Barred Owl

The other evening I watched a barred owl zigzagging down the creek trail corridor hunting for food. It would sit on a perch about 10-20 feet off the ground and scan the area with its eyes and ears. When it zeroed in on its potential prey, it silently drifted out over the meadow and pounced.

Barred owls prey on a variety of animals. On the National Audubon Society website they list their diet as: “Mostly small mammals. Eats many mice and other small rodents, also squirrels (including flying squirrels), rabbits, opossums, shrews, other small mammals. Also eats various birds, frogs, salamanders, snakes, lizards, some insects. May take aquatic creatures such as crayfish, crabs, fish.”

The barred owl is an elegant, magical creature with a distinctive hooting rhythm that is interpreted as, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” Click here to listen on the All About Birds website by The Cornell Lab.

Their original range was the mature forests of the eastern North America. During the past century they expanded westward across Canada and down into the Northwest and California of the U.S.

The expansion of its range has brought it into contact with the spotted owl of the West, because they share a habitat of older growth forests. As a result barred owls have been displacing or occasionally hybridizing with spotted owls. This interaction, along with loss of habitat, increased the decline of the spotted owl’s population. I won’t expand on this story here, but I recommend researching more about it.

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

The Creek is Flowing

Welcome back little creek.

The creek has been flowing up the canyon since last week, and it has finally reached the small spillway as you cross the bridge into the White Oak Pavilion.

It is nice to listen to its song as I enter the arboretum and see all of the newly fallen leaves floating in it.

Rain Catcher

Spiders are amazing.

Pacific Ninebark Pithy Stems

Along the lily pond trail, the caretakers of the arboretum have trimmed back branches that grow into the pathway. I noticed that pretty much all the cut branches of the Pacific ninebark have small round holes in the center of the branch. I found a broken branch that showed a pithy center that I am sure is easy and delightful to bore out. As I looked further, I noticed that there were also holes in the cut branches of the snowberry bush and the Indian-plum.

I was reminded about something that I learned from the Xerces society. It is important to leave old flower stalks in your garden landscape. Many insects and spiders will seek refuge in the stalk’s hollow stem. They will also lay their eggs in the stems for protection through winter and hatch out in spring.

I also noticed that along some of the branches there were holes that I imagine were created by woodpeckers extracting whatever tasty morsels were inside.

Tree Crickets Mating

Over the last few days, I have observed the mating of tree crickets.

The male has translucent teardrop-shaped fore wings. The female has narrow fore wings that wrap closely around the back of her body.

I have mostly found the tree crickets on blackberry canes. Where I have found them mating, the female has laid her eggs in the cane. I see that she chews through the outer part of the stem and makes a small hole. I read that she puts excrement in the hole, lays her eggs and then coats them with a secretion. I broke part of the stem open at one of these egg-laying locations. Inside there were three slender, tubular eggs.

The Himalayan blackberries have excessively spread throughout the arboretum. It is a small consolation to know that tree crickets are using the blackberry canes as a place to lay their eggs for future generations.

I also found them mating and laying eggs on a small Oregon ash sapling, as you can see in the last two photos below.

Tree Cricket Singing

The melodious songs of tree crickets can be heard gently ringing through the air at the arboretum. The notes are crisp and refreshing. Its soothing rhythm flows softly across the landscape like a gentle stream. Its reverberant sound calms the spirit. It’s magical.

Woolly Aphids

As I walked along the lily pond trail, rays of sunlight shined through the trees illuminating miniature, fuzzy orbs floating up into the sky. A woolly aphid has a fibrous, white covering. It resembles a fluffy cotton ball as it flies through the air. It is mating season, and today was the perfect day to find a mate in the warm, fall sun.

At one point, I found myself in a whirlwind of songbirds darting about foraging on the aphids. It was a mixed flock of chickadees, ruby-crowned kinglets, golden-crowned kinglets, bushtits, Bewick’s wrens, and brown creepers. They were foraging from slightly off the ground all the way up into the tree canopy.

A runner coming down the trail saw me taking photos and stopped to silently watch all of the birds. Sometimes they were only a few feet away as they flitted through the underbrush gleaning aphids off the foliage or catching them out of the air. After about five minutes, he smiled and waved as he continued on his run.

Bushtits

Bushtits are busily moving about the landscape in small foraging flocks. It is common to see around 20 in a group, and I have counted as many as 40 together. They are loosely strung along a small area looking for insects on the foliage and limbs of trees and shrubs. They have joyful spirits and acrobatically bounce around often clinging upside down from leaves and branches. Their ability to zip every which way finding tiny insects and spiders is dizzying and makes getting a photo challenging.

