Goldfinch & Thistle

Clouds of downy thistle seeds have been billowing out onto the landscape and flying up into the sky. The seed is attached to an umbrella of feathers that enable it to float away in the slightest breeze. Goldfinches are on the scene to forage before the seeds sail away.

Goldfinches mainly eat seeds, but they will also supplement their diets with small fruits (elderberry and madrone) and tree buds (cottonwoods, alders, sycamores, willows, and oaks).

I think this particular plant is a bull thistle, a non-native plant. Non-native plants can be invasive, but I had to admire the cool seed head left behind after the seeds were released. It reminded me of a straw hat that Van Gogh might have painted.

In the birdseed business, Niger seeds are sold as a popular goldfinch food. Early marketing labeled this plant seed as a thistle. People wanted to capitalize on the fact that goldfinches love thistle seeds, which Niger seeds aren’t. They are a native plant to Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Malawi. They are also grown in India. You may also see the plant labeled Nyger or Nyjer on the bag of bird seed.

I wanted to mention this because I feel that it is better to grow native plants and create more habitat for birds to forage. I feel these types of small changes can have huge impacts on restoring a balance in nature. When we use native seeds, we not only create habitat, we avoid spending energy importing seeds from far away to put in our bird feeders. In addition, Niger seeds are not going to be as nutritious because they are sterilized by heat before being shipped. I am sure this is to help prevent germination and spoilage of the seed.

Common Merganser

Recently, I have been delighted to see a small group of common mergansers on the river. The male’s breeding plumage is striking. He has a white body that sharply contrasts with a black back and dark green-black head. His bill and feet are red and his breast is tinged with a rosy peach. The female and immature mergansers are gray-bodied and have a rufous head with a short crest. Their chest and a patch under the chin are white. From late summer to mid-autumn, males wear a nonbreeding plumage that looks very similar to female plumage. So at the moment, they all look fairly alike.

I usually see them paddling upstream and enthusiastically diving for food. They dip their heads just under the surface of the water as they swim and scan for prey. When they dive, they give a slight leap to help launch themselves underwater. When one bird dives, the others usually follow. They normally dive for less than 30 seconds, but they can stay under for up to 2 minutes! Their diet consists mostly of fish which are, of course, slippery. To help catch and hold them, they have serrated bills. Sometimes I see one surface with a fish in its bill, and if it isn’t quickly gobbled down, a chase often ensues.

They can also be seen relaxing on rocks or on a log out in the river. That said, there always seems to be one vigilantly standing guard for any predators. I also have seen them merrily floating downstream, looking around, and to all appearances, just taking it easy.

Find a spot by the river to quietly sit and listen to the water gurgling, the wind blowing through the cottonwoods, and hopefully, you will be blessed to see a flock of mergansers paddling around on the river.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. Hope to see you out there.

References
Common Merganser Life History, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Merganser/lifehistory. Accessed 14 Sept. 2022.

Peterson, Roger Tory, et al. Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America. 4th ed, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.

Messenger of Beauty

I saw a bird
quietly alight on a branch.
Sunlight filtered through
the forest canopy
gently washing over
its body of soft feathers.
It turned and tilted its head,
listening and watching.
It awakened me
out of my thoughts.
I heard the rustling
wind through the trees and
the clapping of grasshopper wings
in the meadow nearby.
I felt the warm, dry summer air
blowing against my skin.
I caught the sweet scents
of the earth wafting by
in the breeze.
Thank you little bird for
helping me tune in
to the moment and
the natural world around me.
May your visits to the arboretum
be filled with messengers
that deliver you beauty, harmony
and inspiration.
Peace.

Morning of Blue

The morning river is cool. It flows in blues and grays. It is soft and quiet. The air is gentle. It soothes my eyes and skin and my breath. I am awake, alive in its stillness. I want to wade through the dawn, mindful and respectful, a heron.

