Oregon Coast Today Newspaper

Darrel Faxon

Field Guide
A regular feature of the Oregon Coast Today.
By Darrel Faxon

Tropical Kingbird: Darrel Faxon Photo

January: Time for a tropical touch

It hardly seems appropriate, at this season of the year, to be writing of things tropical. The coastal regions of Lincoln and Tillamook counties, after all, are not exactly bursting with ripe bananas any time of year, and it has been only a couple of weeks since we endured a spell of cold with temperatures into the low teens.
However, as I write, there is in Newport a visitor from the tropics. It even carries the name: Tropical Kingbird. It is a member of the family of birds known as Tyrant Flycatchers, so named because of their pugnacious nature in driving intruders away from their nesting sites.
As flycatchers go, it is among the larger ones, being around nine inches long. It is an easily recognized species, (at least in comparison with any other flycatchers which occur in our area) with a gray head, white throat, greenish yellow back and tail, and bright yellow belly. It also is conspicuous because of its behavior. From open perches such as the tops of bushes or fences, it sallies forth after insects, often returning to the same perch after each attempt. Somehow it seems incongruous to see this brightly colored bird flying out to catch insects against a drab winter background when the temperature outside is 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
The mysteriousness of its presence here is heightened, given that the normal range of Tropical Kingbirds is in truth as the name suggests. It is a permanent resident of the coasts of central Mexico whose summer breeding range barely crosses the Mexican border into extreme southern Arizona. However, a few members of this species annually move north along the Pacific Coast in the fall, some even reaching southern Canada. There is at least one record of a bird that reached southeast Alaska! The autumn of 2009 was somewhat of a banner year for the incursion of the birds into our area. The Newport bird is a holdout from three that showed up a little east of its present location in mid-November. There were also sightings of the species along the south coast, in Florence, and of at least two birds near Astoria.
If the presence of up to a half dozen or more Tropical Kingbirds on the Oregon coast in the fall of 2009 was an indication of an increase in the numbers which we might come to expect in future years, it would be another example of a fascinating trend exhibited by a number of other bird species over the past three decades.
Thirty years ago Anna’s Hummingbirds and Red-shouldered Hawks were unknown in Oregon. Brown Pelicans were at that time relatively rare, and tended to be seen only from about late April to late September. Now the hawks and the hummers are common permanent residents, and the pelicans, as many people have noticed, stay later with each succeeding year. There have also been sightings of a few other species of southern birds that indicate a northward shift in their ranges. Additionally, a few Swainson’s Hawks, which normally winter in Argentina, have begun to spend these colder months in the Willamette Valley.
So clearly there are major changes taking place in the distribution and migratory preferences of many birds. The same things seem to be the case among some fish and other ocean creatures.
Of course, there are many people who are quick to attribute these changes to global warming. On the face of it, such a theory seems reasonable. After all, warmer temperatures would be conducive to survival of creatures more used to them. However, a warming trend, even if it is in fact a reality, does not explain all the aspects of the redistribution of so many species of birds and other creatures. The simple fact is, the entire biological world is, and always has been, in a state of flux.
Populations of a great many creatures rise and fall, and their ranges change over time in relationship to a great variety of factors, about some of which we may be completely unaware.
Rather than attribute all these changes to global warming, we would be well advised to build a longer term data base in our attempts to understand the underlying factors to these changes.
In the meantime, enjoy the hummingbirds, the pelicans, and the kingbirds. And keep your eyes open. You just never know what might show up next.

Belfry or no, you’ve probably got bats
[Posted Dec. 16, 2009]

Even if your house does not have a bell tower, chances are that at this very moment, somewhere in your basement, attic, or in a secluded spot under the eaves, there lurks a bat.
The opening phrase may have caused shivers to run down the backs of some readers.
Bats by and large are feared, vilified, and under-appreciated.
The fear is not entirely without reason. Some bats are known to be carriers of rabies. However, the chances of a human contracting the disease from an interaction with a bat are exceedingly slim. I suspect that much of the fear people have of these creatures stems more from folklore, which has long portrayed them as sinister and mysterious. The truth is, humans have little to fear from them.
On the other hand, bats are among our most interesting mammals. That’s right — although they fly, they still belong to that class of animals that give birth to live young, have hair, and suckle their young. In other respects, they may not seem to be much like dogs and cats, but then neither are whales, which are also mammals. Sometimes the creatures around us force us to stretch the limits of our preconceived notions of normal.
Bats are, however, our only flying mammals. They are capable of flight because of a thin membrane of skin that stretches from the body and sides of the tail to the bones of the forearm. Their powers of flight are no less remarkable than that of birds. At speeds of up to 8 miles per hour, bats can fly through a complex maze of obstacles without ever hitting any of them. Anyone who has ever attempted to use a broom to chase an uninvited bat out of a dwelling can testify to the agility of these creatures in flight.
What is truly remarkable about bats is that they accomplish these aerial maneuvers with very limited vision. Bats are not completely blind, as is commonly supposed, but they do not rely chiefly on vision to move about in flight. Instead, they depend upon their astounding powers of echolocation. They emit high-pitched squeaks, then pick up on the returning echo to determine the location of both obstacles and items of prey. Using this fine tuned design, they are able to distinguish distance to objects, both stationary and moving, as well as detect which prey items are the most choice. If you consider how impossible it would be for you to achieve your required daily allowance of protein in this manner, you may have a greater appreciation for both the design and capabilities of the lowly bat.
There is a further twist to this echolocation system that makes it even more astounding. The high frequency squeaks bats give off are quite loud. If they fell unimpeded upon the bat’s own ears, over time they would cause significant hearing loss. Such loss would be a fatal impediment to a creature reliant upon its hearing for survival. So the bat has developed a mouth-to-ear-bone structure that renders it deaf for a fraction of a second while the squeak is going out, but enables it to catch the sound of the squeak on the rebound.
Once a bat has located a moth or other morsel, it captures it in the webbing of its wing, and then immediately moves it to the membrane curled around the tail. It then proceeds to eat it either on the wing, or, in the case of larger items of prey, after landing in a suitable location.
Part of the mystery surrounding bats is that they are largely nocturnal. Only on rare occasions does one see a bat flying about in the daylight, and on such occasions it is likely that the animal has been disturbed from its daytime roost.
Bats also are known to hibernate during cold weather. Along the Oregon coast they are most active from March to November. Hooked claws on the end of their finger bones enable them to hang upside down for long periods in their secluded hiding places.
Ten species of bats are known to inhabit our area. Many are rare and seldom seen species that inhabit the forest. You’re most likely to encounter the California Myotis, as it is the one most likely to roost in or near human dwellings, and also the one most likely be found wintering locally.
Although generally feared, bats really are primarily beneficial. When the swallows go to bed at night, the bats take over, and become the night patrol in the never-ending attack on the hordes of flying insects that inhabit the skies.

Meet the torrent salamander
[Posted Dec. 2, 2009]

I don’t suppose there will be anyone who, after reading this article, will rush right out in search of its subject. Salamanders, after all, are not as appealing as birds, and whales, and flowers — at least not to most people. In fact, as a class of creatures, reptiles and amphibians are more likely to be ignored or despised than loved or adored. So in writing this article I am not really expecting to inspire any budding herpetologists.
Nevertheless, we live in a region where salamanders are a common and interesting part of the wildlife. There are six or seven species native to our area. Each has its own particular niche in the environment.
The most common one in our area is, of course, the Rough-skinned Newt. At least it is the one most easily observed, because it is semi-terrestrial. It is often seen crawling around over the open ground. Most of the other species are considerably more reclusive, and thus more difficult of acquaintance.
One of these secretive species is the Southern Torrent Salamander. It is not often seen. Part of the reason is because it is a very small species. Adults are only 1 ½ to 2 ¼ inches long. Another reason is that it is never found away from water. Its preferred habitat is in the shallow water of rocky seeps and springs. Even in this habitat, it is almost always found under rocks. If one expects to find a salamander of this species, he needs to find place where a trickle of water is moving through a series of small rocks. If he begins turning the rocks over one by one, in time he may see one of the small creatures wriggling quickly away amid the pebbly gravel beneath them. Actually capturing it may prove to be more difficult than first appears, as these salamanders have the ability to disappear in the pebbles just when you think you are looking right at them.
As a family, torrent salamanders are unique. There are four species, all native to only the Pacific Northwest, that are not known to be closely related to any other salamander families anywhere in the world. The range of the Southern Torrent Salamander is from Mendocino County, Calif., north to the central section of the Oregon Coast, and east into the foothills of the Cascade Range. Just north of our two-county region it is replaced by the similar Columbia Torrent Salamander.
These salamanders are really a rather pretty species. They are almost translucent in appearance, yellowish brown in color, the smooth skin speckled and spotted with a variety of yellow and black markings. The belly is yellow, and also spotted. This speckled appearance is the reason Southern Torrent Salamanders were given the scientific name variegatus. Other features which help to identify the species are a short tail, blunt nose, and protruding eyes.
Another interesting feature of this species is that it is active even in low temperatures. Many salamanders cease being active when the temperature drops below 55 degrees, but the Southern Torrent can be found moving about normally in temperatures as low as 40 degrees. This behavior is undoubtedly related to the fact that the water in the seeps in which it inhabits is relatively cold year round. As a matter of fact, those watery habitats that this salamander inhabits are always within closed canopy forests, where soil surface temperatures are kept cool by the continuous shade. They are negatively impacted in locations where the seepage areas are exposed to sunlight.
For such a small species, Southern Torrent Salamanders have a surprisingly long life cycle. It takes the eggs they lay about 210 days to hatch. Then the larvae take from three to five years to develop into mature adults. In both larval and adult stages they feed on minute invertebrates such as springtails, which share their damp, pebbly habitat.
Beyond the few simple facts presented here, not much is known about this reclusive species. If you are a person who is intently interested in amphibians, you might consider this a great opportunity for research.