Peterson aptly sums up this bird’s movement as, “travels in straggling talkative flocks.” They are in constant contact with each other through quick call notes that Peterson describes as “insistent light tsits, pits, and clenks.” This chattiness makes them fairly easy to locate. In addition, you’ll often find them in mixed flocks in the fall and winter with other small, song birds like chickadees and kinglets. So be on the lookout and keep an ear out for them too.

Bushtits only weigh 4-6 grams and with all the acorns laying around, I wondered how the weight of an acorn compared to the weight of a bushtit. I gathered various sizes of acorns and weighed them. Starting from the smallest on the left and moving right, the weight of each acorn is 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 grams. Can you believe that!?

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

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

Gobbling Up Dogwood Berries

Yesterday robins, spotted towhees and golden-crowned sparrows were gathered around the dogwood tree in the island of the drop off loop at the front of the arboretum eating the tree’s bright red berries.

The robins were eating the most. First, they would pluck a berry and adjust it in their beak, seemingly testing it for edibility. If it felt right they would toss it back and swallow it whole. If it didn’t feel right, they would drop it and get another one.

On the ground there were golden-crowned sparrows foraging. They would pick up the dropped berry and break off a small piece to eat.

The towhee would also break apart the berry and eat it in small pieces. It was also getting them out of the tree like the robin. It would either eat in the tree or it would fly off to the ground nearby to eat.

At the rate the berries have been consumed over the last couple of days, I imagine they are not going to last much longer.

Turkey Vulture

Turkey vultures are a regular site at the arboretum. They can be seen slowly soaring along the river corridor or catching updrafts and circling the hillsides as they search for recently dead animals.

Turkey vultures are skilled soarers. They have a long, broad wings that are raised slightly upwards forming an open V-shape. They have a distinctive flight pattern—they constantly teeter from side to side adjusting to air currents. Using their sense of sight and smell, they like to fly low over the landscape as they search for food.

Turkey vultures are beautiful, mysterious creatures. They will soon be drifting south, as they don’t spend the winter here. I always look forward to their return as spring approaches.

Asian Lady Beetles

I found the adult beetle, its spiny larva and the pupae on the leaves of an oak limb that hangs over the bridge that is just behind the bathroom.

Many of the larvae are attaching to the leaves and entering into an immobile pupal stage. After a few days the adult beetle will emerge.

This beetle was introduced into the United States from Asia in the early 1900’s to control aphid populations and other soft-bodied insects.

Look closely and you can tell them apart from native ladybugs. Most asian beetles have a small white marking behind the head on a part called the pronotum. It is in the middle next to the colored forewings. This forms a prominent black "M" or "W" shape on the front of their bodies.

In the fall, the asian lady beetle will find protected places to congregate and overwinter. They often find their way inside people’s homes and other buildings.

Ancient Writings

I found a charred script that was exquisitely carved on a weathered, ashen canvas. They are ancient symbols communicating a message of the inscrutable depths and layers of life. It’s a reminder of the mystery of life and the vastness of all that is unknown and unknowable.

Queen Anne's Lace Seeds

The Queen Anne’s lace flower umbels have transformed into small baskets of seeds. All the spiky seeds cradled together have a spirit bursting with excitement—they are saying, “We are ready to go!” For dispersal across the landscape, the tiny, brown seeds are covered with burs. They will grab on to the fur of passing animals that brush up against them. This includes people too. There always seems to be a couple stuck on my pants or in my shoelaces.

One year Anniversary.

Thank you everyone for reading my blog. I started this blog one year ago and this is my 166th post. It has been very rewarding exploring Mt. Pisgah. I have enjoyed taking photos and then coming home to do research and write the posts. I have learned heaps, and I am constantly amazed at all of the interesting life there is to discover at the arboretum. Life can be busy, and I hope that you find time to be out in nature. I wish you all peace and wellness. I hope to see you out there. Thanks again.

Black-capped Chickadee & Speckled Oak Gall

While the Steller’s jay is busily exploring the oak tree canopy collecting acorns, the black-capped chickadee is investigating the speckled oak galls on the underside of leaves.

As it forages for these galls, you will see it acrobatically clinging to the oak leaves. Sometimes it will open the gall while hanging on to the leaf. Other times it will pluck the gall off the leaf and take it over to a nearby branch to extract the larva.

