Reflections

A small stained glass window is resting on a leaf. The opalescent panels shimmer with the slightest breath of wind, reflecting the radiant halo of mother nature. It is a passageway, an opening to a locket. Inside are luminous keepsakes. The song of the Chickadee. An inchworm measuring your arm. A sweep of wind across a meadow. An unrestrained river. An expansive sky. The quaking of Aspen leaves. Drifting clouds. The moon. The chirp of a cricket. A blanket of morning dew. The yawn of a coyote. The warmth of the sun. The falling rain. An old tree. A swimming tadpole. A marching ant. The tapping of a woodpecker. The changing leaves of fall. A starry night. The smell of the ocean. A patch of moss. The track of a deer. You.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.

Chemical Weathering

I found this rock broken in half on a small gravel bar along the river at the arboretum. The rock’s radiant colors and gritty texture gave it a cosmic impression. I felt caught between deciding if something was being created or destroyed.

It turns out that it is both. One way that rocks are broken down to contribute to the formation of fertile soils is through chemical weathering. Rocks that contain iron are highly susceptible to the chemical reaction known as oxidation. When iron is exposed to any type of moisture, the iron atoms react with the oxygen molecules in the air to form iron oxide, also known as rust. The rust will weaken rocks and cause them to crumble. As the rock deteriorates, the small bits of rock and minerals will be carried away by the river and dispersed into the ecosystem.

Pocket Gopher Digging

Pocket gophers are found throughout the arboretum. You can see the evidence of their presence from all of the dirt mounds. In this video, they launch the dirt from their tunnels leaving a fan-shaped mound around the hole. If you are walking slowly and quietly, you can often see one excavating. I am usually able to sit right next to the hole and watch them dig. Their eyesight must be fairly limited from a life spent mostly underground. You will often see them pausing at the surface and sniffing the air. Its sense of smell might be one of its more attuned senses. It is always enjoyable to watch them and get a glimpse of their huge curved teeth.

Cicada Shell

I’ve been hearing the sound of cicadas buzzing as I walk around the arboretum, and I will occasionally see one buzz by me. Hearing them buzz recalls memories of the hot, humid summers of the East Coast where I grew up. There were pine trees around my maternal grandparents’ house that always had these shells attached to the bark—the nymphs crawl out of the soil to molt into an adult, leaving this amazing papery exoskeleton behind. It is a treasure to come across one of these sheds out at the arboretum. It reminds me how nature is powerful at building connections to memories and feelings of my life.

Ants & Aphids

While hunting for acorn weevils, I came across small groups of aphids and ants on the stems of the oak trees. The aphids feed on the sap of plants and secrete a liquid known as honeydew. Ants are drawn to this sugar-rich substance and harvest it as a food source. In return, the ants will protect the aphids from predators like ladybugs. In reading about this symbiotic relationship, I found some fascinating articles. One article talked about one ant species storing the aphid eggs in the colony to protect them over the winter. Another article reported ants moving aphids to other plants to feed and clipping off their wings so they are unable to fly. One article talked about how ants will stroke the aphids with their antennae to stimulate them to secrete honeydew. As a result, some aphid species lost the ability to naturally secrete waste, and depend on ants to do it for them.

This is fascinating! I encourage you to read about the interesting research and discoveries being made about the relationship between ants and aphids. My intentions are always to pique your interest to explore, discover, wonder, enjoy, etc. the natural world. See you out there!

Common Yellowthroat

The Common Yellowthroat is a beautiful bird. The male has an olive-brown body with a striking, black mask that is bordered by a bright yellow throat below and a brush of white above. The female is elegant with an olive-brown body and a gentle yellow wash on her throat, breast, and under tail.

Sometimes this bird is tricky to see. It likes open areas with thick, low vegetation. It usually stays concealed as it shuffles through tall grass, thickets of blackberry, and low-growing shrubs of the meadow. It’s fond of the area past the old Quonset hut in the bristly fields of teasel I call Teaseltown. That is the plant you see it perched on in the photos.

While you patiently wait for a glimpse of this magnificent warbler, listen for its rhythmic, fluid song that Peterson describes as a “bright rapid chant, witchety-witchety-witchety-witch.”