Egrets, we have a few
[Posted Nov. 18, 2009]

As one drives up the coast, he may often see a white bird, a little over 3 feet tall, standing at the edge of a marsh or an estuary. The bird will be a Great Egret. These striking birds are, in every way, the picture of elegance. From tail tip to crown, every feather of the plumage is an immaculate white. The birds would disappear standing next to a snowbank. Well, almost. Their presence in such a location would be given away by the long, jet black legs and the dagger-like yellow bill. The only other plumage feature that contrasts with the white feathering is a small patch of bare skin between the eye and the bill, which turns emerald during the breeding season.
The elegance of the species is also manifest in their posture and demeanor. They usually feed by walking slowly and sedately through shallow water, frequently pausing for long periods to peer into the shallows for their finny prey. As they move along with unhurried pace, long neck outstretched, they seem to cast an air of unperturbed grace. They give the same impression in flight, moving from one place to another with deep, slow wing beats interspersed with low glides, black legs standing out in sharp contrast to the white body.
The species has an interesting history, both in the United States as a whole and in western Oregon. In the early years of the 20th century the population of the birds was so low there was fear in some circles that the species was on its way to extinction. The rage in women’s fashion at the time was to adorn their hats with bird feathers. Some of the most sought after ones happened to come from Great Egrets. During breeding season the birds grow long, lacy plumes known as aigrettes among the feathers of the lower back. Market hunters of that period indiscriminately shot the egrets to supply these feathers to the millinery trade. In many cases the birds were hunted even during the breeding season, and at the nesting colonies, and the young nestlings left to die. Fortunately such market hunting was outlawed just in the nick of time. The brutal killing came to an end, and the species has made a remarkable recovery.
The presence of the birds in western Oregon is also remarkable. Prior to 1940 the birds were known to nest in the marshes of the Great Basin in southeastern Oregon, but they were unknown west of the Cascades. Since that time they have undergone a tremendous range expansion that coincided with a rebounding population. They are now one of the common wading birds found throughout the western part of the state. In our area the population seems to build in late summer through fall. During that season it is not at all uncommon to see many dozens of the birds lined up along the edge of our coastal bays, white bodies plainly visible from a considerable distance.
Great Egrets tend to be gregarious birds. They nest in colonies, sometimes in conjunction with other water birds such as herons, ibis, cormorants and even White Pelicans. They also frequently travel and feed together. A loose flock of egrets feeding at the edge of an estuary will be strung out in a line, with some distance between individual birds. In this way each bird has its own particular feeding territory. In instances when the territories overlap, a dominant bird may exhibit minor aggressive behavior in order to cause the competing bird to move further away. Great Blue Herons, which are larger, will also chase Great Egrets away from favorite feeding areas.
Like all members of the heron family, these egrets are predators. They have a varied diet, which includes many species of small fish and frogs which they take from the water, as well as small snakes, mice, snails, and insects which they capture on land.
As the bulk of the population in Oregon still breeds in the great marshes of the Klamath and Harney basins, the best time to look for these birds in our area is from July through November, when the birds have dispersed from their breeding grounds. Their numbers here begin to diminish by the first of the year with most birds apparently moving further south for the remainder of the winter. Only a few are present here into the spring months. There have been several instances of the species nesting west of the Cascades, but as yet it is not a common breeding bird in our area.
Although most commonly seen in estuarine habitats, Great Egrets are also often found in freshwater marshes, especially those with shallow water and short vegetation. In either case, their white plumage and large size makes them easy to see.

‘Fairy rings’: The circle of fungal life

[Posted Nov. 4, 2009]

It’s mushroom season again! Of course, there are a few mushrooms which grow here in spring and summer, but when the fall rains begin to come, there is a proliferation of these fruiting fungi that is astounding. Almost everywhere one goes in October and November there are mushrooms. There are something like 5,000 known to grow in the Northwest, and they come in a dazzling array of sizes, shapes, and colors.
Some varieties also have peculiar patterns of growth. Among the most peculiar are those which grow in what is known as fairy rings. These fairy rings are usually from a few feet to as much as 20 or more feet in diameter, with the majority of the individual fruiting mushrooms growing on the perimeter of an irregularly shaped circle.
According to legend, in medieval times, people thought that these rings of mushrooms appeared in the morning after a group of fairies had danced in a circle at that location the previous night. Whether this belief was an accepted scientific explanation at the time; whether it was related to an actual belief in fairies, or simply a “fairy tale,” is a matter of conjecture.
In any case, with the development of modern science we have now come to a better understanding of how these rings of mushrooms do develop. That is, we have begun to come to a better understanding. Actually the scientific study of fungal growth is yet, at this point, in its infancy. But what we do know is fascinating.
What most people call mushrooms are actually the fruit of the mushroom plant, much like apples are the fruit of an apple tree. The mushroom plants themselves, for most of the year, grow underground, hidden from our view. They grow in long strands known as mycorrhizae. These strands are the perennial part of the plant, and the mushrooms are the annual fruit of it. When the moisture and temperature factors are right for a given species, the mushrooms sprout very quickly from their mycorrhizal stock.
In the case of those mushrooms which appear in fairy rings, the process goes through a particular pattern of growth. Basically, where a spore germinates, a fungus grows. Since fungus for the most part depend upon other organic material for their own life, once a fungus has used up the supply of nutrients gained from this organic materiel, it dies. But before it dies, it drops spores which germinate a new fungus.
Since there is more organic material at the edge of where the fungus grew than where the fruiting body died, over time the fungus grows in an ever widening circle, and the fruiting bodies we know as mushrooms manifest this pattern when they emerge from underground.
Apparently this pattern of growth also is self promoting for another reason as well. Because the fungi uses up nutrients, the growth of small green plants, such as grass, is sometimes retarded in areas where there is a heavy fungal growth. However, the dying mushrooms fertilize the soil, which causes a stronger growth of grass. When the grass dies back it creates more decaying material for the fungi. Because this cycle is self-perpetuating, some of the larger fairy rings one encounters may be hundreds of years old.
In our area one of the mushrooms which is likely to be seen growing in this pattern is Marasmius oreades, which has the same common name as the growth pattern: Fairy Ring Mushroom. It is a species of open grassy areas, and can sometimes even be found growing in suburban lawns. The mushroom itself is rather small, usually only a couple of inches tall, and is generally brownish in color. It has a narrow, rubbery stem. The inch wide cap is at first convex, then flattens with age. The gills on the underside of the cap are white, often forked, and free from the stem. That is, they do not extend all the way across the bottom of the cap to actually touch the stem. It is an edible species, best used to flavor soups. Of course, as with all wild mushrooms, one should exercise extreme caution or consult with a mushroom expert before tossing any specimens into the dinner stew.
Although the Fairy Ring Mushroom is perhaps the best known species for the growth from which it gets its name, there are a number of other species in our area which exhibit the same pattern. Some of the boletus species, and even the highly sought after chanterelles can sometimes be found growing in fairy rings. The next time you find one such fairy ring while you are picking mushrooms, give thought to the fact that the unseen plant which produced them may in fact be much, much older than you.

