Shimmering Cosmic Web

It was late afternoon. It was hot and sleepy. A cicada was buzzing. I slowly walked down the trail. As I came around a small bend, the sun was slanting through the underbrush. I was suddenly awakened to a dream. To my wonder, the sun’s rays were illuminating a cosmic labyrinth of spider webs. The silk threads refracted the light and created a starry chandelier that sparkled with the full spectrum of colors. It was dazzling to watch as it swayed in the breeze.

In the center of the shimmering, cosmic web was a delicate spider. It was completely still in this energetic array of lights. I can’t even imagine how this spider crawled out to the edge of a leaf, looked into the space between the branches, envisioned building its home, and attached the first thread of this network of fibers. Amazing!

Fly Larvae

Some flies stirred as I was walking down the path, and I looked over to see a dead snake. As I bent down to take a closer look, I saw that it was teeming with fly larvae inside its body. I was reminded of nature’s cycle of life. The purpose, strength, spirit, and medicine of so many unsung organisms that break down, transform, and recycle all of creation back into the stream of life are unbelievable.

Weasel

There are weasels at the arboretum!

The weasel family includes weasels, minks, otters, martens, fishers, skunks, badgers, and wolverines.

Paul Rezendes writes: “The weasel’s generic name, Mustela, means ‘one who carries mice.’ The word weasel comes from the Sanskrit visra, which means ‘to have a musty smell.’”

There are two kinds of weasels in Oregon, short-tailed and long-tailed. Which one did I see? David Moskowitz had this to say: “These two species can be difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish in the field, either from live sightings or tracks. While long-tailed weasels are usually larger than short-tailed weasels, because they are both sexually dimorphic, a slight size overlap exists between large male short-tailed weasels and small female long-tailed weasels. A few minor habitat use distinctions between the two species are also not absolute.” Also, both of these weasels have black-tipped tails. When I looked at my photos, I noticed that this weasel didn’t have a black-tipped tail, which added to the mystery.

Long tail short, sometimes it is best to let go of names. Tom Brown, Jr. reminds us that: “Everything worth knowing about the animal lies beyond the name… Concentrate on concepts, feelings, and sensations. Most of all, concentrate on interacting with the things you encounter in nature.”

That said, what I do know is that this little animal is slender, fast, and action-packed. It can swim, climb trees, travel tunnels, search burrows, explore hollow logs, slide in between rocks, and dive into snow banks. This makes a very skilled hunter.

Out at the arboretum, they have many small mammals to eat, such as mice, voles, chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels, and pocket gophers. They will also eat birds, eggs, berries, seeds, and forbs.

This is just a brief introduction to an amazing animal, and I hope that you are inspired to learn more. This encounter always reminds me that there are so many fascinating discoveries to be made in local parks and in my backyard. Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. See you out there.

References

Brown, Tom, and Brandt Morgan. Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking. Berkley trade pbk. ed, Berkley Books, 1983.

Moskowitz, David. Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest: Tracking and Identifying Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, and Invertebrates. Timber Press, 2010.

Rezendes, Paul. Tracking & the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks & Sign. 2nd ed, HarperCollins, 1999.

Story
I heard some rustling coming from the underbrush at the edge of the forest, and I heard a California ground squirrel and a spotted towhee alarming. As I turned to see what was going on, a rabbit jumped out of the grass and started running down the road. A moment later, a weasel popped out onto the road chasing the rabbit. They zigzagged in and out of the grass a few times and then came back out onto the trail. The weasel caught up to the rabbit and was right behind it. The weasel then jumped on the back of the rabbit and grabbed it behind the head. The rabbit got loose for a moment, and the weasel grabbed it on its throat. As the weasel started running away with the rabbit, it got loose again. The rabbit must be hard to hold through all of that fur. The weasel shot into the grass leaving the rabbit behind. Dazed, the rabbit took a couple of small hops to the edge of the meadow, hunkered down into the long grass, and became as still as a rock. A second later, the weasel came running out of the grass searching for the rabbit. The weasel retraced its steps to within a foot of the rabbit but didn’t find it. Curiously, he even ran over to me a few times, perhaps wondering if I had taken his rabbit. After a few minutes of investigating the area, he decided to move on. Once I thought the coast was clear, I quietly walked over and checked on the rabbit. It peered up at me through the grass and didn’t move a muscle. I decided to move on too and let it recuperate. I was uncertain how bad it was hurt, if at all. I went back the next morning, and it was gone.

