Cottonwood Explorations

The black cottonwoods sustained considerable damage during the recent ice storm and thousands of limbs that broke off during the storm are lying on the ground along the river. It is heartbreaking to see all the damage, but there is one fortunate side to this story. Some of the trees that fell over still have some roots in the ground which supply enough nutrients to keep them growing. As spring arrived, these trees sent out the male and female flower catkins. This is a great opportunity to see the flowers up close which are normally out of reach on the tree where you can’t easily view them. Black cottonwoods are dioecious, meaning the male and female flowers are on separate trees.

The female flower is interesting. The most obvious feature is the curvy, fleshy, yellow parts projecting out of the top which I interpreted as the stigma that receives the pollen. I took a photo of it drying out and turning brown which gave me a better understanding of its shape. Underneath this is a green, fuzzy capsule that is firm to the touch. I cut one in half to look inside. The walls were thick and a bundle of seeds were nestled inside. This capsule will become brown, split open, and release small seeds with white, fluffy parachutes. When the seeds are being let go it looks like snow blowing around through the air.

The males have 40 - 60 stamens that start as small, red pods. The catkin will continue to grow and elongate. Upon maturity, the red pods split open and release small dust clouds of yellow pollen.

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

Downy Woodpecker

There are limbs and piles of debris lying around throughout the arboretum since the ice storm. Many birds are hopping through them and using them for cover and searching for food. I enjoyed watching this Downy Woodpecker investigate some of the fallen dead branches.

In the first photo, it appears that both feet briefly left the limb as he struck it. Like in the previous post, a bird’s movements happen in the blink of an eye, so I feel some actions are only observable by capturing them with a photo. It is interesting to see him seemingly throw his whole body into it as he forcefully struck the limb.

As he chipped away the bark, I occasionally saw him trying to pull off pieces of bark to get underneath. He was so determined as he tugged on them.

As he went along, he circled the whole branch. While clinging underneath, he easily moved along as he poked and searched for food.

This bird has a great spirit and is fun to watch. Happy birding!

Bewick's Acrobatics

The other day I was snapping a few photos of a Bewick’s Wren singing. When I got home and looked at the photos, I saw this one. It is out of focus, but it captured the wren launching from the branch and doing an interesting maneuver. It was twisting its body to where its feet are towards the sky as it looks downward as it flies to a lower perch. I can’t figure out why it would flip over like this as it took off. Maybe it flipped over and did a full twist. I don’t know. Little birds like wrens and kinglets dart so quickly through the branches that they might do tricky, acrobatic moves like this all the time. These movements happen so fast that you aren’t able to notice them. Maybe he was showing off for a female that was watching nearby.

According to my dad, Founder of the Odell Society of Weiner Stand Hijinks and Oddball Medicolegal Terminology of Unexplainable Ailments, he might have the “Hygolican Flips!”

Dandelion

If I look around enough, I feel as if I could find a dandelion blooming any time of the year. As the first day of spring approaches, they are starting to bloom and soon they will blanket vacant lots, the sides of roads, untidy alleyways, parts of unmown lawns, my garden, and along some of the trails out at the arboretum.

The flowers are bright, yellow bursts that attract many insects looking for pollen and nectar. They are edible and on occasion, I have made little fritters from them. I have also made dandelion wine from the flowers too. The leaves are edible and nutritious. The root can also be roasted and ground to make a hearty beverage.

The reason I set out to make this post was to show you that the flower stalks are hollow and if you pick the flower, the stalk will ooze this milky, white substance. This is one of the characteristics that help you identify them.

Also, keep an eye on this plant as it forms its seed heads. They attract lots of birds like juncos, sparrows, and goldfinches. Last spring I was on the campus of Oregon State on a cool, blustery day and watched goldfinches all around campus foraging on dandelion seeds. There were small patches throughout the landscape that had escaped the groundskeepers. One of their superpowers is being able to duck under a lawnmower! Dandelions rock!

Accipter Action

When out birding it can be tough to distinguish between a coopers hawk and a sharp-shinned hawk. They are hawks that can whiz by you before you get a good look. I believe this one to be a Cooper’s Hawk that has caught a Northern Flicker. I put the measurements of the three birds below so you could compare them. The following data was taken from All About Birds by The Cornell Lab.

Measurements: Coopers Hawk
Male Length: 14.6-15.3 in (37-39 cm)
Female Length: 16.5-17.7 in (42-45 cm)

Measurements: Sharp-shinned Hawk
Both Sexes: Length: 9.4-13.4 in (24-34 cm)

Measurements: Northern Flicker
Both Sexes: Length: 11.0-12.2 in (28-31 cm)

In the photo, it appears to me that the hawk is considerably larger than the flicker. The Cooper’s Hawk has a more squared head than the Sharp-shinned Hawk which has a smaller, rounder head. Both birds can be seen out at the arboretum. Most of the time I hear the alarm calls of songbirds to clue me into the presence of a Cooper’s or Sharp-shinned hawk. It is amazing to watch the speed and agility of these birds as they navigate through the landscape in pursuit of prey.

I am putting a link to an informative page by The Cornell Lab that compares the two hawks side by side. Click here.

Good luck and happy birding.

Sunning

Birds need to care for their feathers. They are important for such functions as flight, attracting mates, camouflage, regulating body temperature, and keeping dry.

On warm, sunny days out at the arboretum I will occasionally catch a Steller’s Jay or an American Robin performing an interesting behavior called sunning. This maintenance behavior isn’t completely understood but seems to be largely associated with removing parasites, such as lice, living on their skin and feathers. Studies have shown that exposing the feathers to direct sunlight can allow them to heat up enough to kill some of the lice. In addition, lice might move to escape the heat possibly making it easier to clear them away during preening, which often follows a session of basking in the sun.

While scientists continue to unravel this mystery of sunning, one thing for sure is that we will all continue to marvel at the beautiful diversity of the colors and patterns of bird feathers.

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

Resources
Hot, Bothered, and Parasite-Free: Why Birds Sun Themselves | Audubon. 27 Feb. 2020, https://www.audubon.org/news/hot-bothered-and-parasite-free-why-birds-sun-themselves.

Sibley, David. What It’s Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing -- What Birds Are Doing, and Why. Alfred A. Knopf, 2020.

Big Leaf Maple Bark

I love the young bark of bigleaf maples. The green and white stripes on the surface are broken and cracked creating a beautiful pattern that reminds me of the skin of a watermelon.

The young stems of trees can be green and it is usually in the beginning of growth. From my observation, this can last for years before the bark thickens and starts to turn gray or brown in most trees. The stem pictured here is a sprout growing from the base of a big leaf maple, and I estimated it to be around seven years old or more. According to the Oregon Wood Innovation Center of Oregon State University, a bigleaf maple can reach 300 years of age, so I count this as still beginning growth.

Chlorophyll is the green pigment, present in all green plants that is responsible for the absorption of light to provide energy for photosynthesis. So I imagine that the stem of this tree can photosynthesize. I wonder if photosynthesis in young stems occurs just as much in the winter when the stems aren’t mostly covered in the shade of the canopy of leaves as in the summer.

Stomata are small pores on leaves that play a central role in photosynthesis by allowing carbon dioxide to enter the leaf and oxygen to exit the leaf. So my next thought was how does the exchange of gases occur in the stem if it is photosynthesizing?

The Royal Horticultural Society had this to say on their website: “Leaves and soft, green stems have living cells in contact with the air, and they can absorb oxygen for respiration directly through their surface. However, the bark of woody stems is impervious to gases, so to get oxygen to the active tissue beneath, it is perforated by pores called lenticels.”

In the photo above, I think the woody little bumps are lenticels. When reading about lenticels, the articles were about them absorbing oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide and water vapor during respiration. I haven’t found any articles involving lenticels and photosynthesis yet. As a side note, I thought that it was interesting that apples, potatoes, and avocados have lenticels too.

I am still researching photosynthesis in the green bark of trees, but I thought I would share some of what I have learned so far to get you interested in reading about it too.

Resources
Bigleaf Maple (Acer Macrophyllum) | Oregon Wood Innovation Center. https://owic.oregonstate.edu/bigleaf-maple-acer-macrophyllum#:~:text=Size%2C%20Longevity%2C%20and%20Form&text=Bigleaf%20maple%20is%20moderately%20long,after%2050%20to%2070%20years. Accessed 20 Feb. 2024.

