it gains its sustenance. My college biology professor once told me that “no one knows why the dipper dips”, and I believe this still holds true.

The dipper makes its living among the rocks and rills of river gorges, hunting for aquatic insects above and beneath the surface of fast moving streams, eating larvae from river bottoms and the undersides of midstream boulders. Fish eggs and small fry are also on its menu.  The toes of its feet are very long, to help it maintain a grip upon the streambed, while the wings are short and stubby to facilitate its ability to “fly” under water.

The water ouzel has a genuine song of “piping notes and trills”, which is loud enough to often be the only avian voice discernible above the roar of the river.

The dipper’s nest is about the size of a football, with a mossy outer shell and an interior cup nest composed of grasses, leaves and bark strips.  According to an article by Dianna Moore of Grays Harbor Audubon, “The female chooses a nest site in the bank along a stream, behind a waterfall or under a bridge."

My recent experiences with dippers at Tumwater Falls Park fortuitously coincided with the fledging of two juveniles from a nest somewhere along the gorge.  I never did discover the nest site, but it was the piercing calls of the babies begging food from their mother that helped me track the trio as they flew in short jaunts up and down the riparian corridor.

The first time I actually saw one of the birds, it was clinging to a near-vertical rock face at the base of the lower falls.  A youngster, its downy feathers dotted with tiny silvery sequins of spray, was watching and waiting for its mother.  The child had obviously been there for quite some time as three small, dead fish were laid out before it, as if on a moss-covered platter.

This bird soon joined its sibling on the Washington State Fisheries barge tethered a few feet away.  From that platform I got a great view of them eagerly propositioning their harried parent for something to eat, excitedly flapping their wings with gaping mouths whenever she drew near.

Though the next day was rainy, I came back to the park carrying a longer-lens camera and an umbrella.  I felt fortunate to witness and film the young dippers exploring their brand new world of the upper estuary.  I admired their mother's swimming skills, as she zigzaged at lightning speed beneath the rippled waters tracking and catching small salmon (very kindly just released by Fish and Wildlife into the estuary). She then rapidly knocked the stunned fingerlings upon the river cobble before stuffing them down the babies’ gullets.

On my third visit, I was standing on the wooden footbridge bridge directly over the lower waterfall when a group of students from the Raymond School District showed up.  I had been following the dipper family around the middle falls, then back down to the estuary.   But now, the ouzel chicks seemed perilously perched on a large fallen tree wedged directly above the roaring torrent.  I pointed out the birds to the students, who were enthralled but worried about the babies.  Yet the mites seemed entirely at ease and unafraid.  Mama soon came and fed them, and once again they all moved on.

A dipper’s habitat requirements include the clear, clean, well-oxygenated water that supports its favorite prey.  So, I wonder, how do dippers cope with the raging and silt-laden Deschutes during our periodic great storm events?

Dippers are uncommon residents of Thurston County and elsewhere in their range, which stretches from Alaska, throughout the U.S. and Canadian mountain west and into Central America. Other than Tumwater Falls Park, the only other place in Thurston County that I know they occur is within a picturesque gorge in the upper Deschutes watershed, where a water ouzel was once seen flitting along the rim of a large waterfall.

It seems somehow fitting to me that these marvelous little birds safeguard both ends of the Deschutes.  That these evanescent water sprites, slipping easily between the realms of fluid, air and earth, at once keep the river’s secrets, yet reveal its hidden beauty to any one with the eyes to truly see.

  

Addition Resources:

Grays Harbor Birds: http://ec2-50-18-173-185.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com/sections/sports/local/grays-harbor-birds-american-dipper.html

Cornell: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Dipper/id

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dipper 

Videos:

A short video of adult feeding a juvenile at Tumwater Falls Park:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Oy2tQjBW_AE

Some great videos of American dippers pulled off of YouTube:

American dipper building nest at Whatcom Falls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtpVi3fWnfU

Dipper adults feeding babies in nest on Dosewallips River, Olympic Pennisula: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8bkjt6gQy0

Dipper male singing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgAYiD37KiM

American dipper swimming under water: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV6IDY1TSC0

Dipper diving into roaring river: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfkGvKEeqVM