Spotted Towhee
by Don Boucher

When I imagine an ideal summer day I think of puffy clouds drifting by, soft breezes and swallows in the sky. I imagine myself relaxing in the shade on the edge of a meadow near an oak woodland. In the nearby shrubs I hear a recognizable rustle in the leaf litter. It’s a familiar companion, a Spotted Towhee. Her mate is singing about 20 yards away on an arching blackberry cane. She calls to him periodically with a nasal “mewing” sound.
Spotted Towhees are common, handsome birds, and I always find their presence a delight. Every blackberry patch or dense shrubby area seems to have a resident towhee. They’re a little shy and prefer to stay within the thickets or close to the ground nearby. Nevertheless, they easily become accustomed to the presence of people who move quietly and gently. Those with bird feeders and bird baths get to know Spotted Towhees. One can lounge in the yard and get to see the resident towhee in its favorite shady spots. That’s one of the benefits of taking up birding as a pastime—success can be achieved by being lazy. Some of the best birding happens when you’re patient and calm, and you get to see birds go about their business as if you were just part of landscape. Spotted Towhees are good subjects for this.
Formerly known as the Rufous-sided Towhee, the species was split into Eastern and Spotted Towhees. The Eastern Towhee ranges from the central Great Plains states to the East Coast from Maine to Florida. The Spotted Towhee ranges from the mountains of Guatemala and Mexico to southwest Canada, as far east as the Dakotas, and west to the Pacific Coast. There are nine subspecies of the Spotted Towhee north of Mexico and twelve throughout Mexico. Our subspecies is Pipilo maculatus oregonus and its range is approximately along the Pacific Coast to the Western Cascades from north of the Rogue Valley to southern British Columbia. There are three other Oregon subspecies. P. m. curtatus ranges from the east slope of the Cascades eastward. P. m. falcifer and falcinellus are mostly California subspecies that range to extreme southwest Oregon.
Subspecies differ in slightly in appearance but on their range boundaries birds are intermediate. Spotted Towhees in the east of their range (the Great Plains) have the largest and most numerous white spots on the wings and back. Dry climate subspecies are generally lighter while those in wet climates are darker. Our Northwest
P. m. oregonus has the smallest and fewest white spots, with the deepest black and rusty coloring. Mexican subspecies are particularly variable and may have dull or greenish backs.
Look for a black hood, back, wings and tail. The bill is slaty gray and the eye is red. There are white spots on the wings, back and outer tail feathers. There is a central white band from the breast to under the tail base. The sides of the belly (flanks) are cinnamon red.
The female has the same basic plumage of the male, but the black is grayer and the cinnamon is paler.
Young Spotted Towhees may emerge from the nest in late May. This fledgling has streaks on its breast and is lighter in color than the adults. Photo courtesy of Greg Gillson.
In our area Spotted Towhees are year-round residents. The subspecies in the northern Rocky Mountains and northern Great Plains (P. m. arcticus) spend the winter at lower elevations or lower latitudes.
Towhees are sparrows that have long tails. The Spotted Towhee is the only towhee species in our bioregion, but elsewhere in Oregon there are Green-Tailed Towhees and California Towhees.
They eat insects and other small invertebrates in the top layers of soil. They also eat seeds gathered mostly from the ground and small fruits when available. They like acorns, but the relatively large nuts pose a challenge. If you put out seed for your towhee friends, remember that they prefer platform feeders or areas beneath finch feeders where seeds fall. Place feeders near shrubs to attract towhees.
Like other sparrows, Spotted Towhees gather food by scratching through soil and leaf litter. There are other food gathering methods but the scratching method is characteristic of the Spotted Towhee. When I hear rustling around in the underbrush, it is often a Spotted Towhee. The quick, back-and-forth hopping and scratching is recognizable.
You need not listen for rustles under the bushes to identify a Spotted Towhee by sound. The call note, which is a sound made any time of year by males and females alike, is consistent and reliably unique to identify the species. It can be described as a nasal “mew” or “creaky hinge” that lasts about a second and ascends slightly in tone. This call is given whether the bird is agitated or calm. Agitated birds call more often and intensely as a predator alarm or as aggression between males. Calm birds call softly and less often to communicate to mates or fledglings. It’s a good way to keep in contact with one another when they can’t see well in thick brush.
The Spotted Towhee’s song is variable and may be tricky for beginners. Occasionally they can make songs that confuse experts. An individual male may change his song numerous times in one morning. However, perhaps in about half of song occurrences, the song is a non-musical dry-sounding trill that lasts a second or a little longer. It starts sharply and fades evenly in volume but remains constant in tone. Sometimes the trill is preceded by a short whistled note. Songs patterns vary between individuals and from region to region. Practice listening to your neighborhood towhees sing. If ever in doubt, listen for their reliable “mew” call note. They may occasionally make some other sounds, like a thin lispy note and a short “tic.” I sometimes confuse these soft sounds with those of other sparrows. In these cases I may have to see the towhee to identify it or wait until it makes a more recognizable sound.
In April, the female starts nest building. She constucts it on the ground or low in shrubs. The nest is a cup of twigs, grass, bark and other vegetation and occasionally hair. She lays three or four pale gray or cream-colored eggs with tiny brown spots. Only the female incubates the eggs, and the chicks hatch within 13 days. The male may help feed the female while she is incubating. Occasionally a second brood is raised. Hatchlings are fed by both adults but only the female remains on the nest with the young. When the young fledge, they are relatively pale and streaky with shorter tails than the adults and eyes are somewhat reddish or brown.
In the winter they are not territorial and tend to be solitary. During breeding season males establish territories. At this time of year, you’re not likely to see towhees together except for breeding pairs and their fledglings. Spotted Towhees are not gregarious, which means they do not flock. They may gather incidentally with each other and other species to take advantage of food opportunities. A good example of this is a yard that attracts various birds with feeders and bird baths.
Spotted Towhees may live up to seven years, but there is a record of over ten years. They do well in urban areas wherever there are overgrown shrubby areas and landscaping. In some cases browsing by goats and overpopulated deer may negatively impact towhee habitat by reducing undergrowth. Some island populations of Spotted Towhees may be at risk when shrubby habitats are eliminated. Nevertheless our Spotted Towhee populations are not in any danger. What a treasure to have such a pretty, native bird that is so common!
Data Source: Birds of North America Online. From The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the American Ornithologists’ Union.