How Plants Breathe / RHS Gardening. https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/understanding-plants/how-plants-breathe. Accessed 20 Feb. 2024.

Check this out. Out in the south meadow, some bigleaf maples are growing out in the full sun and the young bark on the stems is red. Can these photosynthesize too? Why are they red?

White-breasted Nuthatch

The white-breasted nuthatch is one of my favorite birds, and its curious, carefree spirit is an essential part of the oak savanna habitat of the arboretum. I always look forward to hearing its vocalizations and watching it hop and skip around on a tree.

It has an interesting behavior of moving headfirst down a tree as it forages. It will often pause and tilt its head back to have a glance at its surroundings. In David Sibley’s book What It Is Like to Be a Bird he says this about how nuthatches move around a tree:
”They do not use their tail for a brace when climbing—just their two feet clinging with sharp claws. The hind toe is particularly important for clinging, and it’s relatively large and strong. Usually they position one foot above the other so that the lower foot acts as a brace while the upper foot clings to the bark. This allows them to move easily up or down the trunk and at all angles on branches.”

It primarily eats insects, insect larvae, and spiders. They have pointy bills for probing into bark furrows and beds of moss and lichen growing on the tree. It also eats nuts and seeds. They love to retrieve bits of acorns from the parking lot that have been run over by cars. It will wedge a piece of acorn in the bark of a tree to hold it while it breaks off pieces to eat or will stash it for later. I also see it collect seeds like Douglas-fir.

Peterson describes its voice as: “Song a rapid series of low, nasal whistled notes on one pitch: whi, whi, whi, whi, whi, whi or who, who, who, etc. Notes of birds in interior West higher pitched and given in rapid series. Call a distinctive nasal yank, yank, yank; also a nasal tootoo.”

This is a fun bird to watch and get to know. I posted about this bird a couple of years ago and wanted to repost it. I hope to see you out there.

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

Sibley, David. What It’s Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing -- What Birds Are Doing, and Why. Alfred A. Knopf, 2020.

White-Breasted Nuthatch Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/White-breasted_Nuthatch/overview. Accessed 15 Feb. 2024.

Oak Leaves

Check out these oak leaves that I put in a slideshow. I collected them off the ground under a cluster of oak trees. I was so surprised and fascinated by the amount of variation in shape. I wondered how the field guides on my shelf described the leaf’s shape. Here’s how four different books define it:

Cascade-Olympic Natural History:
“…deeply pinnately blunt-lobed.”

Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast:
“…deeply round-lobed oak leaves.”

Trees to Know in Oregon:
“Pinnately lobed with 7-9 rounded lobes; lobes often irregular.”

Trees and Shrubs of the Pacific Northwest: “…oval to egg-shaped… edges deeply lobed, lobes and leaf tip rounded.”

I searched for the term pinnately lobed and the University of Texas at Austin defined it as: “PINNATELY LOBED: lobes are arranged on either side of a central axis, like a feather.”

Having never seen an Oregon White Oak leaf, would you have visualized these leaf shapes in the photos based on the definitions from these books? Also, having seen an Oregon White Oak tree, what leaf shape would you have drawn from memory?

References
Botany Basics: Understanding Leaves. https://biodiversity.utexas.edu/news/entry/leaves. Accessed 10 Feb. 2024.

Jensen, Edward C., et al. Trees to Know in Oregon. Rev. April 2005., Oregon State University, 2005.

Mathews, Daniel. Cascade-Olympic Natural History. Raven Editions in conjunction with the Audubon Society of Portland, 1988.

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

Turner, Mark, and Ellen E. Kuhlmann. Trees & Shrubs of the Pacific Northwest. First edition, Timber Press, 2014.

A Tree Inside a Tree

Scattered across the ground, are heaps of branch tips of big leaf maples that broke off during the ice storm. I picked one up and admired its shape, color, and texture. I sat down, did a brief sketch of it, and continued to admire its beauty. Afterward, I cut a cross-section to see what it looked like inside. To my surprise, I found a small tree enshrined in a kind of mandorla. (In Italian it means almond. In religious art, it’s the almond-shaped aureole of light surrounding the entire figure of a holy person like the Virgin Mary.)

