My day amid the post-breeding feeding flocks --- Monday, August 3, 2009
Many species have finished up breeding for the the season and have started to come together in mixed feeding flocks. It's always fun to work these groups, because they often contain surprises. I ran into several mixed groups today at Sunset Beach Trail while on a dragonfly photo mission... This female Lazuli Bunting was a pleasant surprise. They're rare in the county and they didn't show at the only known breeding spot this year.
I came across several warbler species, including Black-throated Gray and Yellow Warblers.
Both chickadee species, Red-breasted Nuthatch and Brown Creeper were also seen.
And there were at least three Hairy Woodpeckers working the pine snags.
First a mystery shorebird comes to us from our good friends Dave Lauten and Kathy Castelein down Coos Bay way. It was taken through a spotting scope. Note the long bill and long legs...
The second is was taken by me at Mt Hebo. It was with a mixed flock of feeding passerines that included warblers and chickadees.
New County Record - Black Petaltail --- Sunday, July 26, 2009
I was with a group up on the road to Onion Peak today and we came upon a seep that had several (at least 10) BLACK PETALTAILS. I had never seen them in the county before, and it turns out no one else has either. The only other recorded spot in the Coast Range for this species was Mary's Peak and they haven't been seen there in a number of years.
We had them landing on us...
Also seen today, while not new to the county, new to most of us on the trip: the rare Queen of the Forest (Filipendula occidentalis).
I tend to read in jags.I'll go for months without reading anything, then will suddenly get an urge and read 3 or 4 books in the space of weeks.I've been going through one of those reading jags this summer and have several books to recommend.
My preferences run toward non-fiction, so if you’re a John Grisham sort of reader you may not find my list all that interesting…
Your Inner Fish (Shubin 2008) – Dr. Shubin is a paleontologist who found himself teaching comparative anatomy at the University of Chicago.One of his many claims to fame is the discovery of a 375 million year old fossil fish dubbed the Tiktaalik [http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/meetTik.html].This critter has a head like an amphibian, but the rest of its body plan is far more fish-like.It is a transitional fossil.
Starting with the Tiktaalik, Shubin takes the reader on a journey of comparative anatomy, physiology and genetics that ties all life on Earth into an easy to grasp evolutionary package, and he manages to do it without talking down to his readers or losing them in a pile technical jargon.
The Drunkard's Walk (Mlodinow 2008) – If there were one book that folks in these troubled times should be required to read, it's this one.There is no more mistreated field in science than statistics and it's largely because we humans want to believe that everything has meaning and accidents don't happen- that we really do have a statistically significant chance at the lottery, if we just keep playing the same number…
Dr. Mlodinow is a physicist who teaches at CalTech, was a fellow at the Max Planck Institute, and has co-authored a book with Stephen Hawking, but his credits also include writing for MacGyver and StarTrek:TNG.It's probably this eclectic resume that gives Mlodinow the skill set to tackle the fundamental disconnect between the way things happen in our world and the way we often interpret them.He looks at everything from roulette wheels and baseball statistics, to the stock market and demonstrates quite convincingly how each is less about skill, than it is about randomness, normal distributions and standard deviations.And he does it with far more elegance and accessibility than I can do justice to in any review I might try to write.
Living With Bugs (DeAngelis 2009) – This is less a sit down and read cover to cover book than it is a primer on not panicking.There are a lot of bugs out there and a lot of folks selling stuff to spray on them.The pest management industry puts a lot of time and energy into trying to make us feel icky about insects and the net consequence is an environment full of chemicals that are just as icky, if not more so.
Dr. DeAngelis is an entomologist and professor emeritus at OregonStateUniversity.He knows a bit about pest management.Living With Bugs takes a look at the most common "bugs" likely to turn up in one's home and provides a critique of the choices that are out there, focusing on, as DeAngelis puts it, "the least-toxic solutions."
The Dangerous World of Butterflies (Laufer 2009) –Dr. Laufer is a journalist who's spent most of his career reporting on political conflicts in Iraq, and Eastern Europe.Laufer's previous book, an examination issues related to American Soldier's in Iraq, had left him worn out.During a book signing event, he was asked what his next book would be about.He jokingly answered, "flowers and butterflies".The remark did not go unnoticed and soon Laufer is invited to a butterfly sanctuary in Nicaragua where he discovers that even the world of butterflies is full of politics, intrigue, criminality and violence.