Chill out, in the coast's rainforest

Oh, the blessings of the rainforest! Early August this year brought temperatures exceeding 100 degrees to the Willamette Valley. On the same days, maximum highs right along the immediate coast were some 40 degrees cooler. A bit further inland in the interior Coast Range, it was in the 90s, but not so excessively hot as it was in the valley. If one wished to further escape the heat, he could head into some of the deep, shady canyons to find relief. And in the process, he might find much more.
It was in just such a canyon one afternoon that I came across a treasure trove of living things. In a small creek, actually more of a seep, I found Southern Torrent Salamanders, a small species with yellow belly and speckled back, and an odd looking arthropod with eight legs. It vaguely resembled a sow bug in form, but was shaped and colored differently than that common species.
Perhaps the most delightful treasure, though, was the one found a little ways from the creek. On a gentle slope was a rotting log, of old growth vintage, long ago fallen to the forest floor. On its decaying remains were a great variety of life forms. There were at least four kinds of fern: sword fern, deer fern, shield fern, and lady fern. Intermixed with them were several varieties of moss, a few species of lichen, and some liverworts, some of the mosses and liverworts closely resembling one another. On one end of the log was a red huckleberry plant, somehow managing to put on a few berries even in this location of deep shade.
A sizeable Bigleaf Maple grew nearby, it arching branches casting a welcoming canopy of shade over the surrounding forest. But what really made the scene memorable were the two Clasping Twistedstalk plants growing right in the middle of the old log. They were at this season in fruit, bright red oblong berries seeming to almost glow amid the general dimness of the setting.
Actually, I was somewhat surprised to see them there. This plant is not one of the more common species in our area, and I am used to finding it in a somewhat different setting. While it does inhabit deep shady canyons, it is normally associated with wet, rocky outcrops near water where the topsoil lies only a few inches deep above solid bedrock. It seemed odd to see these plants growing in deep humus.
Twistedstalk are unique plants in any respect. They greatly resemble the more common Fairy Lanterns, but have some significant differences. They tend to be more robust in form. In fact, next to a rocky creekbed beneath a waterfall I once found one that was fully six feet tall. However, that one was exceptional. Most are around two feet in height. They also tend to have larger, shinier leaves than the Fairy Lanterns. Once a person has learned these subtle differences, he may pick out twisted stalk at a glance. However, if he wants to be certain of the identity, he needs to take a look at the stem of the blossom or fruit. It has a curlicue twist from which the entire plant derives its name. During July to August, one may also easily distinguish them by the color of the fruit. Twistedstalk berries are bright red; those of Fairy Lantern deep yellow. Both species may be often be found growing in the same habitat.
I suppose with careful examination, it would have been possible to find many more species of plants growing on the old log. But it really wasn’t necessary, at least not on that day. It was quite enough to thrill to the discovery of the twisted stalk, to find in the shady canyon a respite from the heat, and to enjoy few quiet moments in such a peaceful setting. Such is the glory of the rainforest. Its abundant charms are as commonplace as an old log, as distinct as a flower stem with a curlicue, as varied as one’s taste at any given moment, and as available as the nearest shade-dappled canyon. One does not have to try very hard to find enjoyment there.

Forests hide a pack of camels
Meet the camel cricket

[Posted Oct. 8, 2009]

Funny how things change. When I was a kid, I was terrified of camel crickets. Of course, at the time I thought they were spiders, and even now I would likely be a bit cautious around spiders that big. Terrified, no. Cautious, yes. And for sure camel crickets are big enough to get one’s attention.
In fact, they are one of the largest insects found in our area, at least if you talk about total length. The one in the photograph measured 6 1/2 inches long, from end of hind leg to tip of antennae. That is big, by insect standards. However, if you examine the photo, you will see that the body of the insect is not much more than an inch long. What gives camel crickets such impressive measurements is the length of the legs, and especially of the antennae. The hind legs are a couple inches long. The antennae, well, they measure well over three inches.
It is not every day that one sees one of these insects, but the infrequency of sightings is not related to any scarcity on their part. They actually are very common inhabitants of the Oregon coast. In proper habitat one may find dozens of them.
Just where might that proper habitat be? Think dark: dark and cool. Shady wet canyons, rotting logs in deep forests, rocky outcrops in places of northern exposure, in rock fissures beneath waterfalls, under piles of boards, in basements. Basements? Yep, so long as they are cool and dark. Ok, relax. Camel crickets look formidable, but they are quite harmless. The worst they can do is scare you by their appearance, especially if they happen to jump right at you, which they sometimes do. They are impressive jumpers, too. Those long hind legs have a meaty upper portion that resembles the drumstick of a chicken. They enable the insects to leap distances several times the length of their bodies. As far as basements go, the crickets are not really at home there. Any you find are likely just passing through. If you just leave them alone, they will probably go away on their own, and head back to their preferred haunts.
The name camel cricket was given to these insects because they tend to appear slightly humpbacked, giving them a fancied resemblance to the four-legged beast of the same name. The idea seems to me a stretch of the imagination. Spider cricket would be more accurate, and in fact that name is also sometimes used for these insects. Yet another name by which they are sometimes known is cave crickets. The latter name is generally used only for those species that spend their entire lives in caves with no light whatsoever.
The long antennae are characteristic features that enable them to live in their darkened habitats. If you happen to watch one of them for a while, you will notice that these antennae are almost constantly on the move, the reason being that the insects depend heavily on a sense of touch to move about, and take a measure of their surroundings. These antennae are extremely sensitive to anything they touch, or anything that touches them.
As a family, camel crickets have an almost worldwide distribution, being found on all continents and even a number of oceanic islands. Most species are brown in color. The species most common in our area is black with reddish legs and antennae. Once, in a rock crevice below a waterfall, I found two that were bright pink. I do not know whether these were a distinct species or if there is some other explanation for their color.
Due to their size and mobility, one might suppose these crickets were formidable predators on some other type of living organism, but in fact their diet consists almost entirely of leaf debris and other decaying matter. In turn, they are sometimes preyed upon by the centipedes which share their cool, dark habitat.
Although they carry the name cricket, these insects are in many respects dissimilar to the common field crickets people are used to seeing and hearing. They do not have wings, and they do not chirp. Instead they live quietly and unobtrusively in their preferred dark quarters. If you have never seen one, and want to, here is a method you might try: Take a piece of cloth tarp, plywood, or something similar to a shady spot near a small creek. Lay it on the ground and leave it there. Go back in a week or so, and carefully turn it over. There is a strong likelihood that a few camel crickets will be underneath. I can’t guarantee that you won’t be a bit frightened at first, but you will be impressed.

Luckily for birders, these godwits took a detour
[Posted Sept. 23, 2009]

The migration of birds has long been a subject of fascination to human beings. From the time that the ancients assumed that swallows, because of their sudden disappearance in the fall, dove into the mud to spend the winter, to the present, people have been awestruck by the annual movements of these winged creatures from their breeding grounds to their winter places of residence and back again.
Most of the awe has been of the common sort. Breathes there a man with soul so dead who can hear a flock of geese high overhead, and not stop at least momentarily to gaze into the heavens? Similarly, people who live in close association with the biological world do not find it difficult to pause at hearing the call notes of Swainson’s Thrushes passing overhead in the predawn darkness, or thrill to the first flocks of robins which appear suddenly each year to announce the imminent arrival of spring.
Then there are those who have made a scientific study of bird migration. These studies have evolved from simply keeping records of where banded birds were recovered to more recent methods, such as using satellite technology to monitor the movements of tagged birds. And while we no longer think that swallows dive into the mud, there is yet much mystery surrounding these avian migrations.
One of the most mysterious things has to do with birds that stray from their normal migration routes. As a general rule, migrant birds have a great deal of fidelity to preferred routes as well as wintering and breeding sites. These things have been confirmed by bird banders who have captured the same birds, in the same locations, over successive years. However, from time to time, for reasons unknown, some birds stray off course and end up in places far removed from where they are expected to be. Occasionally these vagrants, as they are called in birding circles, show up thousands of miles off course.
Just such an event happened in our area recently. In early September two hatch-year Hudsonian Godwits showed up at Yaquina Bay. Under normal circumstances, this species migrates east of the Rocky Mountains. It is a long distance migrant in any case, flying each fall from its Arctic breeding grounds in Alaska and northern Canada all the way to southern Argentina. Some of the birds go as far south as Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America. However, the West Coast is on the opposite side of the continent from the species’ normal migration route. One has to wonder if such stray birds ever arrive at their normal wintering grounds, if they do, how they manage to get there, and if they do not, in what unfamiliar territory they choose to spend the winter.
Regardless of the answers, or lack of them, to these questions, the godwits at Yaquina Bay brought a lot of excitement to birders. And even if they had been within their normal range, Hudsonian Godwits are an interesting species. They are among our larger shorebirds, measuring almost 16 inches in length. Like all godwits, they have a long, upturned bill that is bi-colored: the basal half is pink and the rest is black. In fall plumage, they are mostly gray, with slightly darker wingtips. In flight they can easily be distinguished from all other shorebirds by the combination of black tail, white rump, white wing stripe, and black underwing coverts. These particular two spent most of their time in company with four Marbled Godwits, a larger, browner species that is regular in our area.
One of the things people who came to look at the birds found remarkable was their almost total fearlessness of humans. One could walk to within 15 feet of them without causing them any alarm. I even heard one report of the birds walking right up under the legs of the tripod one birder had placed at the edge of the mudflats.
It may be many years before one of these godwits once again visits our area, but with birds, especially those which migrate long distances, one never knows. Within the last couple of years, researchers studying the migration patterns of Bar-tailed Godwits, a closely related species, discovered that the birds fly non-stop from southeast Alaska to New Zealand, a distance of almost 9,000 miles! Such long distances would seem to have allowance for some straying, especially if unfavorable weather patterns force the birds off course. Also, most vagrant shorebirds are hatch-year birds, which leave the nesting grounds later than the adults, and must find their own way over trackless thousands of miles of a route they have never traveled before. Under the circumstances, it really is remarkable there are so few that do stray off course.

Got roses? Then, the bucks stop here.

[Posted Sept. 9, 2009]

Every now and then one has one of those close encounters with nature that stops him in his tracks. It happened to me in Lincoln City on Aug. 5. I was driving a back street in the northeast part of town, when I suddenly came almost face to face with two magnificent bucks casually eating flowers out of a person’s front yard. There were no more than 15 feet away. I parked the car and watched them for about five minutes. They never paid the slightest attention to me. Unfortunately, my digital camera malfunctioned. All I could get were a few very fuzzy photos. However, later that day I learned that two days previously the same deer had showed up in another neighborhood about ten blocks away, on the opposite side of Hwy. 101. A friend of mine had walked — walked! — to within 15 feet of them without them showing any alarm! He got a series of nice photos.
It is not every day that one is able to observe Blacktail Deer bucks at such close range. In their woodland habitat these deer tend to be very furtive and mostly nocturnal, especially the largest bucks. Apparently these city deer have learned they can move about freely among the houses without fear of disturbance from people. They also have apparently learned that domestic flowers are delicacies. City deer have a reputation for making life miserable for people attempting to grow roses.
Blacktails exhibit several differences between now and later in the fall. At this season, they are a bright russet color. By October they will have lost this summer pelage and turned a dark gray. During spring and summer, the bucks hang out together peacefully, generally in groups of three. By fall they will become more solitary, and as mating season approaches around the last part of October, will have become adversaries to one another. They will enter a period known as the rut, in which rival bucks fight to defend territories and groups of does which they have managed to gather to themselves. This process is the means by which the largest, strongest bucks pass along their genes to the next generation.
Fawns are born in late spring and early summer, usually around the first part of June. Very young ones are said to have no scent, which enables them to avoid detection by predators. They are also bright russet with numerous white spots, giving them a dappled appearance which blends in with the light and shade look of their forest habitat.
These predator resistant features of the fawns are matters of no small consequence. Coyotes, bobcats, cougar, and even Golden Eagles (although in the case of the latter the situation applies more specifically to the open habitats of Eastern Oregon) all prey on fawns, and are especially on the lookout for them when they are youngest and most vulnerable.
As a matter of fact, circumstantial evidence suggests that an increase in predators has significantly altered the population and habits of Blacktail Deer in our area over the past decades. When I was a kid in the 1950s and 60s, there were hundreds and hundreds of deer throughout the Coast Range. It was not at all uncommon to see a dozen or more in a walk of a couple of miles through forest or cut-over land, or to encounter three bucks together during springtime. Once coyotes first appeared in the mid-1960s, the deer population began to plummet. Now in much of the Coast Range there may be one deer where there used to be 20. There may be other factors as well which are involved in this apparent decrease in the number of deer, but there is no doubt that coyote predation on fawns has had a significant impact. It also might explain why there now seem to be more deer in towns, where they are relatively safer from predation -- and hunters.
Properly speaking, members of the deer family grow antlers made of solid bone. They are not horns, which are made of keratin, the same substance from which your fingernails are made. Blacktail bucks begin growing these antlers in May. For the time that they are growing, they are covered with a protective layer of velvet. Once the bones harden, the velvet falls off, or the bucks rub it off by scraping their antlers on trees. These scraped trees are a common sight in the woods in the fall. After the rut and breeding season are over, in late December the antlers fall off. The buck in the photo has a trophy rack, one of the largest I have seen on a deer in this area. But since he lives in town, he will probably get to keep it through the fall , and live to grow another next year.

Grosbeak’s song brightens up the coast

[Posted Aug. 5, 2009]

Every year around the first of May, usually about eight o’clock in the morning, I am suddenly brought to attention by a glorious serenade coming from the tops of some nearby deciduous trees. It is a rapid melody full of variety. Now it is a series of pure, sweet whistles; now a group of lower chattering notes; now a sharp jumble of throaty, piping sounds; one set of tones flowing easily into the next without a pause. And it goes on and on. I have on occasion heard such a song continue for 20 minutes, uninterrupted. Although I have heard it many times before, and know the singer well, it always brings a smile to my face. It is, in my estimation, one of the finest rhapsodies offered by any of our local birds, given with such exuberance that it is easy to get caught up in the ecstasy of the song.
The source of this brilliant song is the throat of one our most common summer birds, the Black-headed Grosbeak. The concert they give seems at times to fill the woodlands with melody, and they are not bashful about giving these performances. When at the peak season of singing is upon them, the males will even sing on the wing, pouring forth the characteristic notes as they flutter slowly across the open sky.
With such a talent for singing, these birds would hardly need further recommendation, but the fact is, their plumage is as beautiful as their song. The males are bright orange on the breast, neck and rump. The entire face and crown are jet black, with an orange stripe that extends forward from the nape to just above the eye, making a separation between the lower face and the top of the head.
The upper back is also orange, but striped with black. The black wings are heavily spotted and striped with contrasting white, these markings highly visible when the birds fly. The tail is black with white spots on the underside. Females are similar in pattern, but the colors are much muted in comparison; the black being mostly replaced with brown, and the orange with white.
Fortunately, Black-headed Grosbeaks are one of the easiest birds to attract to backyard feeders. They readily come to offerings of black sunflower seed. In favored spots six or more males will often gather at one time, so one can often enjoy the beauty of their plumage and song at very close range. In fact, I read earlier this year of one man who actually had a male grosbeak alight on his hand, and pour out a stanza or two of that exuberant song for about 45 seconds! Not everyone will be so fortunate as that, but one needs not have such a personal encounter with the birds to enjoy them.
By mid July most of the concert comes to an end. After that date, now and then one may hear brief bursts of song coming from the birds, but as the breeding season comes to a close, the birds cease from singing. By mid-August they will once again be migrating to the southern climes. Most of them will spend the winter in central and southern Mexico.
The nests of these birds are often rather conspicuous and easy to spot. Black-headed Grosbeaks tend to build these structures on fairly low limbs of trees. They are usually composed of a loosely arranged number of small sticks, without the intricate moss and lichen components found in the nests of many of our native songbirds.
The preferred habitat of Black headed Grosbeaks is deciduous trees, and they can be found in a variety of growths of this type, even in coniferous forest with a mix of alder or maple. They apparently do not need large blocks of forest to thrive, and for that reason may even be found right in towns and suburban areas with small blocks of trees.
Many decades ago ornithologists (scientists who study birds) measured the value of birds based on whether or not their diet was beneficial to mankind. We have long since gotten away from that basis of judgment, and certainly there is no reason to measure the Black-headed Grosbeak by that scale. But even if we did, it would be favorable. This species pretty much evenly divides its diet between animal and vegetable material, feasting on a variety of seeds and fruit, and also on a number of insect types, including hard-shelled species such as beetles. In short, there is nothing for which this species needs to be criticized, and very much to recommend it. It is one of our most beautiful and entertaining bird species.

No shrinking violet, this: The Oregon Iris
Big, tough & beautiful

[Posted July 8, 2009]

The flowers of the seacoast and coastal mountains of Lincoln and Tillamook Counties might be called the Rodney Dangerfields of the botanical world. That is, they don’t get their proper respect. While the floral displays of our region may not equal that of alpine meadows, at least in abundance, there are nevertheless a number of native species which are truly beautiful in blossom.
One of these species is Oregon Iris. The blossom that grows at the top of the grass-like stem is quite pretty, even when only in the bud. At that time the blue petals are tightly rolled together, showing only a hint of the splendor to come. Once the buds burst their sheaths, the fully-developed blossom is worthy of more than a passing glance. It has three oblong petals which radiate outward from the center in a symmetrical triangular pattern, and three narrower ones pointing upward in answer to them.
The blue of each of the outer petals has a white center suffused with yellow, crisply marked with an intricate pattern of black stripes. On some other flowers, such as Early Blue Violet, a similar striping on the interior section of the flower serves as a bee guide to lure the pollinating insects to the interior of the blossom. The stripes on the iris may serve the same purpose, even though the blossom itself is more open than that of the violet. In any case, the beauty of the iris blossom is such that once studied, it is not likely to be soon forgotten.
Most Oregon Iris blossoms are a deep bluish purple, but the shade of those on any particular plant seems to be influenced somewhat by the type of soil in which the plant is growing. Some plants have blossoms that are much lighter blue, and a few tend almost to white.
This showy species is a lover of open places. It can most easily be found in grassy meadows or along roadsides where there is good penetration of sunlight. It commonly grows along the upper portions of cutbanks, and may often be found growing amid the grass on bluffs immediately adjacent to the ocean. As it has a fairly lengthy blooming period, it can be enjoyed for quite some time, especially if one is willing to look for it in a variety of locations. In the interior Coast Range it normally can be found blooming from early May to early June. In those cooler locations closer to the coast, the blooming period extends to early July.
This iris is such a lover of sunshine that once a site where it grows becomes covered with brush or trees, the plants will no longer bloom. In such places, in the spring one may find a few of the grass like leaves striving to find some sunlight, but that is all. When shade from the overhead canopy darkens the forest floor, even these few spears will cease to show themselves. However, this plant holds within its bulb a surprising secret. It is reported to be capable of lying dormant for 200 years! On harvested or burned sites in the forest, a healthy crop of Oregon Iris with burst into bloom within one year of the return of the beckoning sunlight.
Oregon Iris sometimes goes by the name Tough-leaved Iris, and for a good reason. The leaves (which can grow to a length of 16 inches) are, when dried, exceedingly strong. In fact, native tribespeople braided these leaves together and used them to make nets and snares strong enough to hold full-grown elk. This particular characteristic is why the plant was given the scientific name tenax, an allusion to the tenacity of the leaves.
The plants themselves are not difficult to find, as they tend to grow in clumps. Since an individual stem may host two blossoms, one of these clumps may sport 20 or more blooms. If, however, you are walking amid the easily observed Oregon Iris plants on a coastal headland, keep your eyes open for other, less easily observed species. Blue-eyed grass, another species of iris, often grows in the same type of locations as Oregon Iris, and if you are observant, you may be fortunate to see its diminutive blue blossom peeking out from among the grass as well.

If you’re tame, with lobed feet, you just might be a red-necked phalarope

[June 23, 2009]

I am not quite certain that in the biological world it is ever quite safe to use the term “normal.” About the time you think you have things all neatly categorized, something comes along to upset your categorical thinking.
If there is a striking example of a case in point, it certainly must be the Red-Necked Phalarope. This bird breaks all the rules of what might be considered normal in the avian world.
One of the oddities of this species is readily apparent to even the most casual observer. For a shorebird, it is remarkably tame. Individuals may often allow humans to approach within a few feet of them with no apparent alarm. The best time to observe them in respect to this behavior is following periods of heavy storm activity along the coast in the fall. At such times tens of thousands of these birds may come onshore, crowding into estuaries, tidal pools, and even small rain puddles in search of food. Such birds are often weakened with stress and hunger, increasing their indifference to human disturbance.
Although it is considered a shorebird, it would not be totally inaccurate to also call this phalarope a seabird. Much, if not most of its migration is over the open ocean. In fact, after passing by our shores in fall, it heads on south to winter at sea off South America. So in reality, it spends more of its time in marine habitat than it does on land. Odd for a shorebird.
One of the features that makes it possible for the Red-Necked Phalarope to spend so much time on the ocean is the structure of its feet. Instead of having completely separated toes, like most shorebirds, it has lobed ones. The lobes or flanges on the sides of the toes close with each forward stroke of the birds feet, and open wide with each backstroke, at which time they serve the same purpose as webbed feet on a duck, enabling the birds to propel themselves forward in the water. Many species of shorebirds will occasionally be seen swimming, but none are so adept at it as phalaropes.
The manner in which these birds feed while swimming is also odd. They often swim in very tight circles, only a few feet across, actually spinning through the water. In this manner they create small gyres or eddies which bring to the surface the minute organisms on which they feed. A feeding phalarope is seemingly in constant motion, spinning , spinning, and then picking rapidly at the surface with its bill.
Although its primary habitat is at sea, these birds also often migrate overland. During migration, in addition to appearing along the outer coast, they also can often be found at sites far inland, all the way across the continent. It is not at all unusual to find them at lakes, ponds, or sewage lagoons even in the middle of eastern Oregon’s high desert. In fact, there are likely not many places in the world where they have not been recorded at one time or another. They have a circumpolar breeding range and a worldwide distribution at sea.
Perhaps the most odd thing about these birds, however, is that they play role reversal. Unlike most birds, the most brightly colored individuals are females, and the dullest colored ones males. The reason for this anomaly is that it is the males that most need to be camouflaged. Usually it is the females that need it, because they need to remain hidden on the nest. In many species of birds, the females receive no help from their male counterparts in the process of incubation. In many other species, the mates share in the task. But in phalaropes, it is the males that do all the incubation! So are phalaropes odd, or what?
The best time to look for these birds along our coast is during spring and fall migration. In the former period, the peak movement is usually the first two to three weeks in May. In the fall it generally extends a bit longer, from mid-September through early December.
During the spring, Red-necked Phalaropes are in breeding plumage, with white underparts contrasting with a blackish back marked with cinnamon stripes, and having a showy chestnut stripe running the full length of the dark gray neck. By fall, these colors will have faded away and the birds are basically plain gray and white, with a smudge of black around and behind the eye. At this season they can be distinguished from the similar Red Phalarope by the stripes on the back, plainly visible when the birds fly.
So if you have not yet made acquaintance with this oddity of the bird world, be on the lookout for phalaropes the next time you visit.

Land of the Lost, right next door

[Posted June 3, 2009]

If you happen to be one of those people who is looking for a Jurassic Park experience, spring is the time. Rise early, while the tendrils of the morning mists are yet swirling low through forest and field. Dress warmly. Wear rubber boots. Most importantly, be equipped with a heightened sense of imagination. The boots will come in handy when you find the damp low spot where the search will begin. As for the imagination … well ... Soon you may come upon a curious looking group of plants sprouting from the moist earth. They will be anywhere from a few inches to two feet tall, depending on the stage of growth; with greenish, brown-flecked stems, and a green or brown top somewhat resembling the fruit of a cattail. Look around. You don’t want anyone to be following you now. There will be a danger they might question your mental stability. Once you are certain you are alone, quietly lie down amid the plants. Watch.. and listen.
Do you hear it? The heavy tread of dinosaur feet? Do you see them, lurking there just beyond the mists?
The plants of which I write are horsetails. According to the fossil record, at the time the dinosaurs roamed the earth, they grew to the size of trees. Even though they are much smaller now, they still retain a unique appearance suggestive of those prehistoric times.
There are several species of horsetail plants in our region. The largest one, and the one most easily imagined to harbor relics from the past, is Giant Horsetail. Even in these modern times it sometimes grows to height of nearly 10 feet.
It is an easily recognized plant. The tall straight stems are of two types. Sterile stems are hollow, and have a whorl of bright green filament-like branches sprouting from each juncture. These branches are very soft to the touch. Fertile stems, which are shorter, lack these branches, and are more fleshy. The overall appearance of a patch of Giant Horsetail is very attractive, with the multi-layered growth and mix of green and brown colors on the stems of the plants.
Although young stems of Giant Horsetail were reportedly eaten by native tribes people, making them a part of one’s diet is not recommended. They are known to be poisonous to cattle, and are likely toxic to humans, especially if consumed in large quantities.
Giant Horsetail is common in our area. It can be found in a variety of spots where there is sufficient moisture close to the surface, such as roadside ditches, wet pastures, and edges of marshes.
A closely related species is Common Horsetail. It shares with the larger species the characteristic of having both fertile and sterile stems, and is similar in appearance. It too grows in a variety of moist habitats, often in company with Giant Horsetail. Both species are found at low to middle elevations, but Common Horsetail also grows even in alpine areas. In fact, this plant has a nearly worldwide distribution. People in Europe have for centuries gathered and eaten the first sprouting shoots in early spring (although the same toxic qualities found in Giant Horsetail are said to exist in this species as well).
Still another variety of horsetail which grows in our area is Scouring Rush. It differs from its cousins by having only one type of stem, and in completely lacking branches. It gained the name because it is known to have been used for scouring utensils before the invention of modern materials used for the process (sort of a prehistoric scouring pad, if you will).
All horsetails, when viewed closely, are attractive plants. The combination of erect stems, with brownish bands at each juncture, and soft green branches give them a delicate, beautiful appearance. In fact, the beauty of horsetails can be enjoyed nearly year-round. Even after the fall frosts have withered the plants and they lie prostrate, the stems still retain a beautiful pattern of different shades of brown; light on the main part of the stem, and darker at the junctures. So even if you cannot find dinosaurs in their midst, don’t neglect to find enjoyment from these ancient and beautiful plants.

Photo (icky, icky photo...) by Darrel Faxon.