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Common Whitetail
by Lisa Millbank

When I was about 9, I was fascinated by an irrigation ditch near my house. To me it was like visiting a fabulous wilderness, absolutely teeming with life, and I always brought my butterfly net. I loved to catch insects, but dragonflies were too elusive for me. I watched the Common Whitetails swiftly cruising over the water and I longed to catch one. Effortlessly, they evaded the wild swings of my net. One day, after many futile attempts, I spotted a Whitetail speeding toward me and swept the net over the water. At the same time I lost my balance and stumbled into the ditch. But as soon as I heard the Whitetail’s wings buzzing in the net, I forgot about the mud and algae covering my legs. I finally had one!
I removed him from the net and marveled at the spectacular creature in my hands. His abdomen was coated with a waxy, bluish-white pigment. His clear wings were marked with broad smoky patches. The bristles on his legs made a basket for capturing flying insects, which he would crunch with his powerful jaws. His faceted eyes looked like huge spherical goggles, seemingly capable of seeing everywhere at once. The dragonfly buzzed impatiently in my hands and I let him go back to his hunting.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the Whitetail’s ancestors chased insects in the same way, over 300 million years ago in the Paleozoic Era. Their winning design pairs an elegant aerodynamic form with precise flight control. But the winged adult dragonfly is only a part of the story; dragonflies spend most of their lives as an aquatic larva, or naiad.
The naiad itself is an accomplished hunter. Though it is a squat, odd little insect, it is fully capable of eating almost any aquatic insect or small fish. Under its head it conceals an extensible mouthpart, armed with gripping claw-like appendages. Much like the arms of a praying mantis, the dragonfly naiad shoots out its lower “lip” to grab prey. A dragonfly naiad gets oxygen from water with its rectal gills, located...well, you can probably guess where. To quickly move out of danger, it expels water from its anus with considerable force—truly a jet-propelled animal. Lurking in the algae mats at the bottom of a sluggish stream or pond, the naiad eats and grows, shedding its skin many times, for up to three years. At its last molt, it climbs out of the water and splits its skin for the last time. The adult emerges with crumpled wings, but in a short time they straighten and dry, gleaming in the sun. Unlike most insects, dragonflies take some time to mature sexually although they’ve completed their last molt.
Common Whitetail (Plathemis lydia) male
A male Common Whitetail accumulates bluish-white pigment on the upper surface of his abdomen as he ages. Recently emerged males have a brown abdomen, but they do show the same wing pattern as a mature male.
From May to October, Common Whitetails are some of the most common dragonflies skimming the ponds and quiet waterways of our area. Males establish territories which they routinely patrol. Each male will have a few favorite perches from which he will watch for other dragonflies. He’ll quickly chase off other species of dragonflies, but he’ll attack other male Whitetails with particular vigor. If he spots a female Whitetail he will try to mate with her. Mating takes place in the air. The pair return to the water’s surface, where the female repeatedly dips the tip of her abdomen in the water, releasing her eggs. The male hovers over her, driving off other males that might try to mate with her. By the time of autumn’s killing frosts, thousands of eggs have drifted down to rest on underwater mud.
I spent many summers chasing Whitetails, and I’m still captivated by the speed and precision of their flight. Sit beside any pond and it’s more than likely a Whitetail will zip by in a few moments.

Common Whitetail female
A female has a different wing pattern and a series of white spots along each side of her abdomen.

A Common Whitetail naiad
The naiad extends its claw-like labium to catch prey. When not in use, the labium is tucked under the head and thorax. Perhaps a sci-fi monster has been modeled after this fearsome larva!
A Common Whitetail Lookalike

Twelve-spotted Skimmer (Libellula pulchella) male
Like the Common Whitetail, a male Twelve-spotted Skimmer also has a bluish-white abdomen and often lives in the same habitat. However, his wing pattern is nothing like the Whitetail’s.

Twelve-spotted Skimmer female
A female Twelve-spotted Skimmer is easily confused with a female Common Whitetail. She is larger and has yellow stripes along the sides of her abdomen.

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Bigleaf Maple
by Lisa Millbank

In April, rich Bigleaf Maple forests are flooded with light, carpeted with ferns and wildflowers, and draped with glowing green moss. As the leaves unfurl, maple woods become cool, shady retreats for hot summer days.
The name says it all: Bigleaf Maple leaves grow larger than any of the 125 other maples in the world. It’s common everywhere from dry slopes to moist riverbanks, parks and yards.
There is a spellbinding quality to old maple woods. Unlike the conifer forests, they undergo a dramatic transformation throughout the year. Explore here in February, while pale winter sunlight slants through leafless branches silvered with frost. Rest in the maples’ shade in July, when the luminous green canopy shimmers in the afternoon’s western breeze. And in October, golden leaves blanket the winged seeds that twirled down from the soaring branches.
Out in the open, Bigleaf Maples often grow multiple trunks and a broadly rounded crown. Their heavy limbs can snake along the ground. When growing in a forest, they will reach up to the light, forming an arching canopy. Each limb bears mosses, lichens, and liverworts that form a thin layer of soil beneath them. Over time, the soil on the limbs is colonized by plants, and the maple itself grows roots into the soil on its own limbs. The huge maple at the top of this page held Licorice Fern, Large False Solomon’s-Seal, Yellow Wood Violet, Candyflower, Pacific Bleeding-Heart, and Fringe-Cups on its outstretched limbs.
The branch tips and leaves are a favorite food of Black-tailed Deer and Roosevelt Elk, who can prune all the maples in an area to a uniform “browse line”. Along deer or elk paths, there’s another sign of their presence: to a buck or a bull, a maple sapling makes for some satisfying late summer antler-rubbing. The young maple may not appreciate it so much, but it’s interesting to find these scarred and broken saplings.
Perhaps the end of the maple’s life is its greatest gift to wildlife. Fungi begin the process of decay inside the tree. Termites, beetle larvae, and carpenter ants remove the softened wood. Woodpeckers excavate foraging holes and nest cavities. While it is gradually hollowed, the tree will continue to grow with an outer shell of living wood. Now it might become a home for bats, a nursery for a raccoon, or a cache for a squirrel. Once it has fallen and decayed beyond any use as a shelter, plants grow out of its remains.
Human use of Bigleaf Maple is usually limited to lumber, but with perseverance and lots of fuel, you can make syrup from Bigleaf Maple sap. However, unlike the Sugar Maple and Black Maple of northeastern North America, the concentration of sugar in Bigleaf Maple sap is much lower. Thirty-five gallons of Bigleaf Maple sap can be reduced to just one gallon of finished syrup. The syrup is delicious and sweet, but has little traditional “maple” flavor.
A Rough-skinned Newt rests on a bright fall leaf. Autumn rains bring out newts and mushrooms, and revive the moss and lichens that cover maple limbs.
Bigleaf Maple blossoms hang in long racemes in April. The blossoms are edible but a little bitter. After pollination by insects, they grow into clusters of winged seeds.
The Bigleaf Maple’s leaves are the largest of any maple in the world. Their paired winged seeds, or samaras, grow in large clusters and spiral to earth in late summer & fall. Be careful when handling the samaras, as the short golden hairs covering the seeds can sometimes become embedded in your skin.
A few samaras may remain on the tree until the following spring. The seeds make a meal for this hungry Western Gray Squirrel.
This is one giant maple with multiple trunks. It grows on Pigeon Butte at Finley NWR. Don and I call it “the lunch tree” because it’s a nice place to rest and have a snack. At least six more people could join us for lunch in this tree!
See for yourself if mammals have been using a tree cavity by checking for hairs at the entrance. This unidentified mammal hair was caught in moss as the animal entered or exited the hole.
Old maples often have hollow trunks that make temporary or permanent homes for many animals. Some can accommodate big critters like myself (inset). I wouldn’t hesitate to use a cavity like this for an emergency shelter.

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Vernal Pools
by Lisa Millbank
A shallow vernal pool. The clumps of grass are Tufted Hairgrass, a native plant of wet meadows and the edges of vernal pools.
A vernal pool in an overgrown field isn’t much to look at as it mirrors the leaden skies at winter’s end. Waterlogged, cold and still, ringed by brown mud and dead grass, it’s a dreary reminder of the winter rains and the clinging, sticky clay that cakes inches-deep on boot soles.
But look closer. Black specks whirl among filaments of algae. Tiny red critters dart erratically, and a larva lumbers across the bottom in a silken case. Bird tracks pattern the mud at the edge. Green sprouts encircle the pool, growing quickly in the rich silt.

Tricolor Monkeyflower
A rare plant, Tricolor Monkeyflower can be seen at Marys River Natural Park in Corvallis. The pink, yellow, white and maroon blossoms sometimes dwarf the plant itself.

Common Yellow Monkeyflower
Common Yellow Monkeyflower thrives in wet prairies, ditches, seeps and riverbanks: wherever it’s wet through the spring.

Oregon Coyote-Thistle
This is a member of the family Apiaceae, which includes Queen Anne’s Lace and Cow Parsnip, but the Oregon Coyote-Thistle looks more like a plant from a Dr. Seuss book to me.

Elegant Downingia
At the end of May masses of these deep blue flowers crowd drying vernal pools and ditches.
Needle-leaved Navarretia
Needle-leaved Navarretia is a spiny member of the phlox family. A close relative, Skunkweed, lives up to its name with a skunk-like smell.

Large Popcorn Flower
Acres of flowers fill a field at Finley National Wildlife Refuge.

Copepods
Many freshwater copepods in are in the genus Cyclops. A trio of bright red Cyclops swims in my palm. A female (right) is developing two healthy-looking clusters of eggs alongside her tail.

Ostracods
These ostracods on my fingertip show why some people call them “seed shrimp”. In the water, they swim around busily with their legs and and antennae extending out from the shell, hinge side up, and most species eat algae. These two closed their tiny clam-like shells when I removed them from the water.

Pacific Chorus Frog
Every warm spring night is filled with male Pacific Chorus Frogs singing together at the edges of wetlands. Look for their tadpoles in pools large and small as the days warm.

Red-legged Frog
Red-legged Frogs breed in larger vernal pools where their eggs, tadpoles and tiny young frogs are safe from predators.

Greater Yellowlegs
Greater Yellowlegs pick small animals from shallow seasonal wetlands.