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.

Giant Trillium Seeds

The seed pod of the giant trillium forms into a capsule that turns a dark, rich purple-black. The seeds have a lipid-rich seed appendage known as an elaiosome which is an attractive food source to ants. I read that the ants will collect the seeds, take them back to their nest, remove the elaiosome and discard the seeds. This helps to disperse the seeds around the landscape.

With the seed pods I have been watching, the ants have been taking away the elaiosome and leaving the seed. The ants are small, so maybe it is easier to harvest the elaiosome on site and leave the seed. You can see some of the seeds caught in a spider web below one of the pods. So, these ants aren’t really dispersing them, besides releasing them from their pod.

I also imagined that the seed pod would mature, open, the seeds would spill out onto the ground, and then the ants would gather them. With these, it appears that the ants are tearing them open. Somehow they can sense the seeds are in there and that they are ready to harvest. Life is amazing.

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-flowering Currant Berries

The red-flowering currant has vibrant, pink flower clusters for which the plant is named. When the berries form, they start as an inconspicuous green that blends in with the foliage. When they mature, they turn a dark blue that is coated with a white, waxy bloom.

It is a celestial life form with its frosty, cool surface. It has become peppered with cosmic freckles in its travels through the universe. This shrub could easily be called Blue Stardust berry or Blue Galaxy berry. I love the contrast between the radiant, pink flowers and the wintry-blue berry.

The field guide Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast states that the fruit is “unpalatable” or “edible but insipid.” I ate one. I found the taste to be okay, but the berries were seedy.

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

River Jewelwing

This damselfly is truly a jewel with its iridescent blue body forged from stardust. The outer third of its wing is sooty—singed by the sun on its cosmic journey to earth. Its legs of wicker form a basket collecting and cradling our dreams. When we reawaken to our connection to nature, we will remember that we are all one.

Water Strider

The small, ephemeral stream that flows off the hillside next to the white oak pavilion is still softly trickling. As I follow the stream up the trail, there are places where the water is continuing to fill shallow pools.

In these pools, oval shadows ringed with light dance around the floor. Creating this celestial event are water striders! Where their feet contact the surface, it makes small dimples that are eclipsing the sun.

Miraculously, the surface tension of the water holds them up. They also have tiny hairs on their feet that trap air bubbles that help them stay buoyant and allow them to easily propel themselves along.

As distant images of the cosmos are streaming into our world from the James Webb telescope, these small pools remind me of the infinite universe contained within our planet earth.

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.

Oceanspray

This striking shrub has been blooming out at the arboretum over the past week. It is aptly named oceanspray with its misty, white clusters of flowers. To me, the flowers cascade like frothy, salt water flowing over rocky shores as crashing waves retreat.

In contrast to its gentle, soft flower clusters, oceanspray also has the common name of Ironwood. The strong, straight branches were used by Native Americans for tools. They fire-hardened the limbs for uses like arrows, digging sticks, and spears.

Interestingly, this plant is common on both sides of the Cascades as it can live in dry to moist areas. It grows in open sites mostly at low to middle elevations.

These overcast, cool mornings over the past week coupled with the blooming oceanspray make a walk at the arboretum feel like a trip to the coast.

Moss and Stone

I want to share with you an excerpt from the book Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer:

“The rocks are beyond slow, beyond strong, and yet yielding to a soft green breath as powerful as a glacier, the mosses wearing away their surfaces, grain by grain bringing them slowly back to sand. There is an ancient conversation going on between mosses and rocks, poetry to be sure. About light and shadow and the drift of continents. This is what has been called the ‘dialectic of moss on stone—an interface of immensity and minuteness, of past and present, softness and hardness, stillness and vibrancy, yin and yang’ (Schenk). The material and the spiritual live together here.”

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. 1st ed, Oregon State University Press, 2003.