The Common Yellowthroat has a pointy bill that is excellent for gleaning all the nooks and crannies of leaves, bark, branches, etc. Its diet includes spiders and a variety of insects, such as flies, beetles, ants, termites, bees, wasps, grasshoppers, dragonflies, damselflies, moths, butterflies, caterpillars, and other larvae.

In the margin on the website All About Birds, it lists other common names which I think are interesting and fun: Mascarita Común (Spanish) and Paruline masquée (French).

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.

Resources
Common Yellowthroat Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Yellowthroat/overview. Accessed 25 June 2023.

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

Canadian Geese & Goslings

I was sitting on the bank of the river. It was a quiet morning. It was slightly cloudy and the temperature was a little cool. There were bird songs filling the air. The song of the river saturated the background. A family of Canadian Geese was casually floating downstream next to the shore foraging on grass. They were graceful and calm and also keenly watchful of their surroundings for any danger. I often hear their clamorous honking as they fly along the river, but today they are quiet. They are vulnerable to predators. It takes about 10 weeks for a baby to mature and be able to fly. It is nice to see them nesting out here. In my time observing nature over the past few years at the arboretum, I don’t recall seeing them breeding. That said, there is so much life occurring here, and I know that I miss infinitely more than I discover.

Cool Bushtit Nest

Check out this cool bushtit nest. It is attached to some old teasel flower stalks from last year. I have only seen bushtits build nests on trees and shrubs. I am surprised how sturdy these flower stalks still are after enduring a rainy winter and spring. The common teasel is an invasive plant that is native to Europe and temperate Asia. It has swallowed up a sizable area out in the south meadow and is a tough plant to remove from an ecosystem once it has established itself, like what you see at Mt. Pisgah. Anyways, it was cool to see bushtits attaching a nest to old flower stalks. It got me thinking about whether or not there are native plants that could fulfill this role of having old flower stalks being used for building a bird nest on. I like that bushtits are creative and resourceful.

Western Wood-Pewee

For me, the whistling, buzzy pee-wee of the Western Wood-Pewee’s song signals that the warmth and blue skies of summer are here.

Besides establishing territory and attracting a mate, I imagine the song celebrates its miraculous journey and successful arrival at the arboretum. The Western Wood-Pewee is a medium to long-distance migrant that primarily winters in the north and west of South America and travels to North and Central America to breed.

It’s a little, gray bird with a peaked crown that gives its head a triangular shape. It is dapperly dressed in a vest that looks buttoned at the top and has two pale wing bars. The bill is mostly dark with yellow at the base of the lower mandible.

Look for it perched on exposed branches constantly turning its head as it looks for insects. When it spots an insect it will fly out, grab it, and return to the same perch or one nearby. If you listen closely, you can hear the pop of its bill as it snags the insect out of the air. When it lands it will usually flutter its wings slightly as if readying for the next flight. It will eat small insects in midair and bring back larger prey like dragonflies to eat at its perch. I also see them on gravel bars on the river darting around the rocks and gleaning insects.

The nest site is usually at the fork of a horizontal branch. The female builds a compact nest out of small plant fibers and camouflages the outside with lichen, mosses, etc. It is about 3 inches wide and 2.5 inches tall. It can be from near ground level up to 80 feet high! Out at the arboretum, I generally find them at around 20 to 40 feet. As the babies grow up and the nest gets crowded, I get nervous watching them especially if the tree is swaying in the wind.

This is a great bird to get to know. I feel it is very accessible to watch. It will often perch on a lower tree branch near the trail or on old plant stalks.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.

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

Western Wood-Pewee Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Western_Wood-Pewee/id. Accessed 14 June 2023.