Mite makes write
Symbiotic relationship inspires
writer to wax biologic

[Posted May 20, 2009]

WARNING: This column comes with a “PG” rating. No, not parental guidance, although that might be an option for some. In this case, the letters stand for Partly Gross. Maybe at 60, I’m too old to be using teenage terms, but the choice of words seems appropriate in this particular case.
OK, on with the topic at hand. When it comes to appreciation of nature I suppose most people are satisfied to have a close encounter with one particular individual organism, such as being able to get close to a whale. Or perhaps that appreciation extends to the species level. It is not difficult, for example, to come to appreciate the beauty of both the plumage and song of Black-headed Grosbeaks.
However, the biological world has fascinations that go far beyond the level of individual organisms, or even individual species. One of these fascinations has to do with the interactions between individuals of a given species. But the real fascination begins at the level of interactions and interrelationships between different species, or even between different types of creatures. Everything in the biological world is in some way related to everything else, and the relationships are so intricate and complex that no one really understands them in detail. Our best and most involved studies of such things have done nothing more than scratch the surface of what is out there to be learned.
If such studies strike you as being too scientific for your taste, let me assure you they are not. One does not have to be a scientist to observe things of wonder and intrigue. Armed with nothing more than a childlike sense of curiosity, he may be transported into the spellbinding arena of these intricate interrelationships; be drawn into the drama of the great biological dance happening at his very feet.
Let me cite an example. A couple of years ago, while my wife and I were sitting in our pickup overlooking the ocean, I noticed a beetle about an inch long crawling along the window on the driver’s side. Since it was black with orange spots on the back, I took it to be a carrion beetle of some sort. I reached for my digital camera, took a picture of it, and then released it through the open window.
I went home thinking I had shot a nice picture of the beetle. It was not until I downloaded the photo onto my computer and enlarged it that I noticed something totally unexpected. The beetle had orange spots on its back, all right, in all the places I would have expected them to be. However, some of those orange spots had legs. In fact, they had eight legs. I realized then that some of the orange spots were in fact mites of some sort. What I found fascinating was that they were the same size as the spots on the shell of the insect, the same color, the same shape, and in the same location. Although they were large enough to be seen with the naked eye, they so closely resembled the normal spots that I hadn’t even noticed the difference. It was one of the most interesting and effective examples of camouflage I had ever seen.
As I pondered the presence of these mites, my first thought was that they were some sort of parasites which had attached themselves to the beetle. After all, many species of mites are parasitic. But the more I thought about it, the less inclined I was to think that these were parasitic mites, and the more inclined I was to think they were instead a species beneficial to the beetle, and living in a symbiotic relationship with it.
Symbiosis, by definition, is the interrelationship between two differing organisms, that is mutually beneficial to each. The relationship between bees and flowers is a prime example. But mites on a beetle? Well, it was a carrion beetle. You can use your own imagination to determine what it feeds on. If the mites attached themselves to it, they could very well have done so as the cleanup crew to dispose of any crumbs left over from what the beetle ate. In that way they would themselves be fed, and do the beetle a service by cleaning from his joints miniscule particles which might otherwise be attacked by fungus or other harmful organisms. Was this situation really the case? I do not know. What I do know is that curiosity is as easily satisfied by intrigue as it is by answers, and the biological world at our very feet is capable of supplying both, in very large doses.

The flowers of the Bigleaf Maple are one of the bountiful blooms in the spring forest.

Bigleaf Maple
This month, dance 'round the maple

[Posted May 8, 2009]

April showers, it is said, bring May flowers. Certainly the abundance of blooms found in field and wood during this month gives credence to the adage. Thousands upon thousands of pink-striped miner’s lettuce blooms adorn the moist woods. Myriads of yellow johnny-jump-ups (yellow streamside violet, to the more technically minded) line the creek banks. White wood sorrel blossoms can be found in profusion in similar sites. In selected open spots one may discover whole hillsides covered with wild iris.

However, when it comes to sheer volume of blooms, there is one plant in our area which likely produces far more than any of the others, maybe more than all of them combined, and some people will be surprised to learn its identity. The plant of which I speak is Bigleaf Maple.

The reason some might be surprised to learn that this maple has a profusion of blossoms is that from a distance one might mistake them for leaves. The maples burst into bloom about the same time that the leaves on most of the other deciduous trees are beginning to burst from their sheaths, so it would be natural to suppose that the first blush of green on the maples was also produced by the emerging foliage. But it isn’t.

From about the middle of April until very early in May almost the entire greenery on the maples is composed of flowers which begin to bloom two to three weeks ahead of the emergence of the leaves. The reason there are often so many blooms is that Bigleaf Maples are very large trees, and every one of them has thousands upon thousands of flowers, even by conservative estimate. Every single leaf node on an individual tree sprouts a 3- to 6-inch stem covered with a whorl of greenish yellow flowers for its entire length. As the leaf nodes tend to grow in threes, there are three of these flower-covered stems at the end of every branch.

As I write, I have in hand one of these three parted branches, each with its attendant flower cluster. They hold 34, 39 and 68 blossoms, respectively. Now I once read that if all the statisticians in the world were laid end to end, it might be a good idea. But for those who don’t mind a little math, that is an average of 47 per cluster. Multiply that times the number of leaf nodes on an individual tree, and that again times the number of maples in our coastal forests, and you will begin to get some idea of why I suggest that Bigleaf Maple blossoms are our most abundant flower.

It isn’t just their abundance that makes the maple blossoms worthy of attention, either. They are also astoundingly beautiful, whether viewed from a distance, or close at hand. The blooming period is fairly long, extending over several weeks, and the blossoms go through a progression of color throughout the entire time. When first emerging they are greenish. Then as they begin to open, the color changes more toward yellow. At this time, toward the end of April and early May, the blossoms hang nearly straight down from the tips of each branch, making each tree look as if it were covered with thousands of yellow chandeliers. And finally, as the leaves begin to emerge, the flowers open more fully, revealing the yellowish interior.

Examined closely, the individual flowers are beautiful in their own right. Each has about a dozen greenish yellow petals surrounding an equal number of two parted green anthers that protrude from the center of the bloom.

In the midst of these anthers two greenish, curly stigmas sprout from an ovary tipped with fuzzy white hairs. As is the case with many of our flowers, these details are best appreciated when viewed beneath a magnifying glass.

The up-close beauty of the flower clusters is enhanced once the leaves begin to come out. These leaves emerge from a series of overlapping leaf bracts at the base of each leaf stem. The basal ones are short, spoon shaped, and yellow with reddish tips. Each succeeding layer is longer, more lance shaped, and redder. The combination of reddish leaf bracts, yellowish green flowers, and greenish leaves forms a contrast of colors that is well worth taking to time to look over closely. By mid May both the bracts and the flower clusters will have fallen away or have been hidden by the fast growing leaves. So now is the time to get out and enjoy the show-stopping beauty of the maple blooms.

Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the creatures and habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

The Trillium
In spring, three is a magic number

[Posted April 10, 2009]

One of the challenges of writing a nature notes column is attempting to stay current with the season; that is, to write about creatures or events which are at their peak interest at any particular season of the year. The challenge is not a scarcity of things that are current. It is being overwhelmed, on any given day of the year, with an immense volume of things worthy of attention.
Perhaps at no season of the year is this principle more true than during the spring. As the old saying goes, “Spring is busting out all over,” which makes it difficult to pick one subject, as doing so disqualifies, for that column, a great many others of equal interest.
However, one of the great marvels of this spring season most certainly has to do with those native flowers known as trilliums. These flowers are, in fact, of such exquisite beauty that if they grew in some far off land, most of us would thrill to the sight of them in a photograph, and some would even travel great distances to see trilliums for themselves.
As it is, most of us living along the Oregon Coast would not have to walk very far from out own dwellings to see trilliums. They are common in moist, shady woodlands all along the immediate coast and throughout the Coast Range, except at the highest elevations. Many years they begin to bloom in early March, but this year they are just now coming into the fullest glory at this writing, the first week of April. Typically their blooming period will last only a few weeks, but, oh my! ‘Tis a glorious thing while it lasts.
The symmetry of a trillium would itself be sufficient to make it a beautiful plant, even if it had no other adorning features. Each section of the plant, including the leaves, petals, stigmas, and sepals, are arranged in segments of threes — from whence the plant derives its name. It has three large (up to 5 inches across) heart-shaped dark green leaves, which form a whorl around the naked stem, about 12 inches above the floor of the forest.
The three white petals of the blossom are arranged so that they often fit within the gaps between the leaves. Then the bright yellow stamen, or pollen-bearing portion of the flower, protrudes from the inner central portion of the bloom. As trilliums tend to grow in more open forests with limited underbrush, their bright white blossoms may often be seen from some distance. As the blooming season progresses, these white blossoms begin to fade, but for a time retain their loveliness, as they turn to a deep purple.
One of the surprising features of this lovely plant is that for seed dispersal it depends primarily upon ants, which live on or near the forest floor. It is specially designed for this task. Each seed within the blossom comes equipped with a small appendage full of a particular type of oil that the ants find attractive. The ants harvest the seeds, carry them away to their nests, eat or feed the appendages to their larva, and discard the seeds. Other insects, notably certain types of small flies, pollinate the plants during the cool, wet time of year prior to the emergence of honeybees or native bees.
I have never heard anyone in our area call these flowering plants anything but trillium, but the flower books claim that an alternate name for them is Wake Robin, so given because the time of blossoming coincides with the spring melody supplied by that well-known songbird.
Should you be tempted to pick trilliums to carry home, by all means do so sparingly. Flower stalks from which the bloom has been picked may not bloom again in succeeding years. So it is best to enjoy the blooms where they are, in the deep woods they love. Besides, if you have the patience, it is not terribly difficult to grow the plants from seed. Once the blossoms have faded and the petals fallen, wait a few weeks . Than find a plant that still contains the greenish fruit, and keep track of it. Once this fruit has dried somewhat, collect the seeds. In the late summer or fall, scatter them in a moist location, and chances are that in time you will have a trillium patch of your own. It may take a couple of years for the plants to progress from seed to flower, but the beauty of the bloom will make it worth the wait.
For those less inclined to wait … well, just go out into the forest and enjoy them in their native setting. You won’t be disappointed, and now is the time.