Schenk, George. Moss Gardening: Including Lichens, Liverworts, and Other Miniatures. Timber Press, 1999.

Bigleaf Maple - Powdery Mildew

Ick! The bigleaf maple leaves have become coated with powdery mildew as a cool, wet spring wrapped up and transitioned into the warm summer. Why are leaves of bigleaf maples particularly suitable hosts? What effect is this going to have on the ability of the chlorophyll to produce energy for the tree? I guess that photosynthesis will be greatly reduced with this hazy cloud of fungus covering the leaves. It certainly must be stressing the tree. Thus, I start to wonder how much this event affects the vitality or life force of the tree, especially coupled with the very dry conditions of last year.

My other thought is that this fungus is beautiful. Its frosty, white shroud is restoring harmony and balance. Thank you powdery mildew for your role.

The complexity of nature is truly incomprehensible, especially in one, short lifetime. There will always be more to know.

Western Fence Lizard

Meet the Western Fence Lizard. It has radiant blue patches on its sides and the undersurfaces of its legs are yellowish-orange. The adult male has a blue patch on the throat. This lizard can range in color from olive, brownish, or black. It can have a pattern of paired blotches, wavy crossbars down the back, or occasionally some striping.

I have been seeing this beautiful creature on dead snags, stumps, the bases of oak trees, and the small wooden bridges throughout the arboretum. These places allow it to regulate its body temperature and blend into its surroundings as it hunts for prey.

Its diet consists mostly of insects and some spiders. I saw this one eating ants that were crawling around on the stump.

The Western fence lizard is also in the diet of other animals. To escape from predators, it can miraculously shed part of its tail. The dropped tail will wriggle like a living creature, which allows the lizard to escape while the predator is trying to catch the detached tail. The tail usually regrows in 3 to 5 weeks, is never identical to the original, and is almost always shorter.

The male is often seen displaying when it is defending its territory or trying to attract a potential mate. It will flatten its sides to show its blue patches and quickly does up and down movements with its front limbs that look like “push-ups.”

If its radiant blue doesn’t get your attention, this next bit of information that I found on the website of the National Science Foundation might. It states that “In the Western region of the U.S., the Western black-legged tick, or Ixodes pacificus, is the primary vector for Lyme disease bacteria. Up to 90 percent of the juvenile ticks in this species feed on the blood of the Western fence lizard, common in California and nearby states. A previous study by UC-Berkeley entomologist Robert Lane found that a protein in the Western fence lizard's blood killed Borrelia bacteria, and as a result, Lyme-infected ticks that feed on the lizard's blood are cleansed of the disease-causing pathogen.”

Researchers wanted to further test the Western fence lizard’s role in the Lyme disease ecology. They relocated the Western fence lizard from test areas and found “that 95 percent of the ticks that no longer had lizard blood to feast on failed to latch onto another host.” That certainly makes things more complex and interesting. The Western fence lizard both kills the bacteria that causes Lyme disease and also supports a huge population of ticks.

Nature is composed of many interconnected parts, and it can be difficult to see how it all functions together. What I do know for sure is that nature will always be an endless source of wonder, discovery, and learning.

Hope to see you out there.

References
Behler, John L., and F. Wayne King. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians. A Chanticleer Press ed, Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1979.

Numbers of Lyme Disease-Carrying Ticks Plummet in Absence of Western Lizards. https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=118655. Accessed 23 June 2022.

Western Fence Lizard. https://friendsofedgewood.org/western-fence-lizard. Accessed 23 June 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.

Chipmunks Eating Serviceberries

I have been watching the berries ripen on the serviceberry shrub to see if the rust will coat all of them. So far, many of them are untouched. Some are starting to turn red, and a few are turning blue. I first tuned into this with the help of a chipmunk. I heard it nervously chirping, and when I went over to investigate, I saw it running around a serviceberry eating the fruit. I am not sure why it was alarming, but it seems to feel vulnerable in the shrub for some reason. I have noticed it doing this a few times. Another mystery is that it is eating the green berries. Is it richer in a certain nutrient that it craves at the moment? Is it more interested in eating the flesh of the berry, the seeds inside, or both? Anyways, I love watching this little creature scurrying around and investigating the world.