Ripe Osoberries

As I walked around the arboretum this week, I have been really surprised to see all of the ripe osoberries. Usually, I am lucky if I can find one that actually ripens enough to eat. When the cedar waxwings show back up at the arboretum, they will descend on these berries and gobble them up before they completely ripen. In years past, it was common to see 3 or 4 cedar waxwings in one osoberry shrub devouring the unripe berries. Also, I usually get lucky enough to see waxwings doing their courtship routine by passing a berry (see blog post: Osoberries Ripening, June 8, 2022), but I haven’t seen many waxwings down in the shrubs so far this year. Maybe they have been there when I haven’t been around. Robins will also eat their fair share too, and I have seen a few robins eating them. I suppose what I am getting at is that there seem to be fewer birds. Maybe there is a more inviting, nutritious food source around that they are eating at the moment. I am not sure. I also saw a chipmunk harvesting them. It was fun to see it pluck one and scurry over to a limb to eat the thin layer of fruit and the seed inside.

Head-scratching Behavior

Quite a few years ago someone gave me a binder they inherited labeled Bird Biology: Seminars from the Laboratory of Ornithology at Cornell University. It is a great resource on the life of birds and a fun read to geek out on. I wanted to share part of it so when you are at your next ornithological cocktail party, you will be able to feel more relaxed and get involved in some nerdy conversations about birds.

“Watch an American Robin on your lawn as it scratches its head. Note that it always passes its leg over a drooped wing, indirectly. All American Robins, as far as we know, scratch their heads in this way. Ovenbirds, on the other hand, always scratch their heads directly by passing the leg in front of the wing. Any behavior that a bird repeats in the same way is stereotyped; any behavior that is the same in all members of a species is species-specific. The indirect head-scratching behavior in the American Robin is stereotyped, species-specific, and probably instinctive.

Because birds no doubt inherit stereotyped, species-specific behaviors, such as the head-scratching behavior in the American Robin, and perform them without preliminary experience or learning, we call them instinctive, or innate. No American Robin learns to scratch its head indirectly; it just does it that way from the first scratch until it dies. Instinctive behavior then is a stereotyped pattern of behavior that the bird inherits. We call these instinctive behavior patterns fixed action patterns.”

Cheers!

Eggshells

In the book What It's Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing--What Birds Are Doing, and Why, David Allen Sibley writes: “If you find a broken eggshell on the ground, the shape of the pieces can give you some information about what happened. If an egg hatches normally, the chick chips away a ring around the widest part of the egg and the egg separates into two halves. The parents then carry the eggshells from the nest and scatter them some distance away. An eggshell cut straight across in this way is likely to be the result of successful hatching nearby. Eggshells in smaller pieces, fragmented or crushed, could be the result of an accident or predation. Given the opportunity, many species of birds and small mammals will eat the contents of an egg and leave the shell behind.”

To me, an eggshell seems like cramped quarters for a baby chick about to hatch out. I am surprised that they take the time and have the ability to chip away a ring around the widest part and cut the egg in half. Amazing!

Cowbird?

On May 21, I wrote about the Brewer’s Blackbird collecting insects by the river. I returned to the gravel bar earlier this week and saw them again collecting insects. This time they were flying over to the nearby willows to feed a begging bird that I could hear but couldn’t quite see. I watched them for a while and the baby bird stayed hidden at the base of willows in the shadows. Eventually, the insatiably hungry juvenile came out to meet the parent foraging nearby, and I got a better look. I thought… Wait a minute, is that a juvenile cowbird? I remembered from my earlier post that Brewer’s Blackbirds will have a clutch size of 3 - 7 eggs. So, should feeding only one bird lead me to be suspicious of cowbird parasitism?

The cowbird egg usually hatches out earlier than the host species. Afterward, they may roll the other eggs out of the nest. Cowbirds will often choose to parasitize smaller birds, so they have the advantage of competing for food with the other baby birds of the host family. They hatched out first, and they are bigger. From what I have read, they can literally starve out the other birds or literally crowd them out of the nest. I looked up juvenile Cowbirds and they look similar to juvenile Brewer’s Blackbirds. Hmm… What do you think? It got me reading and thinking about it more anyways.

Be sure to click on photo to get a better look.

Check out this introductory paragraph from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology Birds of the World: “The Brown-headed Cowbird, North America's best known brood parasite, lays its eggs in the nests of many different species. Originally these ‘Buffalo Birds’ were limited to short-grass plains, where they followed herds of North American Bison (Bison bison) and fed on the insects stirred up by their movement. The Brown-headed Cowbird has since dispersed widely as European settlement in North America opened forests and homogenized the environment into the agricultural and suburban landscapes of today. The expansion of the Brown headed Cowbird has exposed new species and naive populations to brood parasitism, and the pressure on such host populations can be substantial. During the breeding season, female Brown-headed Cowbirds wander widely, overlap the home ranges of other females, and may lay 40 eggs per season.”

Lazuli Bunting

Lazuli Buntings are small finch-like songbirds. Its length is 5.5 inches, which is a pretty small bird. It is smaller than a Western Bluebird (7 in.) and larger than a Lesser Goldfinch (4.5 in). The male is a dazzling blue with a warm orange breast, a white belly, and a prominent white shoulder patch. The female and immature are plain brown with a blue tinge to the wings and tail. They have two buffy wing bars and a pale tan breast. The male perches out in the open while it sings to attract a mate and establish territory. So it is a little easier to see it and capture a photo. The female is a little more challenging to see or photograph because she is usually in a shrub or on the ground.

Peterson describes its habitat as “open brush, grassy hillsides with scattered bushes, riparian shrubs, grassy patches in chaparral, weedy fields and ditches.” The Arboretum has lots of attractive habitats for it. I see them up the creek trail, around the south meadow, and throughout the east side where it is open and shrubby.

To locate this bird, listen for its song and call. Here is Peterson’s description of its voice: “Song a lively, ringing warble, often ending in a quick sputter. Call a sharp spit and a dry buzz.”

All About Birds had this interesting information to think about as you listen to its song: “Just like we each have our own voice, each male Lazuli Bunting sings a unique combination of notes. Yearling males generally arrive on the breeding grounds without a song of their own. Shortly after arriving, they create their own song by rearranging syllables and combining song fragments of several males. The song they put together is theirs for life.”

I love finding a good place to sit and watch this beautiful bird and listen to it sing.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.

Resources
Lazuli Bunting Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Lazuli_Bunting/overview. Accessed 31 May 2023.

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

Oregon White Oak - New Acorns

Well… I remember reading that the male and female flowers are separate inflorescences. The male flowers are hanging catkins and the female flowers are single or in small clusters. I have photos of the male catkins, wanted to take a photo of the female flowers, and I forgot to do it this year. So I have to start creating a calendar of all the photos I want to take for next year so I don’t miss them again.

Anyways, these beautiful new acorns are forming, and I wanted to share them with you. I am on the hunt for acorn weevils so stay tuned for more about acorns.

Red-tailed Hawk Eaten?

Walking along the road out to the barn yesterday, I came across some flies buzzing around something on the ground. It was a pile of some guts that had been slightly flattened by one of the arboretum vehicles. I looked up to the limb above it and saw feathers scattered across it. As I begin to scan the ground below the limb, I saw a leg that had been torn off or broken off that had a big yellow foot and black claws. A feather was on the ground nearby. It was a new feather that was still growing out, which indicates that this might have been a juvenile bird.

What happened here? I looked at feathers online and the color of the feet of large birds of prey, and my best guess at the moment is that it is a red-tailed hawk. I don’t really imagine these birds being preyed upon, and they probably aren’t very often. I could see more new feathers on the limb, so this was probably a juvenile still in the nest or perched on a limb nearby. I thought about what bird lives in the arboretum and is big enough to kill a red-tailed hawk. I looked up the diet of a great horned owl on The Cornell Lab’s All About Birds: “They eat mostly mammals and birds—especially rabbits, hares, mice, and American Coots, but also many other species including voles, moles, shrews, rats, gophers, chipmunks, squirrels, woodchucks, marmots, prairie dogs, bats, skunks, house cats, porcupines, ducks, loons, mergansers, grebes, rails, owls, hawks, crows, ravens, doves, and starlings. They supplement their diet with reptiles, insects, fish, invertebrates, and sometimes carrion.” This is quite an impressive list, and as you can see, hawks are on the menu. All About Birds also had this to say: “Although they are usually nocturnal hunters, Great Horned Owls sometimes hunt in broad daylight. After spotting their prey from a perch, they pursue it on the wing over woodland edges, meadows, wetlands, open water, or other habitats.” The nighttime hunting hours are pretty short this time of year, so maybe an owl was out this morning.