Steller's Jay & Manroot

I have been watching this wonderful vine grow throughout the arboretum this year. I have followed it from the beginning as it sprouted its first vibrant, green leaves in spring to now, as the dried, brown seed pods split open to release their seeds. At the end of this trail, I find the mysterious, radiant blue Steller’s jay collecting the seeds and carrying them off to cache them.

Manroot is a native perennial in the cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae). Unlike its relatives, this plant is not edible. It gets its name from its large, woody, tuberous root.

Manroot will climb trees, cover shrubs, or flow along the ground. It can form a dense blanket of vines and leaves as it grows. Its coiled tendrils reach out and grasp onto small branches, bark, and other vegetation as it weaves its way through the landscape.

The male and female flowers are separate and on the same plant. Loosely clustered male flowers emerge on a narrow stalk, and that is what you see filling the landscape in spring with soft, white stars. The female flower is short-stalked, close to the vine, and is usually solitary.

The fruit is light green with dark green veins spreading on its surface. It is covered with spines that, fortunately, are fairly soft. Inside, it is fibrous and mostly consists of huge seeds. As the manroot vine dies off for the season, the pods turn brown, split open from the bottom, and release their seeds.

I feel that plants take on another fascinating life and energy as their color, shape, and texture transform as they die. The skin of the seed pod can have a variety of decaying textures and colors. The seeds have a look and feel of small, weathered river stones. They are round and flat with a slight curve. They are pleasant to roll around in my hand and listen to them tumble against each other. The dried leaves are captivating as they hang from the vines like wrinkled capes.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. Hope to see you out there.

Reference
Pojar, Jim, and Andrew MacKinnon. Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast: Washington, Oregon, British Columbia & Alaska. Revised ed, Lone Pine, 2004.

Harvesting Hazelnuts

Hazelnuts are being eaten and carried off to be cached. I can hear the squirrels clamoring around through the hazelnut tree limbs as they search for nuts. When they find one, they will find a perch to eat it, which doesn’t take long. I can hear them gnawing on the shell and see bits of it falling to the ground.

Steller’s Jays are also hopping around through the hazelnut trees gathering nuts. When they will collect one to eat, they take it over to a limb big enough to perch on and to hold the nut. I love watching them hold the nut in their bill and with their feet. Every day over the past week, I have heard them in the trees pounding on the nuts trying to open them. It takes more time and effort for them to open the nuts than their squirrel neighbors.

I am not sure why these squirrels and jays are eating hazelnuts now. They haven’t fully matured. Hazelnuts are usually harvested in the fall. Maybe other food sources are scarce at the moment. Or maybe they just like the taste. Perhaps there are certain nutrients that the nuts provide at the moment that they are craving. Whatever the answer, come fall, there won’t be any left on the trees at the arboretum.

Dust Bath

A Bewick’s wren flew down onto the path in front of me. It then proceeded to flutter its wings, kicking up a small cloud of dust. It reminded me of a little windup toy. As it flitted its wings, its body vibrated forward. It would then stop, as if to wind up its motor, and then began again. Within a few minutes, it had exuberantly covered itself with dirt.

Here’s a little excerpt from the essay Bathing and Dusting in the Birder’s Handbook:

“When birds bathe in water or saturate themselves with dust they are actively maintaining their plumage. In well-watered areas bathing is most common, in arid ones dusting is more often observed. Experiments with quail show that frequent dusting helps to maintain an optimum amount of oil on the feathers. Excess plumage lipids, including preen oil, are absorbed by the dust and expelled along with dry skin and other debris. If quail are prevented from dusting, their feathers quickly become oily and matted. Dusting may also help to discourage bird lice, but no experimental evidence exists as yet showing that to be the case.

Wrens and House Sparrows frequently follow a water bath with a dust bath (one reason to suspect an antiparasite function for dusting). Overall, the amount of time and effort birds put into bathing and dusting indicates how critical feather maintenance may be. Feathers are marvelous and intricate devices, but keeping them functional requires constant care.”