I took one of the galls over to a picnic table and cut it in half. The gall reminds me of a ping-pong ball—it is round, light and the shell is paper thin. On the inside there are white, electric fibers radiating from the center where the small larva is encased. The larva will emerge from this small encasing when it is ready and eat the inside of the gall for food.

Small groups of chickadees are roving through the landscape at Mt. Pisgah exuberantly opening these little packages and eating the yummy larva inside. To help locate them, listen for their chick-a-dee-dee-dee call. You might also hear them whistle the notes fee-bee-ee or fee-bee of their song.

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

Pillbugs

A pillbug is also known as a roly poly. It receives its name because it curls up into a ball for protection when it feels threatened. It is native to the edge of the Mediterranean and is a beautiful, fascinating creature.

The first thing I learned when researching pillbugs is that they are not insects, they are isopods. An Isopod is any member of the order Isopoda (class Crustacea), that includes marine, freshwater, and terrestrial species. Pillbugs are terrestrial crustaceans!

In general, terrestrial isopods mate in spring. After mating, the female pillbug lays her eggs into a fluid-filled pouch called a marsupium where the eggs will remain for two or three months until they hatch. Upon hatching, the juvenile pillbugs will stay in the marsupium for three or four days before emerging from the pouch.

Its body is dark gray and their outer shell is divided into these small plates. It is propelled by seven pairs of legs, and it has a pair of antennae that are constantly feeling the landscape as it roams. The dwell both on the surface and in the soil. The seek out damp habitats, so you will usually find them places like under leaves, rocks, logs, etc. The recent rains have moistened the environment, and I am seeing lots of pillbugs out exploring. Accompanying the recent rain is an abundance of leaves falling to the ground and beginning to decay. Pillbugs are detritivores, so they happy right now.

References:
Animal Diversity Web
University of Michigan
Museum of Zoology

Featured Creatures
University of Florida

Moth - Alfalfa Semilooper

Out of the corner of my eye I saw some movement. I looked over just in time to watch this moth land on these dried leaves. I took out my camera, and when I went to take the photo, it took me a minute to find it again. Even after I took a couple a photos, my brain was still a little uncertain whether or not I had taken a picture of a dried leaf or a moth. To check, I slightly moved the vegetation that it was resting on. It slightly vibrated its wings to let me know it was there.

It truly feels impossible to put into words how incredible this moth’s texture and patten resembles dried leaves. It knows this and chooses the right place to land in order to camouflage itself. When I saw this one land, it was initially facing upward. Quickly after it lit upon the leaves, it shifted into this more downward facing position before it came to rest.

I used the following online publication to identify this moth: Lepidoptera of the Pacific Northwest: Caterpillars and Adults

Canada Goose

“Few men have souls so dead that they will not bother to look up when they hear the barking of wild Geese.”

—Roger Tory Peterson
How To Know The Birds. 1949.

This was the first sentence in the section of the book on geese. Nicely stated Roger.

In How To Know The Birds, Peterson had this to say in his opening sentence about the Canada goose: “This is the ‘wild goose’ that everyone knows, the big ‘honker’ whose V, pointing like a compass-needle to the north, marks the coming of spring.”

There are always some Canadian geese here in the Willamette Valley throughout the year.

Licorice Fern Sprouts

It started raining early Saturday morning and by mid-morning on Sunday, new sprouts of the licorice fern had already began to emerge.

Licorice ferns usually grow on fallen logs, tree trunks or rocks in mossy beds where their roots can be protected. They are considered summer-deciduous here—with the lack of rainfall during the summer, these plants die back. The first rains at the end of summer or the beginning of fall, like we experienced this weekend, will awaken the new leaves.

Subterranean Termite

Last night I awoke to the sounds of rain drops pattering on the dusty window sill. I opened the window and the sweet smell of the earth breathing a sigh of relief came rushing inside. I wondered about what new life would awaken out of the slumber of late summer.

As I wandered around the arboretum, curtains of rain showers continued to sweep the day. During one of the intermissions, I heard the soft, whistling calls of a flock of cedar waxwings. When I walked out to an opening by the river, I saw them swooping out and back from a small tree. As I got closer I could see a fluttering of insects slowly taking flight off the ground.

Termites were emerging from a small hole and gathering together in a small cluster. Their wings were delicate and fresh with an opalescent luminance. As they took to the air, their flight was a white, wispy dance. As they silently floated skyward, it felt like a dream. They seemed more spirit than an animate creature of this world.