Photo by John Clem.

To miss this duck would be, well, Daffy

[Posted March 25, 2009]

Over the course of a year, there are about 26 species of ducks which one might reasonably expect to find in Tillamook and Lincoln counties. Most are wintering species that inhabit the estuaries and near-shore ocean waters. Only a few remain in our area to nest. One of these is the Hooded Merganser.
Though relatively common, it is an easily-overlooked species. Unlike many of its relatives in the duck family, which congregate in large rafts on open waters, it is a shy and retiring species not given to association with more than a dozen of its own kind. There actually are three species of mergansers in our area. Each has a different habitat niche. Red-breasted Mergansers are the ones most likely to be seen on salt water. They are especially common in estuaries. Common Mergansers are primarily birds of inland rivers with rapid water movement. Hooded Mergansers prefer slower-moving fresh water. They are most often found on wooded ponds or the sluggish freshwater portions of our coastal rivers.
As ducks go, Hooded Mergansers are part of a rather distinctive family. Most ducks subsist on primarily a vegetable diet. Mergansers are almost exclusively fish eaters. As a result, the structure of their bill is very different than that of the ducks that eat peas and corn. It is longer, more slender, less spoon-shaped on the end, and, most importantly, is equipped with serrated edges, which enable the birds to better grasp their finny prey.
The prey of this particular species of Merganser include small fish such as sculpins, perch, catfish, various species of panfish, as well as crawfish, aquatic insects, and salamanders. In other words, any small prey living in shallow ponds or rivers are in danger of being captured and eaten if a Hooded Merganser is swimming there. In addition to being excellent divers, these birds also have a highly transparent nictating membrane over the eye. This feature allows them to see well, even in murky water, while still preventing the water from actually touching the eye — designer eyelids just right for the necessary task.
There’s an unusual feature shared by Hooded Mergansers and Wood Ducks. Rather than laying their eggs in well-camouflaged ground nests, they nest in cavities in trees (actually, there are several other species of ducks which nest this way, but they are far outnumbered by those species which do not). This nesting preference also explains why the birds prefer rivers and ponds surrounded by woods. They also will take to nest boxes put up for Wood Ducks. They usually lay around 10 white eggs. Once the young hatch, they remain in the nest for only about one day before leaping out and following their parents to the nearest water.
Male Hooded Mergansers are striking birds. They are black on the back with a few white streaks on the edges of the wing feathers. The chest is also black, bordering a pure white breast set off from a bright chestnut belly by two black streaks, which extend downward from the chest. The head is jet black with a narrow white stripe that extends from just behind the eye to nearly the rear of the head. However, these birds have an erectable crest. When it is fully fanned out, the head suddenly looks twice as large as previously, and the white stripe becomes a wide, showy crescent. Fortunately, the males frequently do extend this crest, displaying its full beauty.
Females of the species are much more demure in dress. They are largely a subtle blend of various shades of gray, and have a dull reddish and mildly conspicuous crest. In groupings of Hooded Mergansers, females usually outnumber males four or five to one.
If you have not acquainted yourself with this beautiful little duck, it really is not too difficult to do so. Hooded Mergansers are permanent residents in our area, and may be seen any month of the year. Find some quiet backwater surrounded or partially bordered by trees, and keep an eye on it.
Chances are that within a few days or weeks you will be treated to the sight of a startlingly beautiful duck dressed in chestnut, black, and white, swimming alongside his dainty grayish mate. These birds, while wary, are not overly skittish. If you watch quietly for a while, they will go about their business, and you may get the opportunity to see the male display the crest for which the species is named.

A nudibranch. Photo by Darrel Faxon.

Tidepooling? Seek out the nudibranch.

[Posted March 10, 2009]

When it comes to fascination, there is perhaps nothing equal to the ocean. It is never the same for two days, or two minutes, in succession. Whether frothing and wind tossed or calm, it provides a continuously changing view of beauty and drama.
One of the most dramatic changes is brought about by the fluctuations of the tides. Twice a day (on our beaches) the cycle of high and low water comes, each offering different opportunities to both man and beast. For many people the greatest opportunities come at low tides, especially those known as minus tides. In such situations the outflow of water actually drops below mean sea level, exposing many rocky shelves and mudflats normally inundated with water. As a result, these tides are often called clamming tides. Hundreds of people flock to the beaches and estuaries to search for the variety of clams found in our area.
Another fascinating pastime in which people might engage during these periods of extreme low water is to go tide-pooling. It is unlike car-pooling in the sense that one may go alone, but it is strongly recommended that, like the former, you have companions in your pursuit. It must be stated at the outset that looking through these tide pool areas at periods of low water is very hazardous. For one thing, you need to remember that you are walking around in an area that is actually below sea level, and must continually be on guard for sneaker waves. For another, the rocks in some of these areas are covered with eel grass and sea lettuce and are EXTREMELY slippery.
However, what one finds in such places makes the risk of looking worthwhile. For here, amid the eelgrass and rocks, are creatures of astonishing form and exquisite beauty. Among the most beautiful are the nudibranches. There are a number of species and varieties that inhabit the near shore ocean waters, and a careful search through these habitats at low tide will reveal them.
By biological definition, nudibranches are mollusks, related to terrestrial slugs and snails. In general form they resemble their earthy cousins, but are much more colorful and delicate. Some are ghostly white, with wavy appendages sprouting from the body; others are gray with orange, white- tipped, feathery plumes, or bright yellow, black with yellow spots, red, purple, bright pink, or other colors. The patterns of these creatures may be even more astounding than the colors, the wavy plumes sticking out from the body coming in various shapes and configurations. They truly are astonishing creatures to see.
The plumes on the back and head of nudibranches are far more than just colorful appendages. One group of them, the dorids, actually breathe through the plumes on the back, and on all nudibranches the plumes or tentacles on the head are sensitive to touch, taste, and smell.
Somewhat surprisingly, these sea creatures are carnivorous. They feed on sponges and other forms of animal life found in the tide pools, sometimes even on others of their own kind.
Most nudibranches in our area are rather small, less than three and a half inches long. Some are even tinier, only an inch or so in length. As such, it takes a certain amount of effort to find them. One method that works well is to wander among the tide pools, looking for ones clinging to the edges of the rocks, or slowly parting the eelgrass to discover ones hidden in its folds. They do not move about hurriedly, so it is not necessary to be in a hurry to watch them. It is when they are undisturbed that they are most likely to move about with their plumes extended.
There are a number of places along the Lincoln and Tillamook County coasts where one may explore nudibranch habitat. Any rocky shelf with a growth of eelgrass or other marine vegetation will undoubtedly harbor a number of these fascinating creatures. One of the best locations is Boiler Bay, a protected marine garden just a short distance north of the community of Depoe Bay. The amount and variety of sea life here is astounding, and there are many species of nudibranches that reside at this location.
Those wishing to check out this spot, or some other, in search of nudibranches and other denizens of tide pools should take advantage of tide table charts and make advance preparations. The best minus tides this year will be May 26, and June 23-24, a few days before and after the optimum times also being good dates. The secret to good tide pooling is to be prepared: Prepared to wear warm clothing and boots with good gripping ability; prepared to keep one eye on the ocean; and prepared to be blown away by the astonishing beauty of the nudibranches.