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

Onset of Spring

Soft, white lights illuminate the wetlands. They twinkle like stars, guiding us through the grays of winter. I imagine moths dancing around their gentle flames in the night. They are brushes waiting to dip their bristles into the paint pot of spring.

Flares of green are igniting across the hillside. Cascading, white lamps emit rays of light and levity. The renewal of spring is beginning to shine.

Willow Catkin Emerging

I wanted to post some photos of willow catkins emerging because I found their forms, colors and textures so elegant.

Alders Blooming Part II

The female catkins are in a small cluster above the male catkins. The females are about a quarter of an inch long. That’s fairly tiny and easily overlooked, especially if they are dangling from branches above your head. In the photo, you can see the red styles protruding out from underneath the green scales. This will form a small woody “cone” about an inch long with winged nutlets inside. “Cone” is in parenthesis because it seems that this word is reserved for the fruit of conifers. The “cones” of the alder are referred to as strobiles.

Alders are wind-pollinated and the female flowers do not produce nectar. The insects are drawn to the pollen of the male catkins.

The woody strobiles in the photos are still hanging on the tree from last season.

Alders Blooming

Sunday’s high was 69 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celcius). It’s kind of hard to believe since it was only two weeks ago that we had below-freezing temperatures and a brutal ice storm.

Alders are blooming. I want to say this one is a white alder, but, for me, they can be tricky to tell apart from red alders in the winter. Anyways, there were many of these cool syrphid flies with black and yellow bodies roaming around on the catkins eating pollen. This must be a very appreciated food source for this time of year. I read that some species overwinter as adults, which this one seems to be doing. They were cooperative in allowing me to look at them and take their photo. There were also lots of honeybees collecting pollen. I could see yellow pollen baskets or saddlebags clinging to their back legs. I found two other flies on the catkins too and they were a little more jumpy if you got too close or moved too fast. Other small flies were on the catkins but they are small and are easily stirred into flight. I saw a jumping spider catch one of them and crawl out onto a twig with it.

It’s interesting how many insects are still active and how many plants bloom in winter.

Red-flowering Currant

I was making a cup of tea the other day and the little square tag attached to the teabag had this quote on it by Lao Tzu: “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” I agree, earthtime is slow. That said, I am often surprised every spring by flowers that have seemingly appeared overnight! So, I want to introduce you to one of my favorite plants early so you can tune in and watch as it starts to grow. The buds on the one in my backyard are already starting to open.

Meet the red-flowering currant. This native shrub has vibrant, pink flower clusters for which the plant is named. The flowers are a welcome splash of color in early spring, a great source of nectar, and are visited often by bumblebees and hummingbirds.

Ripe in early summer, the berries are blue-black with a white, waxy bloom. Its frosty, cool surface reminds me of a celestial life form that 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 find the taste to be okay, but the berries are seedy.

The leaves are 1.5 - 4 inches, 5-lobed, and form an elegant shrub that can grow from 5 to 12 feet tall.

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

Resources
Mathews, Daniel. Cascade-Olympic Natural History. Raven Editions in conjunction with the Audubon Society of Portland, 1988.

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

Arboretum Closed After Ice Storm

Ice storms are a powerful force of nature. The weight of all the ice coating the limbs is a tremendous load to bear. In the wake of this recent storm, many trees have fallen or were severely damaged. It’s heartbreaking to see and difficult to process. Mt. Pisgah Arboretum and Lane County Parks are forming a plan to start clearing the paths and healing this cherished place where so many people come to renew their spirits in nature. The websites and social media pages of Mt. Pisgah Arboretum and the Lane County Parks are the best ways to stay informed about this process.

Twice-stabbed Lady Beetle

I found this interesting lady beetle the other day in the redwood grove. Its entire body is a shiny, polished black, which gives it a well-armored look and feel. Its wings each have a bold red-orange spot that is kind of blotchy and not a well-formed circle.