Because Laufer is a journalist, rather than a scientist, he avoids the pitfalls that come with being too close to the subject.If anything, he's too objective.I come to many of these issues with my own set of opinions and I found myself wanting him to take a side.He has a frustrating knack for empathy, even for poachers, thieves and Bill O'Reilly.But never in a way that made me want to put the book down and not pick it up again.
Next in the pile River of Doubts (Millard 2005) which, according to the back cover, is an account of Teddy Roosevelt's grand adventure to an unmapped part of the Amazon Wilderness after his final electoral defeat in 1912.
I also read Forty Years Afield (Contreras 2009), but given that I am one of many in his cast of characters for the memoir, I feel my bias would show in any review…
It's orchid season on the North Coast and I've been doing my best to keep up with the surprisingly wide variety of species that can be found in my local patch. Presented here is a photo essay of some of the species I've encountered in the last couple weeks...
Epipactis gigantea (Stream Orchid) at Svensen Island
Platanthera dilatata var. dilatata (White Bog-orchid) at Svenson Island
Listera Cordata (Heart-leaf Twayblade) at Onion Peak
Platanthera leucostachys (Sierra Bog-orchid) at Onion Peak
Piperia Greenei (Greene's Rein-orchid) at Ft Stevens
Corallorrhiza maculata (Pacific Coral-root) at Sahali
Goodyera oblongifolia (Rattlesnake Orchid) at Sunset Beach Trailhead
The Goodyera is about two weeks away from actually blooming and there's still Spiranthes romanzoffiana yet to come up...
UPDATE: Because Wayne asked, I went out to a spot where I knew there was Platanthera stricta (Slender Bog-orchid) and here's a photo of that species from the Shingle Mill 6.5 seep.
ID's of the trickier species come thanks to Kathleen Sayce and the Latin based on the names given in Turner and Gustafson (Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest 2006).
I've been doing seabird counts from the South Jetty of the Columbia River for a while now. These are usually timed counts where I record everything I see from a fixed position on the jetty. It is not unusual to see Brown Pelicans while counting. If you were to go to birdnotes.net and search the database for Brown Pelicans at the South Jetty in July you'd note that a typical count is around 75 and the high count 125. Today I counted 2500; about 2000 on the river beach and another 500 on the ocean or in the air. These kind of numbers are more what I'd expect for September.... It's a lot of pelicans. Pelican numbers on the lower Columbia have been on the increase in the last 5 or so years. Endangered Species protection and several good years for the food fish populations have done their work. But I can't help but think there's something more than that going on. The feeding flock today was right up against the jetty and included large numbers of Double-crested Cormorants, Pacific Loons and Common Murres. There were also the usual kleptoparasites: Heerman's and California Gulls. There was even a lone Sooty Shearwater amidst the throng.
I have a phone call in to my friends at NOAA Fisheries for a current pelican count for 2009. In past years, as many as 12,000 pelicans have roosted at East Sand Island. I'm betting it's a few more than that this year.
One of the special challenges of looking for stream-type salamanders in the OregonCoast range is getting past a stream's natural defenses.Many stream-side wetland plants seem to come with stickers.There's Urtica and salmonberry, several species of currants, all of which can leave nasty bits of thorn under the skin, if you're not watching.
But the species I genuinely dread when I encounter it along a stream is Oplopanax horridum (or horridus, depending on which plant guide you're using).
Don't get me wrong, I actually love the plant. Nothing says "healthy forest understory" quite like Oplopanax. When I see it growing along a rocky stream, I know there's a pretty good chance that I'll find a descent assemblage of stream-type critters including Dicamptodons.
This Plant is heavily armed, however, not just along the stem, but also the leaf petiole and the ribs of the leaves. It is close to impossible to move through without getting whacked. Since it's habitat, I scrupulously avoid cutting or breaking it. This means threading my way through it and I invariably come out of an encounter with welts up and down both arms.
The plant is reputed to have many medicinal properties, not readily noticed by those trying to make a path through it. Both of my native plant sources talk about its uses to Native American of the Pacific Northwest. It was used for everything from a remedy for arthritis to a cure for tuberculosis and adult onset diabetes. Its properties were so well known that it was used as a trade item well into the interior.
Its medicinal properties were so consistently reported to ethno-botanists that it became an early experimental candidate for research in Western medicine. It turns out that the medicinal properties reported by Native Americans hold up to scientific scrutiny. Work done at the University of Illinois has shown that Oplopanax does work against tuberculosis, especially when used in combination with other drugs. Even more amazing, recent studies by the National Institute of Health have isolated compounds in Oplopanax that have an "anti-proliferative" effect on some kinds of cancer cells.
American White Pelicans at on the Lower Columbia --- Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Yesterday afternoon I received a call from Dan Fay who had been sturgeon fishing around Lois Island, east of Tongue Point. He reported seeing a sizable group AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS working the shallows of the outgoing tide. White Pelicans are fairly uncommon this close to the coast. I'd never seen them here before and folks who had usually reported no more than two or three.
I went out to the Twilight Eagle Sanctuary viewing platform on Burnside Rd to see if I could see them without having to get in a boat. Sure enough, 27 white pelican could be seen on the exposed western shoal of Grassy Island. You need a spotting scope, but there they are.
A half a bee, philosophically --- Saturday, June 20, 2009
I spent my morning with pollenators, as has been my wont of late. It is, after all, spring and even in the cooler than average, unsettled weather that's been the norm this season, the pollenators are at work moving pollen from flower to flower.
When the word pollenator comes up, most of us probably think Apis mellifera. What most folks may not know is that the European Honeybee isn't a native to North America. It was brought over in the early 1600's by European settlers and promptly escaped into the wild. European Honeybees have been in the news lately because they seem to be disappearing, the causes are complicated and poorly understood and reported collectively as colony collapse syndrome.
In my forays into the pollenator wilds, I rarely see Apis mellifera and lucky for us, there are plenty of other pollenators on the planet. Most of the species I see are native bumblebees like the orange-rumped Bombus melanopygus pictured above and the big, black Bombus californicus below. But the more one sorts through the bees, the more one starts to notice that not all the bees are bees. There are, in fact, a surprising number of wanna-bees...
So, what is a bee, exactly? Bees are in the order Hymenoptera, but so are ants, wasps and hornets. We can bee generous and lump all hymenoptera together or we can get all technical and claim that only those hymenoptera in the superfamily Apoidea rate as real bees. All hymenoptera are characterized by 2 pair of wings. The forward pair are very much larger than the rear pair. Bees and most wasps have adopted a common look which is a variation on black and yellow banding. This look is generally believed to be a form of warning coloration and it must work, because all sorts of other insects have taken on a remarkably bee-like look, presumably because it fools potential predators. Most of these faux-bees are also pollenators, but some are predators themselves that use their disguises to fit in.
Have a look at the following photos and see if you can sort the bees from the non-bees...
Michelle on Saddle Mountain --- Monday, June 15, 2009
Michelle and I went up Saddle Mountain today under conditions that couldn't have been more perfect. The sky was blue. The temperature was in the mid-60's.
And there were plenty of butterflies.
This was Michelle's second trip up Saddle Mountain. The first was last year and the condition of the trail beyond the Saddle was sufficiently dubious to keep her worried dad from letting her make the final assault. But this year was different. Considerable improvements have been made to the final quarter-mile so we went to the top.
We counted butterflies on the way down including 8 MOSS' ELFINS and 3 GREAT ARCTICS. Great Arctics only fly in odd years on Saddle Mountain, they spend 2 years as larvae. These were bright and fresh, clearly the first of the season.
We also saw big numbers of a funny-looking little moth called Adela septentrionella, or the OCEAN-SPRAY FAIRY MOTH. The males have antennae longer than their bodies, quite comical.
20 Years with the North American Breeding Bird Survey --- Sunday, June 14, 2009
I just finished my 20th season of counting for the North American Breeding Bird Survey.The weather was overcast with temperatures in the high 40's. I saw 62 species and 542 individuals. It was by most measures an average year...
Twenty years ago, I was asked by Harry Nehls if I was available to do the Svensen Route (OR069-042), the only route in ClatsopCounty.This route started way up on California Barrel Rd. above Hwy 202 and dropped down into the Big Creek drainage, went through the community of Svensen and finished on Waterhouse Rd near the Columbia River.The route had been selected by somebody at USGS based on what they thought they saw on a topographic map and general rules about placement they had with regard to latitude and longitude.
It was always kind of a scary route to do, because the upper third was made up of private logging roads with active logging operations, wash-outs, tank-traps and all sorts of other stuff outside a surveyor's control.Between the 1992 survey and the coming 1993 survey, gates went up on all the private roads in the county.The reasons were complicated and political, but the bottom line for me was that I wasn't going to get a key to the upper parts of the route and the Svensen BBS was going to have to be discontinued.
All was not lost, however.After a lengthy telephone conversation with the folks at Patuxent, we were able to build a new route east of the old one along the Nicolai Mt mainline, a road that was under Oregon State Forestry control and unlikely to ever be gated.This new route had many things in common with the original route, including fairly stable state forests, private timber clearcuts and extensive, open bottom land.The primary feature missing was a major stream like Big Creek meaning I'd no longer be listing American Dippers.
I have now been doing the Nicolai Mt BBS (OR069-142) since 1993.
You might ask what I've learned from twenty years counting along a 50-stop, 25-mile transect. The first 24 stops of the route run through working forests, some managed by the state, other by private interests. In twenty years, clearcuts have appeared, been replanted and grown up young trees. Over the last 10 or so years, state managers have been opening up denser stands and allowing for understory development. This may explain the apparent increase in Hammond's Flycatchers.
I average about 62 species per year, about 625 individuals.The total route list stands at 98 species.Most species fluctuate in numbers from year to year some more wildly than others, but a few show statistically significant changes.Amercan Goldfinch numbers, for example appear to be declining…
…while Yellow Warbler numbers are on the increase.
The regional trend for both species is downward, however, which speaks to the larger issue of local trends vs trends at a larger scale.Claims that we might make about our own backyards, may stand in contrast to the bigger picture.
My plan is to continue with my Nicolai Mt BBS until I start failing the Golden-crowned Kinglet test, at which point I will hopefully be able to hand it off to someone else.I'm not sure that everyone is cut out to be a Breeding Bird Surveyor.One needs to have good hearing and a very good ear for regional bird songs, calls and dialects.It's not really something you can learn as you go.But if you do think you have the skills and the time, there are plenty of routes still available.All you need to do is ask.
you should have the s-car go... --- Saturday, June 13, 2009
The snails are running and I managed to catch a bit of the action this morning. I haven't got them all confidently ID'd yet. The first photo is Monadenia fidelis, the Columbia Side-band, and I'm pretty sure the second is as well. The other two are still being analysized...
Come for the butterflies, stay for the wildflowers --- Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Steve Warner, Kathleen Sayce and I went up Saddle Mt. today. NOAA had promised partly cloud skies and light winds. Instead, we got intermittent showers and winds between 15 and 20mph. This made for less than spectacular butterfly weather, but there were plenty of wildflowers to distract us.
The Frigid Shootingstar (Dodecatheon austrofrigidum) was everywhere and at near peak bloom.
And we weren't actually skunked on butterflies. We got to see at least six individuals of our target species: Moss's Elfin. As well as a few Pacific Fritillaries.
I try to get out once every couple weeks when the weather is right to check on butterfly numbers in some of the better butterfly spots. Today was sunny and temperatures in the best places was in the low 70's.
I found PURPLISH COPPERS and EASTERN TAILED BLUES at Lee Wooden meadows near Fishhawk Falls. And RED ADMIRABLES in a couple places.
I also managed a pretty fair picture of a picture of Bombus melanopygus, or orange-rumped bumblebee checking out a lupine.
My butterfly day list included:
4 Clodius Parnassian 2 Western Tiger Swallowtail 3 Pale Swallowtail 40+ Margined White 1 Purplish Copper 1 "elfin" sp. 5 Spring Azure 6 Eastern Tailed Blue 14 Pacific Fritillary 4 Mylitta Crescent 1 California Tortoiseshell 1 Painted Lady 2 Red Admirable 1 Cœnurgina cœrulea noted Rheumaptera subhastata noted Mesoleuca sp.
A trip to Malheur rarely stays purely bird focused. The watchful naturalist should be able to find all sorts of critters without feathers.
Below we have Pituophis catenifer [syn. P. melanoleucus] which has an inferiority complex. As a means of defense it works very hard to convince enemies that it is something other than what it is by flattening its head and recoiling into a threatening posture. It has false eyes that accentuate the illusion that it is more dangerous than it is. The banding on the end of its tail is different than its back pattern and the tail vibrates while the snake hisses a remarkably rattle-like hiss. It also strikes and bites.
Try as we might we were unable to find the pretender's role model...
You may have to turn a few boards to find Paruroctonus boreus which doesn't have to pretend. It is what it is This critter is not generally considered deadly, though that depends a great deal on where it sticks you...
Malheur in the afternoon --- Saturday, May 23, 2009
The magic of Malheur is not in the occasional rare Eastern vagrant, but rather in the Malheur-common things that one gets to study at a resolution seen nowhere else. BOBOLINKS are found at Malheur in remarkable densities and this year they were remarkably camera-cooperative.
There's nothing like Malheur NWR in the morning, just as the sun is peeking over the horizon and the birds are all talking at once. My morning ritual for the early morning is to go out into the sagebrush and stalk sparrows, my favorite being the always lovely Black-throated Sparrow. My goal in life is to catch one where the lighting AND the focus come together...
Natural History along the Oregon North Coast, with side trips to other parts of the Pacific Northwest and the occasional digression into the philosophical esoterica of things sciencey...
This female Lazuli Bunting was a pleasant surprise. They're rare in the county and they didn't show at the only known breeding spot this year.
Epipactis gigantea (Stream Orchid) at Svensen Island
Platanthera dilatata var. dilatata (White Bog-orchid) at Svenson Island
Listera Cordata (Heart-leaf Twayblade) at Onion Peak
Platanthera leucostachys (Sierra Bog-orchid) at Onion Peak
Piperia Greenei (Greene's Rein-orchid) at Ft Stevens
Corallorrhiza maculata (Pacific Coral-root) at Sahali
Goodyera oblongifolia (Rattlesnake Orchid) at Sunset Beach Trailhead
Pelican numbers on the lower Columbia have been on the increase in the last 5 or so years. Endangered Species protection and several good years for the food fish populations have done their work. But I can't help but think there's something more than that going on.
The feeding flock today was right up against the jetty and included large numbers of Double-crested Cormorants, Pacific Loons and Common Murres. There were also the usual kleptoparasites: Heerman's and California Gulls. There was even a lone Sooty Shearwater amidst the throng.
Don't get me wrong, I actually love the plant. Nothing says "healthy forest understory" quite like Oplopanax. When I see it growing along a rocky stream, I know there's a pretty good chance that I'll find a descent assemblage of stream-type critters including Dicamptodons.
This Plant is heavily armed, however, not just along the stem, but also the leaf petiole and the ribs of the leaves. It is close to impossible to move through without getting whacked. Since it's habitat, I scrupulously avoid cutting or breaking it. This means threading my way through it and I invariably come out of an encounter with welts up and down both arms.
I spent my morning with pollenators, as has been my wont of late. It is, after all, spring and even in the cooler than average, unsettled weather that's been the norm this season, the pollenators are at work moving pollen from flower to flower.
Moss' Elfin
Great Arctic
Adela septentrionella
I just finished my 20th season of counting for the 
Monadenia fidelis, the Columbia Side-band, and I'm pretty sure the second is as well. The other two are still being analysized...
See this morning at Camp Kiwanilong (near Ft Stevens).
As well as a few Pacific Fritillaries.
I found PURPLISH COPPERS and EASTERN TAILED BLUES at Lee Wooden meadows near Fishhawk Falls.
And RED ADMIRABLES in a couple places.
This critter is not generally considered deadly, though that depends a great deal on where it sticks you...
BOBOLINKS are found at Malheur in remarkable densities and this year they were remarkably camera-cooperative.
My morning ritual for the early morning is to go out into the sagebrush and stalk sparrows, my favorite being the always lovely Black-throated Sparrow. My goal in life is to catch one where the lighting AND the focus come together...