Whatever did this, it certainly perked up my awareness. It had the power to tear the leg off! Yipes!

Western Yellow-bellied Racer

I was walking around to get a better view of a white-breasted nuthatch nest site when I came across this snake sunning itself in this small depression. I was pleased that it allowed me to take a couple of photos and check it out. I have had brief encounters with this snake before as it slid off into the grass, but haven’t really got a good look at one. As the name Racer suggests, this snake is able to slither away at 3.5 miles per hour, which is a pretty fast walking speed.

Contrary to what its Latin name Coluber constrictor mormon suggests, this snake does not kill its prey with constriction. It is a non-venomous snake that captures its prey in its mouth or pins it to the ground and then swallows it alive. Its diet consists of a variety of animals such as small mammals, insects, lizards, snakes, and frogs.

When alarmed, racers will try to imitate rattlesnakes by vibrating their tail and rattling leaves. I read that they can be quite aggressive if approached and they feel threatened or if you try to pick one up. They will bite, defecate, and discharge foul-smelling musk in an attempt to be released.

I didn’t see that it had a yellow belly but read that the color can range from off-white to yellow. I like its nice brown, earth-tone color with a pale, sky-blue wash on its side.

Brewer's Blackbird

Brewer’s blackbirds are collecting copious amounts of mayflies in the shallow water on a partially submerged gravel bar along the river. When they can no longer stuff them in their bills, they fly off across the river and return in mere moments to start gathering another mouthful. Their clutch size is from three to seven, so many begging birds can call out for a meal every time they return to the nest. I watched them for hours, hopping between stones plucking them from crevices or off the top of the water. They are also very adept at swooping up and snatching them out of the air.

The female is a beautiful shale-brown. Her overlapping feathers cascade down her body like deposited mineral-rich silt, which occasionally catches glints of a slightly metallic, greenish sheen on her back. The male is glossy black all over with a starry yellow eye eclipsed by a black pupil. Its body is cloaked in black with iridescent blues on its head turning to greens washing down the back of its body.

I like Peterson’s description of their vocals: “Song a harsh, wheezy, creaking ksh-eee. Call chack.” Sounds like the beginning of a mystery novel: The wind was a harsh, wheezy, creaking “ksh-eee” as it whipped against the weathered wooden boards of the house, straining the nervous, decrepit nails. The loose screen door was bouncing in and out of the jamb with a tiring “chack.” The windows had long been shuttered at the Brewer’s residence since that tragic day.

Warbling Vireo

I love this bird’s soft gaze, and its tranquil, gray body. A sentient being cut from the cloth of a quiet mist drifting through the willows in the cool dawn air. Its song is a warbling stream gently smoothing the surfaces of stones. I reach down into the stream and pick up one. Its fluid rind is soothing and washes over me. It reminds me to take my time and slow down. As I look up, this little bird pops out onto the branch of an osoberry and tugs at my spirit. I follow it to the bank of the river. I sit down, take off my shoes, and put my feet in the water. I splash water on my face and arms. I dig my toes down into the silty shore and squeeze it between my toes.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.

Pacific Sanicle

This plant grows everywhere in the arboretum. It is also known by the common Western Snakeroot. From what I read on the internet, apparently, this plant was used to help with snakebites. The Latin name for this plant is Sanicula crassicaulis. Sanicula comes from the Latin sanare which means to heal (Nature Collective). At the moment, I didn’t find any information on the medicinal qualities of this plant online.

It has yellow flowers (sometimes tinged purple) that are in small, compact, rounded clusters. These flowers are not showy and are probably passed over by most people. I watched a decent-sized patch of this plant the other day for a little while and the only insects I saw visiting it were weevils and one lady beetle. Actually, most of these plants had weevils on them. How does this plant fit into the life cycle of weevils? I expected to find more small insects visiting this flower considering how abundant it is. It is interesting that some plants like Pacific Sanicle have such small flowers that are mostly unnoticeable. Why have they evolved to be so small?

Resources
“Pacific Sanicle.” Nature Collective, https://naturecollective.org/plant-guide/details/pacific-sanicle/. Accessed 14 May 2023.