Vernal pools are shallow wetlands that fill up in fall or winter and dry up completely in summer. They may be small ponds or puddles, or entire prairies that flood in winter and dry in the summer. They’re places of extremes. Any creature or plant making its permanent home in a vernal wetland must be equipped to survive immersion for months, followed by a drought that literally cracks the soil apart.
Unlike permanent wetlands, a vernal pool hosts no willows, cattails, wapato or other drought-intolerant wetland plants. Oregon Ash is one of the only native trees that may grow at the edge of a vernal pool, and it may be joined by a few hardy shrubs like the Nootka Rose and Peahip Rose.
Many wildflowers growing in vernal pools are annuals. Between the recession of the water and the drying of the soil, they find a brief window of time in which to grow, bloom, and set seed. Vernal pool plants tend to be small, but they pack together to blanket the dry pool with masses of color. As the plant starts to wither, its flowers may go on blooming – truly going out in a blaze of glory, with the seeds maturing just as the plant dies. The seeds fall to the parched soil in the summer, where they bake on the desiccated surface. As the pool fills sometime in the late fall or winter, the seeds endure up to six months of submersion.
Don and I visited a seasonally-flooded field at W.L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge that was completely covered with acres of Large Popcorn Flower. Under a clear blue sky we walked through this white landscape of flowers, their pungent fragrance almost overpowering, with the hum of thousands of bees collecting a bonanza of nectar and the rich, liquid songs of Western Meadowlarks all around us. Rodents and seed-eating birds, like the Ring-necked Pheasant and many finches and sparrows, would feast after these plants withered and shed their seeds. This field hosted a dazzling encore to the spectacular popcorn flower display: a blue lake of Elegant Downingia appeared as the popcorn flowers faded. A vernal pool provides an ever-changing succession of blooms as the water recedes and different flowers appear.
Algae grows abundantly in vernal pools, and swarms of tiny animals graze on the underwater pastures it forms. Crustaceans such as ostracods, copepods, and cladocerans produce hardy eggs that can withstand desiccation, or the adults themselves may enter diapause, a form of dormancy, during the summer drought. Insects like caddisflies and mosquitoes use the vernal pool for their larval stage and then emerge as a flying adult. A microscope reveals rotifers, tardigrades, and nematodes that are too small for the naked eye, but are by far the most numerous of the creatures inhabiting the pool. But as the water evaporates in summer, their lives too must be suspended. These creatures undergo anhydrobiosis when they desiccate. They secrete a sugar called trehalose that protects their cells from damage during their long wait for the returning rains.
Although many animals live in or find food in vernal pools, the summer drought excludes all native fish. Because the fish and most other aquatic predators are absent, tiny critters like aquatic insects, copepods and ostracods can become very abundant. The shallow water and mud offers excellent hunting to Wilson’s Snipe, Western & Least Sandpipers, Dunlin, Killdeer, Lesser & Greater Yellowlegs, and many other wading birds. Some of them pick at the crustaceans and insects in the water, while others probe the soft mud with their sensitive bills. Migrating shorebirds stop at wet fields and vernal pools to fill their bellies on their long flights. As the water recedes, the mud records the story of its avian visitors – it may be peppered with many holes from their long bills.
The introduced Bullfrog takes more than a year to grow from egg to tadpole to frog, thus, a seasonally-dry vernal pool will not support it. As Bullfrogs have established themselves in permanent wetlands, the rare Red-legged Frog has become more dependent on vernal pools. Bullfrogs eat young Red-legged Frogs and their tadpoles when the two species breed together in permanent wetlands. Pacific Chorus Frogs thrive in vernal pools as well, filling warm spring nights with their wonderful chorus.
Every vernal pool is unique, with its own combination of residents and visitors. Unfortunately, there are not many wet prairies and vernal pools left in the Willamette Valley because most have been filled or converted to agriculture. A seasonally wet mounded prairie filled with spring flowers still grows at W.L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge. Marys River Natural Park offers a place to see rare Tricolor Monkeyflower and masses of Elegant Downingia. But sometimes a vernal pool can be closer to home. We appreciate one pool, visible from our apartment, right behind a Safeway store…hardly a wild place, but supporting all kinds of life. There may be one near you in a vacant lot, a drying roadside ditch, or the edge of a field.