The different species can be difficult to tell apart. Iowa State University’s BugGuide had this to say: “Several species of Chilocorus in western North America cannot be separated by external features, along with an introduced species. C. stigma is also best included in this grouping for those on the boundary of known ranges.” I wonder how they decide on a different species, especially if they can’t be separated by external features.

The introduced Kuwana’s lady beetle (Chilocorus kuwanae) pretty much looks identical to Chilocorus stigma, a native to the U.S. and Canada. Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences writes: “ Spots of C. kuwanae tend to be deep red and rectangular and located near the center of the wing. In contrast, spots of C. stigma tend to be more orange-yellow, round and oriented more toward the head of the beetle.” Again, there are very subtle differences in differentiating between the two that seem like it could be difficult to tell in the field.

My focus quickly started to shift away from the quagmire of identification to wonder and appreciation of nature. Like other lady beetles, they are beautiful and beneficial insects that help maintain the balance of nature by eating other insects, such as aphids and scale insects. See you out there!

Bird's Nest Fungus

The last few days the weather has been exciting with dark skies full of drenching rain approaching on the horizon. As the storms moved past, the sun bobbed in and out of residual clouds of foamy whites and ponderous grays wading across the sky. Rays of light illuminated beads of rain hanging on the branches, and tiny spectrums were refracted on their surfaces. As I sat watching the droplets fall from the canopy, I discovered a small caldron brimming with magical coins nestled on the forest floor—a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Winter is Springing

Even though winter has just begun, many plants are slowly beginning to sprout and grow in the hillside forest and the wetlands. The wrapped leaves of the giant trillium are pushing up through the soil. The first leaves of Nuttall’s toothwort are formed and scattered across the landscape. The paw-print-like leaves of the western snakeroot are a vibrant green. The toothed leaves of the purple snakeroot are spreading open. The feathery leaves of cicely have nudged their way up through the layers of decaying leaf litter. The waterleaf is starting to form its carpet of greenery. There are small bouquets of larkspur arranged throughout the wetlands. A patch of stinging nettles is starting to develop.

I love all of the different shapes and shades of green.

Incense Cedar Branch Tip Mystery

The male cones of the incense cedar are out by the millions, literally, and they are starting to release their pollen. The male cones are small but they are easy to see. If the male cones are out releasing pollen, then the female cones must be around too. They are not as obvious, and I used Oregon State University’s incense-cedar webpage to help me out with identifying them.

If you look at the first photo below, you can see the light brown male cones and on the end of the branch, you can see the female cones. I took a few close-ups of the female cones to show you the small compact, rosette of leaves that forms a small nodule at the tip. They start to turn slightly yellow as they form.

I decided to cut one open to see what it looked like inside. To my surprise, the first ones I cut open were slightly discolored and had a small, orange caterpillar inside. I started to wonder if this caterpillar was causing the little nodule on the tip of the branch. I eventually found one that didn’t have the caterpillar inside. It is the fourth photo below and it appears that it contains some sort of ovaries to receive the pollen. That photo was taken with a macro lens that I fit over my phone. I wanted a more magnified image, and I tried looking at the cone under a microscope in the nature center at the arboretum. They were pretty much the same as my macro lens. Plus the microscopes are fairly old and the image quality wasn’t as good as I would have liked.

I have continued to open these female cones and every one of them has contained that caterpillar. I didn’t want to pick anymore off the tree so I looked on the ground in the golden carpet of male cones that had fallen off. Mixed in are a bunch of the female-looking cones and the few that I opened had the orange caterpillar inside. So far, I have only been able to find that one cone that didn’t contain a caterpillar.

So, at the moment I still have mysteries to solve, questions to answer. What is that orange caterpillar going to become? Were the eggs laid inside the female cones or do tips with the caterpillars look similar to the female cones at this point? I also want to know why so many male cones are dropping off the tree, has all of their pollen been released already? There are so many falling off the trees at the moment, that you can see them bouncing off the ground and feel them pelting the top of your hat. Why are the tips with the female caterpillars being dropped too? Will the caterpillar survive on the ground? Is this part of its life cycle?

I’ll keep you posted when I find out anything. Nature is an inexhaustible source of mysteries and wonder. I hope to see you out there.