Ring-necked Snake

I wanted to see one of these this summer, and I was pleasantly surprised to find one resting for a moment on the trail the other day.

This snake has a beautiful two-toned coloration. It is slate gray to green above. On its underside and a small ring just behind its head is a striking bright reddish-orange or yellow. When disturbed, it coils the tail upward to reveal the bright underside as a defense strategy to deter a predator. Colors such as red, yellow, and orange are often associated with venomous species. In addition, this flash of color can be used to temporarily confuse a predator while it makes it escape.

On the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) website, it had the following to say about the ring-necked snake:

“The ringneck snake requires moist micro-habitats such as downed logs, rocks, or stumps. It is found in a variety of vegetation types, but is most closely associated with pine-oak woodlands and moist canyon bottoms. It also can be abundant in Willamette Valley grasslands.

These snakes feed mainly on small lizards, snakes and salamanders and also slugs, earthworms, frogs, and insects.”

References
ODFW website - snakes
ODFW Living with Wildlife - Snakes

Osoberries Ripening

The osoberry is a small, native shrub in the rose family and is found throughout the arboretum. It grows in dry to moist open woods and stream banks.

At the moment, the berries are ripening. They begin as peach-colored, turn reddish, and ripen to blue-black. The male and female flowers are on separate shrubs, so you’ll only see the berries on the female shrubs. They grow in small clusters and are about 3/8” in diameter. Its Latin name is Oemleria cerasiformis. Cerasiformis means cherry-shaped, and they are similarly one-seeded. They are a significant food source for many animals.

Walking along the river path, I hear the high-pitched, trilling whistle of the cedar waxwings, and see them as they swoop down to the lower canopy for berries. They will pluck them one at a time and swallow the entire fruit whole. The berries are bitter, but if you watch the cedar waxwings, you might get to see something sweet.

The male will use the berries when courting a female. The Cornell Lab’s website All About Birds had this to say: “During courtship, males and females hop towards each other, alternating back and forth and sometimes touching their bills together. Males often pass a small item like a fruit, insect, or flower petal, to the female. After taking the fruit, the female usually hops away and then returns giving back the item to the male. They repeat this a few times until, typically, the female eats the gift.”

Other birds and animals are also devouring the berries (even though most of them haven’t completely ripened). California ground squirrels are climbing through the shrubs, eating the flesh of the berries and gnawing away the shell of the seed to get the tender morsel inside. I have found many clusters of nibbled shells still attached to the shrub. In addition, robins are gobbling them up, and chipmunks are scurrying through the limbs picking berries.

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

Serviceberry Rust

Serviceberries mostly grow as low-spreading shrubs, but they can also develop into trees up to 30’ tall. They produce edible, sweet fruits that birds, bears, and people eat. This plant is dotted throughout the landscape at the arboretum. I was looking forward to sampling them, and I was also interested to see what birds were eating them. Unfortunately, I found out that an orange fungus likes them too, which renders them inedible. On the other hand, I think that the fungus has a beautiful orange color and an interesting growth pattern. The shapes remind me of small flowers or splashes from tiny water droplets.

So far I haven’t found a serviceberry shrub out at the arboretum that isn’t infected by this rust. I wonder if something is out of balance in the ecosystem that allows this fungus to proliferate. That said, I am hopeful that I will find one somewhere at the arboretum that was missed by the fungus.

Bleeding Heart Seed Pod

The bleeding hearts are forming their seed pods. The pods grow out of the corolla mouth and can be up to 2” long. The seeds are c-shaped, black, and have a pebbled, shiny surface. On one end is a white, oil-rich appendage known as an elaiosome, which is attractive to ants. They will collect the seed to eat the elaiosome and discard it, thus helping to disperse it.

There were 18 seeds in the pod I opened. I took them over to some ants and dropped the seeds in their path. They immediately investigated them, and within about 1 minute, all the seeds were carried off. It is amazing all the interesting ways seeds are spread.

As I looked at the seed more, the shape of it and the white elaiosome (rich in lipids and proteins) attached to the end reminded me of a small fortune cookie. I am sure the ants would agree that it was a fortuitous find.