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Willamette Valley Swallows
by Don Boucher
Swallows are migrants who leave our area in winter. We love swallows for their graceful flights and sweet sounds. But make no mistake—these little birds are blood-thirsty carnivores! Swallows live on nothing more than aerial insects. The only exception is the Tree Swallow, which rarely eats berries, but all swallows are committed hunters. In our area there are six species of swallows; four are common. The Purple Martin, a swallow not featured here, is rare in the valley. They nest in the Fern Ridge area in Lane County, the Oregon Coast, Columbia Gorge and occasionally in forest clearings in the mountains.
Cavity nesters
The Violet-green and Tree Swallows look for existing cavities (often made by woodpeckers) in tree hollows or nest boxes provided by people. In the nest cavity, a cup of dry grass is lined with white feathers. At the Dunawi Creek Community Garden, we set up three nest boxes. One box was occupied by Tree Swallows and the other by Violet-green Swallows. Gardeners were respectful of the nesting swallows and human activity often occurred just a few feet from parents feeding the chicks. The third box was occupied by wasps. We’ll see what we get this year.
“Cavity” builders
The common Barn Swallow makes cup nests of mud and straw lined with white feathers on natural sites such as cliffs but much more commonly under the eaves of buildings. They are often solitary nesters but a suitable site such as a large barn may have dozen or more nests.
Cliff Swallows nest in colonies of sometimes more than 100 nests. They make gourd-shaped nests of mud and clay with a downward-facing opening. Cliffs may be used but bridge overpasses and barns are more common. Cliff Swallows are not widespread but you will likely find a colony under any large concrete bridge over a river in the Willamette Valley.
Swallows spend more time in the air so it’s important to know them from below. Only the Barn Swallow has a unique shape with its forked tail. Tree and Violet-green Swallows are nearly indistinguishable from below. They both have white bellies and throats (except fledglings).
Other swallows have darker bellies. Swallows fold their wings when they flap. The Vaux’s Swift flies at break-neck speed and flutters rapidly with seemingly stiff wings. Swifts are darker than all of our swallows.
The Northern Rough-winged Swallow is uncommon and makes burrows in steep riverbanks and a nest of twigs, plants and grass. They are not colony nesters, but a suitable site may have a few nests. A good way to see them is take a canoe ride down any river in June. The bird to the right was photographed over Greasy Creek in Philomath.
The Barn Swallow is common in farms, parks, ball fields and airports. The tail is significantly longer than our other swallows. It has an iridescent indigo back and wings with a black tail. The throat and belly are rust colored.
The Tree Swallow is common in open areas, often near water. The throat and belly are white. The head wings and rump are iridescent blue and violet with dark gray wing tips and tail. Fledglings are dull colored and look similar to the Northern Rough-winged Swallow.
The Northern Rough-winged Swallow is uncommon and found primarily around rivers. Adults and young are brownish-gray with a light gray belly and whitish under the tail.
The Cliff Swallow is found where there are suitable sites for nesting colonies, usually near water. It has gray wings and tail. The blue back has characteristic white dashes. The head is dark with a white forehead.
The Violet-green Swallow is common and the primary swallow of urban areas. It looks like a Tree Swallow but has shades of iridescent green and violet. The white extends to the rump and the eye is surrounded by white.
The Vaux’s Swift (pronounced “vox-es”) is not a swallow. It is more closely related to a hummingbird than to a swallow. It is common in urban areas and in forests. A swift spends its waking hours in the sky hunting insects. The only time it rests is at night when it clings to the walls of a chimney, hollow tree or similar structure.
Swallows perch—swifts can’t. Take a close look at swallows resting on telephone cables and you may see more than one species. Take this opportunity to learn the differences in plumage patterns. Compare the head, throat and belly patterns of these swallows.
Swallow nest box: Only Violet-green and Tree Swallows use nest boxes. The oval slot in this box excludes House Sparrows (nonnative). Swallows aren’t picky about their nesting sites but they prefer spots away from immediate trees limbs and shrubs. They don’t mind other nest boxes nearby, but more than 15 feet is advisable. Be sure to use a smooth post, like metal or PVC, to prevent predators from accessing the nest. An inverted metal cone around a wooden post will work too.
Bluebird nest box: This is a design specifically for bluebirds but it will attract Violet-green and Tree Swallows. The hole design excludes starlings but not sparrows. If bluebirds reject your bluebird box as a nesting site, don’t worry, swallows may accept it.

Suggested reading:
Raccoons, A Natural History. Samuel I. Zeveloff.
2002 Smithsonian Institution

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Ice Age Flood
by Lisa Millbank
Fifteen thousand years ago,in the last few millennia of the Ice Age,a lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet dammed the Clark Fork River on the Idaho panhandle.Th e impoundment created a vast inland sea extending far into western Montana.Glacial Lake Missoula covered 2,900 square miles and held 530 cubic miles of water at its maximum size (about half the volume of Lake Michigan).Increasing pressure against the ice dam melted some of the ice,allowing water to enter ? aws in the ice and gradually enlarge the ? ssures.Finally,the weakened dam began to shatter, sending loud cracks and groans echoing o ? the surrounding mountains.With a ? nal thundering report,the dam exploded outward,and the earth trembled as a wall of water 2,000 feet high surged forth.What had been placid Glacial Lake Missoula was now a towering monster,plowing across the Idaho panhandle at 70 miles per hour.
The flood overran northeastern Washington’s Glacial
Lake Columbia,scoured the rolling Palouse country (where it picked up billions of tons of fertile loess),and backed up at the bottleneck of the Columbia Gorge.Squeezed into the narrow channel,the ? ood tore away at the andesite walls of the Gorge. At the site of present-day Portland,the land quivered and an ominous rumble from the east announced the approach of the waters.A powerful wind gusted over the Portland Valley,the menacing roar grew louder,and the waters arrived.From the mouth of the Gorge erupted a 500-foot wall of water,muddied by the soil it carried, laden with uprooted trees,and capped with icebergs that floated all the way from Montana.
At Portland,the floodwaters crashed against Rocky Butte and the Tualatin Hills.Northeast of Portland,the Columbia River enters the Kalama Narrows.Th ough nearly two miles wide,the passage was too small for the massive flood,and the water rose behind it.Th e backed-up waters fountained through two gaps in the Tualatin Hills.One gap was the historic channel of the Tualatin River (where Lake Oswego nowlies).The other gap was the Willamette River channel. In minutes,the flood overwhelmed the Tualatin and Willamette Rivers and roared into the Willamette Valley.
Although geologists estimate that two-thirds of the floodwaters continued down the valley of the Columbia River to thePacific Ocean,that still left about 175 cubic miles of water to inundate the Willamette Valley.Imagine the unlikely islands in that dark,turbulent lake:the Chehalem Mountains near Newburg,the Salem Hills,and the tops of many small hills like Knox Butte near Albany.Th e brown water that lapped at those strange new shores was choked with rafts of trees, scattered animal carcasses, and icebergs.