Resource
Ehrlich, Paul R., et al. The Birder’s Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds: Including All Species That Regularly Breed North of Mexico. Simon & Schuster, 1988.

Black Hawthorn Berries

The black hawthorn berries are ripening, and some of my feathered friends are there to start gobbling them up. I sat in the shade nearby for about an hour and saw cedar waxwings, robins, chickadees, and a scrub jay. The robins and cedar waxwings ate them whole. The chickadees would hang onto the cluster and eat them. The scrub jay plucked the berry and flew off with it to eat it elsewhere.

The black hawthorn is in the rose family and the berries are edible. I tried one, and it reminded me of eating a rose hip or a mealy apple. There were 4 seeds inside that were most of the berry. There was only a little fleshy part surrounding the seeds. Maybe they are not quite ready to eat. Birds tend to eat certain berries before they have fully ripened.

Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed hawks can often be seen soaring in the clear blue skies of summer. As they circle overhead, the sun illuminates their tail's warm, red feathers from where they get their name.

Red-tail hawks love the arboretum. It has the perfect habitat of open, grassy meadows that support an abundance of animals, like voles, mice, pocket gophers, ground squirrels, and rabbits. These small mammals make up most of the hawk’s diet. In addition, there are many tall trees and snags adjacent to these open spaces where the hawks can sit, watch, and wait for an opportunity to grab their prey.

Red-tail hawks also nest out at the arboretum. I usually see their nests in the crown of tall cottonwood trees along the river. They will often refurbish an old nest used in previous years or build a new one. The nest is a sizable construction of dry sticks up to 6.5 feet high and 3 feet wide. The inner part of the nest is lined with bark strips, fresh foliage, and dry vegetation.

The call of the red-tailed hawk is usually given while soaring. Peterson describes it as an “asthmatic squeal, keeer-r-r (slurring downward).” The Cornel Lab characterizes it as, “a hoarse, screaming kee-eeeee-arr.” While those interpretations are useful, I think they don’t capture the essence. To me, the line from section 52 of Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself truly expresses the call of the red-tailed hawk: “I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. Hope to see you out there.

Peterson, Roger Tory, et al. Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America. 4th ed, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.

Red-Tailed Hawk Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/overview. Accessed 7 July 2022.

Black-headed Grosbeak Babies

When the baby birds are born, they are nearly naked with their eyes closed. They have sparse grayish-white down which you can see on their heads. As one rears its head back wanting food, the light shines through illuminating its apricot skin color.

Both males and females equally share the chick-rearing duties of sitting on the eggs and feeding the young.

The nest is a loose construction of small sticks that is surprisingly sturdy. Sometimes, the sticks are woven in such an open and airy fashion, that the eggs are visible through the bottom of the nest. This may aid in regulating the temperature of the nest when brooding the eggs and raising the baby birds.

These fragile, tiny creatures are also pretty hardy. They have had to endure some cool, rainy temperatures this spring.

Western Screech-Owl

The Western Screech-Owl is a beautiful bird that lives year-round at Mt. Pisgah.

It is a small owl with a length of about 8.5 inches. It has conspicuous ear tufts and yellow eyes. Its coloration and feather pattern resembles the bark of trees which allows it to blend in excellently with its surroundings. It is usually gray, but its color can vary. In northwestern humid regions, it is usually a darker brown. In arid areas, it is paler and grayer.

It is a nocturnal animal that usually leaves its roost to forage at sunset and returns a little before sunrise. It spends the day either in a cavity or perched at the entrance. During the breeding season, the male roosts near the nest cavity.

It lives mainly in forested habitats of deciduous trees. The arboretum provides the perfect environment with Oregon ash, Oregon white oak, cottonwoods, and big-leaf maple trees. These trees, especially the Oregon ash, provide plenty of cavities for shelter and nesting. In addition, the trees border open meadows where it loves to hunt.

It is a carnivore that mostly eats small mammals, such as mice, voles, and pocket gophers. Its diet also includes birds, insects, spiders, fish, lizards, snakes, and frogs.

The Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America describes its vocalization as a, “Series of hollow whistles on one pitch, running into a tremolo (rhythm of a small ball bouncing to a stand-still).”

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. Hope to see you out there.

Pileated Nestlings

Yesterday evening I decided to sit near the pileated woodpecker cavity to see if I could learn more about the status of the nest. The last couple of weeks that I went by the nest, I didn’t see or hear any activity around the nest. I was starting to grow concerned that the nest had possibly failed somehow. After about 20 minutes, I saw a little pileated at the entrance. I was so delighted and relieved to know that there was at least one in there. He curiously looked around at the outside world for a few minutes and then settled back down inside. About 10 minutes later, two heads emerged at the entrance to have a look around for a few minutes. I continued sitting there and watching. After being there for 45 minutes, I was surprised that a parent had not come by to feed and check on them. I decided to move on just in case my presence was influencing the parents. Slowly walking away, I caught a glimpse of the female moving quietly through the trees. I continued to slowly move along and soon saw the male too. The parents were quiet and seemed to be intently studying their surroundings. Happy to know the family was together and well, I moved on.

Anna's Hummingbird Nest

This hummingbird nest is hidden among a thicket of lichen and honeysuckle vines. It is about 1 inch tall and 1.5 inches in diameter. It is made out of plant fibers and compactly held together by spider webs and/or insect cocoons. The female will further conceal the nest by decorating the outside of it with little bits of lichen or mosses. To make the interior cozy and warm, she will line it with small feathers or down from plants like cattail or willow. It is necessary during the chilly temperatures and rain of spring. The nest is truly a magical sight to behold.

Chipping Sparrow

I love this friendly little bird, and it has a cool Latin name—Spizella passerina. It has a black eye line with a white eyebrow. When breeding, it sports a bright rufous cap.

It likes to be around the White Oak Pavilion and the adjacent meadow. The Peterson Field Guide to North American Bird Nests says the chipping sparrow has a “Broad range of habitats with shrubby undergrowth that is often adjacent to grassy openings, including open coniferous, deciduous, and mixed forests, woodland edges, and clearings, along edges of montane meadows, riparian shorelines, in parks, orchards, farms, suburbs.” The arboretum is the perfect place for it to breed and raise a family.

I listened to it singing from the oak trees around the pavilion for about half an hour. The building seemed to be amplifying the sound, as I initially could hear it from the parking lot. Its song is a trill of evenly spaced dry chips.

It finally revealed itself and flew down to the ground to forage on some grass seeds. If you are quiet and still, this bird is accepting of your presence and you can get to watch it fairly up-close.

Be careful when identifying this bird by its song. The dark-eyed junco is in the area too and has a very similar trill. Good luck!

Wild Blue Yonder

“A nobler want of man is served by nature, namely, the love of Beauty.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

All of the field guides are filled with science. They are overflowing with names and measurements like length, height, range, volume, shape, and time. This is one way to relate to the world, and it is part of my approach to learning and experiencing.

On the other side, I try to spend time out in nature letting go of all this information. Beyond the analysis and numbers are beauty and mystery, and I don’t have to go far to find them. It is hopping on the lawn and singing from the trees around the White Oak Pavilion. Although considered a commonplace bird, the American Robin is an amazing being. I am especially reminded of this every time I find its nest. It’s an elegant creation of lichens, mosses, grass, and mud cradling ethereal blue eggs. Seeing it evokes a sense of wonder out of reach of words.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. Hope to see you out there.

Pacific Wren Singing

This agile, little bird swiftly tumbles through the underbrush as it merrily searches for food. It ducks under fallen trees, disappears into thickets of sword fern fronds, and heroically bounds out onto a stump as it reappears.

It’s no surprise that its song is an energetic, warbling arrangement of notes that mimics its acrobatic movements.