As the main body of ? oodwaters exited through the Kalama Narrows on the Columbia River,the water pooled in the Willamette Valley began to drain.It had been there no more than a week or two,but it had time to deposit a thick layer of fertile silt and organic matter.It came into the valley in a ferocious rush,but now it left slowly.Along the receding shorelines,huge icebergs came to rest under the Ice Age sun as the water gently ebbed.
Th e flood left behind a scene of unimaginable devastation.It sculpted solid rock,uprooted forests,and ripped away several cubic miles of soil along its path from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.It destroyed almost all animal and plant life in its way, even the fish in the rivers.But as powerful as this flood was,there were at least forty more cataclysmic floods .For two thousand years,Glacial Lake Missoula filled and emptied with tremendous force,at intervals from nine to fifty-eight years and with varying intensity.Until the recession of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet,glacial ice continued to advance and dam the Clark Fork River.
The Missoula Floods (or Spokane Floods or Bretz Floods)were some of the most massive floods found in the geologic record.Such glacial lake oods,also known as jökulhlaups ökulhlaups ö ,still occur in glaciated regions worldwide,fortunately on a much smaller scale.Th e US Geological Survey estimated that the peak flow of the largest Missoula Floods was almost ten times the combined flow of all the world ’s rivers,around 9.5-15 cubic miles per hour.By comparison,the average flow of Earth ’s largest river, the Amazon,is 0.014 cubic mile per hour. Floods of this magnitude leave many signs of their passage,and many of the well-known features are in Washington and the Columbia Gorge.However,there is evidence in the Willamette Valley besides the deep,layered deposits of silt.Stranded icebergs released rocks embedded within them as they melted.Th e ice had been part of Montana ’s ice sheet,which enveloped tons of rock as it advanced through mountain valleys.Th e melting ice left behind this particular type of metamorphic rock,known as Belt rock,in conspicuous piles of pebbles or large single boulders.Th is is unlike any rock from the Cascades or Coast Range.Th e largest known Belt rock rests on the foothills of the Coast Range at Erratic Rock State Natural Site in Yamhill
Range. The largest known Belt rock rests on the foothills of the Coast Range at Erratic Rock State Natural Site in Yamhill County. Known as the Bellevue (or Sheridan) Erratic, it is truly ancient like the other Belt rocks, around one billion years old. But the most exotic traveling rock is the Willamette Meteorite. This large iron-nickel meteorite was found near West Linn among other ice-rafted rocks, and because there was no impact crater associated with the meteorite, it must have been transported in ice. Unfortunately, the meteorite now resides at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City instead of on the forested hill where it came to rest after the floods. For millennia the meteorite was visited by local Native Americans, for whom it had great cultural significance. Lesser but interesting erratics still dot the Willamette Valley, but many prominent erratics in fields were blasted away long ago. Most erratics are in the form of small rocks that don’t look like anything special; they are often scattered within the gravel bars of rivers.
Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge. The floods ripped away the andesite slopes, leaving behind near-vertical cliffs.
The repeated devastation of the Willamette Valley must have had a tremendous impact on the plants and animals. Kenton L. Chambers proposes that the floods may have given rise to three unique species of Willamette Valley larkspurs. He believes that the disturbed plant communities resulting from the floods and the fresh deposits of silt allowed for rapid evolution through hybridization and/or mutation. One of these species is the beautiful white Peacock Larkspur (Delphinium pavonaceum) that grows in prairie remnants close to Corvallis. Its parent species is thought to be the purple Delphinium menziesii. Once white-flowered mutations appeared, perhaps in tiny populations spared by the floods, they may have attracted different insect pollinators than their purple cousins. Reproductively isolated, they would have continued on their own course as a separate species. The story of the larkspurs’ heritage is probably just one of many such changes that were set into motion by the floods; how many is impossible to guess.
Some evidence suggests that humans may have lived in the Northwest near the time of the Missoula Floods. Projectile points and mammoth bone tools made by people of the Clovis culture were found near Wenatchee, Washington. Archaeologists believe these Clovis points to be around 11,000 years old, a time that approaches that of the last Missoula Floods. Could there have been humans in the Willamette Valley in those days? It seems likely that if humans were living in the path of any of the great floods, evidence of their presence would have been washed away and lost forever or buried under layer upon layer of silt.
The Columbia Gorge owes its ribbon of andesite cliffs, now adorned with dozens of waterfalls, to the Missoula Floods. Washington’s spectacular flood features such as Dry Falls, Grand Coulee, and the Channeled Scablands reveal the scale and power of the water. These places are the tourist attractions, and rightly so. But we should also remember the awesome events that carried the soil from the windswept hills of eastern Washington. Because in this great, silty lakebed we call the Willamette Valley, the very soil beneath our feet tells the story. ó
Suggested reading:
Glacial Lake Missoula and Its Humongous Floods. David Alt. 2001 Mountain Press Publishing Company.