Pacific Wren

Pileated Nesting

I have been trying to stay tuned in to the whereabouts of the pileated woodpecker pair that I posted about earlier this month. Ten days ago, I found the male making a substantial hole in a dead Douglas Fir. I wasn’t sure if he was searching for food or building a nesting cavity. I have returned there a couple of times to find him continuing to excavate the hole, so I feel that he is building a cavity for nesting. The last time I went by, he could get the top of his body inside the hole. Both the male and female excavate the cavity, but the male does more. The depth of the cavity can range from 10 to 24 inches, and it is 15 to 80 feet from the ground. It takes from 3 to 6 weeks to complete.

It is exciting to see a pair of them living and breeding at the arboretum.

Owl Pellets

The arboretum has perfect habitats for owls. There is an old barn with a silo for Barns Owls. There are old-growth cottonwoods along the river for Great Horned Owls. There are cavities in Oregon Ashes for Western Screech Owls and Northern Pygmy-Owls. There is a forested hillside with a mix of large Douglas firs, big-leaf maples, and incense cedars that attracted a Barred Owl this winter. Within all of the habitats, there are transition zones and open meadows that support an abundance of prey for owls—voles, mice, small birds, etc.

Owls will often spend consecutive days around the same perch from where they will roost during the day and hunt at night Most owls are nocturnal, but Northern Pygmy-Owls mostly hunt by day. Under these roosts, you can often find evidence of an owl’s presence: owl pellets.

Owls usually eat their prey whole or in large pieces. The fur, teeth, bones, or feathers of animals are indigestible. These parts are formed into an oval mass, passed back up the digestive system, and regurgitated some hours later, often while the owl is roosting. These pellets are a joy to find. On the outside, most owl pellets aren’t very remarkable. They are usually furry, matted orbs of hair. On the inside, they are a treasure of interesting bones, teeth, and skulls! Online there are illustrated charts that help identify all of the contents.

If you find it hard to locate an owl pellet, they are for sale. On the internet, I found a place in Baker City called Oregon Owl Pellets that sold large pellets for $3 apiece.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. Hope to see you out there.

Robin Building a Nest

The sun was shining Thursday, and it nicely warmed the day. It felt like spring had arrived.

I watched a female robin building her nest. She was collecting mud, grass, lichen, and other plant material. It was fun watching her build it. Sometimes she would land above the nest, drop the material into it, and then hop down to arrange it in the nest. As I watched her, she seemed free-spirited and joyful. She took a break every so often to forage and check in with her mate. He was always nearby watching and ready to chase off any intruders.

Pileated Woodpecker Pair

Standing at the top of the zigzag trail, I could hear hammering resounding through the forest. I walked down the path to find a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers on a dead tree. They were excavating small holes in the wood using their chisel-like bills as they searched for food.

They will make holes in trees to get to the tunnels of carpenter ants or wood-boring beetles and termites. The holes are often in a rectangle shape and can be quite deep—a good sign that a Pileated Woodpecker is in the area. You will see these characteristic holes on the older Douglas Fir trees near the juncture of the zigzag and hillside trails.

When a Pileated Woodpecker discovers an insect path inside the tree, it has an incredible tool to procure its food. Its tongue is part of a fascinating system of small bones and muscles that wrap around the back and top of the skull to its forehead. In What It’s Like to Be a Bird, David Sibley writes, “The long tongue has a barbed and sticky tip, and tiny muscles that allow the bird to bend the tip of the tongue in any direction, so it can follow twisting tunnels, trap prey against walls, and pry insects and larvae out of their hiding places deep inside a tree.” That is truly amazing!

In addition to the sound of pounding on trees, you can also hear the vocalizations of the Pileated Woodpecker reverberating across the landscape. Click here to listen to their calls on Cornell’s website All About Birds.

Once its sound has clued you into its whereabouts, you will be in for a real marvel. Assuming that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is extinct, the Pileated is the largest woodpecker in North America. Both the male and female have flaming, red crests. The red on the male includes the forecrown, and he has a red mustache mark. Good luck in finding this spectacular bird!

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. Hope to see you out there.