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listen to the sounds of Killdeer

Killdeer are well-studied but it is interesting what is not known about them. It is not exactly known why Killdeer are often as active at night as during the day. Most terrestrial bird species are predominantly active during the day while others, such as owls or nighthawks, are active at night. Shorebirds are primarily adapted to foraging at low tide. Many shorebirds with long bills feed by touch, but plovers have large eyes to see their prey on the surface of tidal flats at night. Inland Killdeer do not follow tidal cycles but I suspect that Killdeer, being shorebirds, have an innate tendency and ability to be active either day or night.
Find the nearest field, empty lot or wetland—you probably have Killdeer in your neighborhood. Get your binoculars and spend some time watching them. They have many quirky, stylized behaviors. In the spring they are particularly active and entertaining. In winter look for them in fields with foraging blackbirds, starlings and robins. On mud flats from mid-April through mid-May or from mid-August through September, do a double take on Killdeer and you may find the occasional, similar-looking Semipalmated Plover. They are smaller with only one black breast band. ó
Suggested Field Guides
1. Shorebirds of North America, The Photographic Guide. By Dennis Paulson. 2005 Princeton University Press

2. Birds of the Willamette Valley Region. By Harry Nehls, Tom Aversa and Hal Opperman. 2004 R.W. Morse Company.
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and listened to the splashing and squealing of excited calves as they waded in the creek. Herd life offers protection to the calves, because it is difficult to approach all those observant eyes, ears and noses undetected. When something startles the herd, the Elk adopt an alert posture, but they don’t always run as might be expected. Especially when they have young calves who may be unable to keep up, running may be a poor strategy. Instead, they evaluate the threat. The cows will drive away or even attack a smaller predator like a coyote. When it’s a more serious threat, the lead cow utters a sharp alarm bark and everyone runs. The herd reassembles after they’ve reached safety with contact mews and squeals. The cougar scat we found in the nearby woods justified the cows’ vigilance.
When late summer arrives the bulls and cows assemble for breeding, and each bull will advertise his fitness. He proudly paces around with his polished antlers held high. He might decorate his antlers with branches and debris to make them look larger and fancier. He sprays urine on his belly and neck mane, and creates urine-soaked wallows where he digs a pit and lies in the smelly mud. Urine-spraying and digging a wallow allows a bull to impregnate his fur with pheromones from his urine, giving him a strong odor that is presumably attractive to cows. Near his wallow he thrashes small trees and shreds tree bark with his antlers to create an additional visual signal of his presence.
To me, the most wonderful and strange thing about Elk is the bull’s bugle. It is difficult to describe the sound, but it is a resonant bellow that rises several octaves to a reedy, clarinet-like cry, then drops to a series of guttural grunts. The bugle is a signal that indicates dominance to other bulls and attracts cows. The high part of the bugle carries well in open country, while the low part carries through woods. Our Roosevelt Elk seem to have a deeper bugle than their Rocky Mountain cousins, reflecting their more forest-oriented lives. To hear Elk bulls bugling as you shiver in the first light of a clear fall morning is an extraordinary experience.
Violent fighting between bulls is not as common as many people assume, although fatal conflicts sometimes occur. Most of the time, bulls establish dominance by engaging in a calm, ritual sparring match where each participant can decide when he has had enough. One bull approaches another, nodding his antlers in an invitation to spar. If the other bull feels like sparring, the two carefully engage their antlers together, pushing and turning their heads. When one bull breaks eye contact and looks away, his sparring partner will stop and the contest is over.
The largest dominant bulls with the most impressive antlers can attract many cows, and are known as harem-herding bulls. A harem-herding bull eats and sleeps very little during the exhausting breeding season and may lose hundreds of pounds of the fat he stored during spring and summer. He must remain alert, chasing away rival bulls, bugling frequently, herding straying cows, and checking cows’ readiness for mating. He must provide a positive social experience for the cows by keeping young bulls from harassing them, courting each one patiently, and moving with them as they find food. Despite a harem-herding bull’s efforts to retain cows, there is nothing he can do to keep them if they prefer another bull. But if he is successful, he will father many of the calves born next summer.
For the Elk, it is the most dramatic time in their yearly cycle. There are a few reliable places to see them gathering for their breeding season around the Willamette Valley and beyond: William L. Finley NWR, the Walton Ranch Interpretive Trail east of Sweet Home, Jewell Meadows Wildlife Area in Tillamook State Forest, and Dean Creek Elk Viewing Area near Reedsport. Clear days and cold nights make it a wonderful time to be outside. As the golden colors of the Bigleaf Maple and Oregon Ash herald the onset of autumn, so does the bugle of the Roosevelt Elk. back to index

Weedy Salad Greens and Wild Opium
by Don Boucher
Like many nature lovers, I cherish native plants and I have set out to learn the native plants of my region. I’ve had to familiarize myself with common weeds in order to distinguish them from the natives. I’ve discovered that weeds are sometimes delightful wildflowers. For me, picking quantities of native wildflowers may not only be unethical but also unnecessary. I’ve dazzled friends and family with glorious bouquets of the prettiest weedy wildflowers. Since introduced weeds are abundant, they are also readily available for collection and use as food, medicine or other purposes. Isn’t it a good idea to know what not to pick? Learn your local weeds and enjoy their many benefits.
Garden lettuce and some other salad greens are descendents of common weeds. These are related to Dandelions and with similar flowers and seeds with downy umbrellas. Lettuces and Dandelions are in the larger family of plants, Asteraceae, which is often called the Sunflower or Aster family. In our area there are dozens of plants species in this family. Most have edible or medical properties. Only a few species are toxic but not very dangerous in small quantities. The most common of these toxic Asteraceae plants are Tansy Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) and Common Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris). Always identify with certainty any plant before consumption. Another precaution is to make sure that your edible plant hasn’t been subject to dangerous pollution either in the soil or on the surface of the plant.
Garden lettuce and some common wild varieties are in the Lactuca genus. These wild lettuces are nutritious and edible but, unlike their garden relations, all are bitter to some degree. To me they resemble Dandelions in flavor. Readers Holly and Bert Davis publish a newsletter called Dwelling Portably, where they feature one of their favorite wild relatives of lettuce, Gosmore (Hypochoeris radicata). This weedy plant is also known as False Dandelion and Holly and Bert find, under some conditions, it can taste less bitter than Dandelion. Gosmore, Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) and wild lettuce species are least bitter as tender sprouting leaves during early spring. I find they are best used sparsely in a salad with milder greens. Young plants can be difficult to identify, and field guides aren’t much help since they typically illustrate mature plants. Observe young plants in early spring and take note of what they develop into later in the season. Not until the following spring will you be able to apply what you’ve learned.

Prickly Lettuce
Lactuca serriola
Plants 18in to 6ft tall. Undersides of leaves prickly, especially the central vein. Sparse prickles on stem. Lower leaves clasp around stem. Flower heads pale yellow. Brownish, parachute-like seeds. The plant is sometimes called “Compass Plant” because the leaves tend to point north and south. Milky sap. Open waste places and roadsides.
Garden lettuce and wild varieties in the Lactuca genus contain the compounds lactucopicrin and lactucin, which resemble opium medicinally. Although not potent, the milky sap from mature plants can be collected, dried and used as a mild sedative and cough suppressant. Species have varying potency with garden lettuce being the weakest. In Europe, Lactuca species have been historically regarded as Wild Opium.
The two common species of wild lettuce in the Willamette Valley are Wall Lettuce (Lactuca muralis) and Prickly Lettuce (L. serriola). Willow Lettuce (L. saligna) is less common. All three are introduced, annual plants, which disperse seeds and die within one growing season. Tall Blue Lettuce (L. biennis) is a native plant and a biennial, which means it makes seeds and dies after the second growing season. Tall Blue Lettuce is rare or largely extirpated from the Willamette Valley. All varieties of garden lettuce are derived from one species, L. sativa.

Wall Lettuce
Lactuca muralis
Plants 12 – 30in tall. Large lower leaves few and clasping on stem. Upper leaves tiny. Flower heads yellow with five ray flowers. Seeds have a short beak with many white bristles. Milky sap. Prefers shady, moist areas. ó
Suggested Field Guides
Northwest Weeds: The Ugly and Beautiful Villains of Fields, Gardens, and Roadsides. By Ronald J. Taylor. 1990 Mountain Press Publishing Company
Wild Edible Plants of the Western United States. By Donald R. Kirk and Janice Kirk. 1970 Naturegraph Publishers
Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants. By Christopher Nyerges. 1999 Chicago Review Press, Inc.
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A Lily By Any Other Name...
Lilies To Look For This Spring
by Lisa Millbank
Spring brings an array of beautiful lilies to our forests and fields. For most of the year lilies lie dormant under the soil, storing carbohydrates in a corm, bulb or rhizome. When it is time for a forest lily to emerge from its long slumber, a shoot emerges at a remarkable pace, hurrying to catch the light and flower while the trees’ leaves are still tight buds.
Traditionally the family Liliaceae was defined as monocotyledonous plants, generally with parallel veins, linear leaves, and flower parts in threes. Many common edible and ornamental plants, such as asparagus, garlic, onion, tulip, crocus, and daffodil were placed in this family.
Now botanists debate the proper classification of many lilies in light of recent genetic studies. Many of our native species featured here are considered for reclassification into different families defined more precisely by their genetic relationships, rather than placed into the catch-all Liliaceae. But regardless of the family into which they may eventually fall, each is an ephemeral gift of springtime. Enjoy each of these exquisite plants during their brief appearance, before they once again retreat to their underground repose.
Western Trillium has a single white flower borne on a peduncle, or flower stalk, above its rosette of three plain green leaves. Sessile Trillium’s flower sits at the junction of its leaves, which are usually mottled. From Polk County northward is a possible third species of trillium, but it may just be a form of Sessile Trillium. They begin blooming in mid-March. Ants disperse the seeds of these plants.
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Fawn Lily
Erythronium oregonum
This plant blooms in profusion in Avery Park in Corvallis. Mottled leaves frame a stalk of up to five starry cream-colored flowers. Each has a yellow center. In late March they begin to flower.

Camas
Camas bulbs were a staple food for the Kalapuya people, when the flowers colored entire prairies blue. Today it is much less common, but still easy to find and admire. Small Camas has an asymmetrical flower with the lower petal-like structure (“tepal”) somewhat apart from the other five. Great Camas has perfect symmetry and its tepals twist together when the flower is beginning to form seeds. Look for camas in mid-April.
Fairy Lanterns and Fairy Bells
These are almost shrublike plants that bear hanging flowers beneath the leaves. Hooker’s Fairy Bells show the stamens clearly. Smith’s Fairy Lanterns have concealed stamens. Both develop orange fruit in the summer. They bloom in forests in mid-April.

False Solomon’s-Seals and Wild Lily-of-the-Valley
In rich forest soils you will find this genus. Star False Solomon’s-Seal is small but elegant with no more than a dozen small flowers. Large False Solomon’s-Seal produces fragrant plumes of flowers. Wild Lily-of-the-Valley creeps along the forest floor, with heart-shaped leaves and spikes of unusual, 4-part flowers. The false Solomon’s-seals bloom in late April; the Wild Lily-of-the-Valley takes a few more weeks.

Tolmie’s Cat’s-Ear
Calochortus tolmiei
These charming, fuzzy flowers dot open woods and fields in early May. They are also known as mariposa lilies. ó

Columbia Lily
Lilium columbianum
A fabulous speckled orange “tiger lily”, this stately plant has large whorls of leaves, topped by numerous flowers. Avery Park is a great place to see them in early June, but later in summer they are abundant on Marys Peak. back to index