Darrel Faxon Photo

Now is the time to spy on your guests' nests
[Posted Feb. 11, 2009]

Gone away is the bluebird. Here to stay is a new bird. These well-known lyrics from a popular Christmas song accent the pleasure of seeing and experiencing the birds of winter. As many of our breeding species move south for the winter, and are replaced by species that move in from further north, the mix of birds which we have from September to March is very different from that which we have during the spring and summer. As these winter visitors tend to flock to offerings of sunflower seed and suet, feeding them is a favorite pastime of many people during the months of cold, wet weather.
However, I wish to suggest another bird related activity that can prove to be a wintertime fascination: finding and studying bird nests. With the leaves gone from the trees, they are much easier to find in that season than they are when the forests are cloaked with verdure. Those creatures which might have passed by unnoticed during spring are plainly visible in the winter. And nests really are fascinating things to examine.
There are probably as many different kinds of nests as there are birds. There are the simple types, made by such birds as Killdeer, which are no more than a shallow scrape in the sand, or perhaps a gravel parking lot. Birds like this depend upon the similarity of the eggs to their surroundings to provide camouflage.
Then there are birds that dig underground tunnels in which they lay their eggs. Most of these are seabirds, such as puffins and petrels, which nest in the steep grassy portions of coastal headlands or in similar locations on offshore rocks. Cormorants also nest on these rocks, laying their eggs right on top of the bare rock, and relying on their sheer numbers to provide a measure of protection for their eggs. Gulls build nests of seaweed and occasionally small sticks on the ground or on man made structures such as bridge abutments.
Other birds, such as hawks, eagles, and herons build nests out of sticks. Some of these nests have new material added to them year after year, and eventually may become massive structures weighing upwards of a ton. Most ducks tend to build nests among waterside grasses or reeds, lining them with a heavy layer of down plucked from their own breasts. A few species, such as Wood Ducks and Hooded Mergansers, nest in hollow cavities in trees. Woodpeckers nest in trees or stumps, in holes they themselves chisel out of the wood. Many other species, like chickadees, use old woodpecker cavities or similar spots for nesting.
Some species, such as warblers, flycatchers, and sparrows, build highly complex structures in low grasses or amid the foliage in trees. It is this latter type of nest that I suggest people examine during the winter.
Such nests normally have a very intricate and often delicate pattern. The outer portion is often made up of a surprising number of tiny rootlets, which the birds pluck from cutbanks or other places where tree roots have been exposed. These rootlets are woven together in a manner which would do credit to the finest craftsman. Inside of the cup thus formed there is usually a layer of grass or other fine material. Then the inner portion is composed of a heavy coating of moss, often topped off with an additional layer of fine lichen. Copious amounts of spider web are not infrequently used in the construction of such nests. Hummingbirds, in particular, use this material extensively. When one takes time to really examine such a nest, its construction and intricacy will prove to be a marvel of engineering skill.
If one happens to take more than a passing interest in such nests, he may even learn what sort of bird made it, just by looking at the materials used, or at the location of the nest. If, for example, you find a cup shaped nest three inches wide nestled into a cranny in the cutbank of a road, it was probably placed there by a Pacific Slope Flycatcher. Or, if while going through a heavy patch of brush you happen to discover a somewhat larger, looser nest lined with dried vine maple bark, you can be nearly certain it was made by a Wren-tit.
Perhaps such scrutiny of nests is beyond the interest level of most people. But even for those not inclined to make such a study, it is still worthwhile, during the season the roses are not in bloom, to stop and admire the easily visible nests of some of our native songbirds.

Photo by Darrel Faxon

Migration spawns admiration of salmon
[Posted Jan. 29, 2009]

Of all the things that occur in the biological world around us, there are few which are as thrilling to the soul as the saga of the salmon. Go to any of the small streams which feed into the major river systems in our area during the summer, and in the pools you will see small fingerling salmon, maybe two or three inches long, darting back and forth in the quiet water. Go to any of these same steams two to five years later, during the winter, and you will see some of the same fish, now adults, and, depending upon the species, weighing from five to 40 or more pounds.
What happens to these fish in the interval between the two settings is really quite remarkable. Salmon are a type of fish that are known as anadramous. The word literally means ascending, going up. It refers to the fact that the adult fish go up the rivers to spawn. They choose out a place in the stream where there is a sufficient cover of small to medium sized gravel. Here, by means of a back and forth rubbing motion with the body, they dig out a spawning bed, called a redd, and deposit their eggs.
In spite of the fact that the torrential rains of the Coast Range Mountains swell the streams into raging torrents that annually carve out new channels and alter the beds of the streams, enough of these eggs hatch to begin a new generation of salmon each spring. At first, the fry are very small, and still attached to the yolk sac. However, this sac soon drops away and the little fish begin to develop into fingerlings, which spend the first few months of their lives in the stream in which they were born.
Then, when the biological clock with which they were designed tells them the time has come, they migrate to the ocean. The timing of this migration varies from species to species. For the larger Chinook Salmon, it occurs during their first fall. The fingerlings of the smaller Coho (or Silver Salmon, as they were called by everyone until maybe 25 years ago) remain in their natal streams through one winter and head to sea the following spring. At the time of this dispersal to salt water, the fish are known as smolts.
Once they reach the ocean, the fish spend two to five years there, fanning out in schools across the North Pacific. I know of no studies which indicate just how far west or north and south these fish travel from the mouths of the rivers from which they came, but it must be a considerable distance, as they remain in salt water from two to five years, growing into the fat adult fish so prized by the gourmet. Then, when their internal clock once again tells them it is time, they return to the rivers, and the very streams in which they were born to spawn, leaving in another redd the eggs holding the precious life of another generation of their kind. Then, their task accomplished, they die, their decaying bodies becoming part of the in-stream nutrient base necessary for the survival of their offspring.
Think of the astonishing intricacies of this saga: the miles traveled; the difficulties faced, the precision of the timing and geographical reckoning involved; the continuum of the process. To watch a spawning salmon digging its redd in its natal stream is to see the past through the eyes of the present, the re-enactment of an age-old drama that is measured in millennia.
Unfortunately, it is a drama that is decreasing in intensity and extent. Due to a variety of complex factors, which I will not here detail, in the past 40 years the numbers of salmon have greatly declined. Many of the streams that used to hold hundreds and hundreds of fish now harbor but a handful. It can be hoped that trends in management of salmon populations can reverse this decline.
If you have never observed salmon spawning in their native streams, you have missed a real treat. The ones you see there will not be bright and shiny like ocean salmon. They will be what are called “soreback salmon”, dark and discolored from the rigors of their journey and their frequent contact with the gravel in which they dig their redds. Nevertheless, as one watches them, he cannot help but marvel at the overwhelming odds they have faced, and overcome, in this long journey that has brought them once again to the very stream in which they were born.

Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the creatures and habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

Pelicans, at the D River in Lincoln City. TODAY file photo.

Brown Pelicans take flight
[Posted Jan. 14, 2009]

The first nature column I wrote for Oregon Coast Today, back in May 2005, was about pelicans. So it seems appropriate in this, my 100th column, to write about them again, but for a more specific reason. That first column was on pelicans in general. This one has to do with the fact that right now, pelicans are making big news.
Perhaps I should specify that it is Brown Pelicans of which I write. White Pelicans are also native to North America, but are very rare on the Oregon coast.
It certainly cannot be said that Brown Pelicans are rare here, especially not during the recent fall and early winter. There were thousands of them all along the coast. For weeks on end, many of the coastal estuaries hosted up to 2,000 of the birds at a time. One observer counted 3,600 of them one late fall day at Yaquina Head, just north of Newport. These numbers were unprecedented, at least at any time during the memory of anyone living here.
The number of pelicans was not the only thing that was surprising. They also lingered much later into the fall than normal. Most usually head south by the end of November, and a December sighting of one is considered unusual, but this year great concentrations persisted almost until Christmas.
The lateness of their departure is apparently part of an ongoing trend that started a few years back. Twenty years ago it was rare to see a pelican before the middle of April or after the first part of November, but in recent years the birds have begun arriving earlier and departing later.
So it is worth asking: Just what is going on here? Well, several things. One, the population of Brown Pelicans along the West Coast is increasing. Back in the 1960s the species was in considerable trouble due to egg shell thinning and resultant high chick mortality caused by the buildup of the pesticide DDT in the tissues of adult birds. After DDT was banned, the birds slowly began to make a comeback. Now their numbers are growing rapidly.
Whenever a particular organism experiences an explosive population increase, it tends to result in an attempt at range expansion. When nesting colonies within the breeding range of pelicans become crowded, some birds move further from that range in an attempt to reproduce, and may develop new migratory patterns in search of new territories. In their normal Baja California breeding range, Brown Pelicans breed early in the year. The adults that start showing up here in March and April are mostly those that have already had a successful breeding season. Since many of the late lingering birds along the coast are already starting to develop breeding plumage, there has even been speculation that some of them may attempt to stay and establish a new breeding colony on some of the sand islands at the mouth of the Columbia River.
There’s a second possible reason for their abnormally late stay along our shores. There may have been such an abundant food supply that the birds saw no reason to leave any earlier. There were reports this fall of massive numbers of baitfish in near-shore ocean waters. This situation may very well have contributed to the numbers of pelicans lingering well into the colder period of the year. It did seem incongruous to see so many of the birds still hanging around when there was snow on the beach!
Actually, the cold weather was not likely much of a threat to the birds. They are far more likely to be affected by strong windstorms which sweep in from the southwest. Indeed, since the onset of such storms there have been many reports of weak and injured pelicans along the California coast.
Many people have expressed dismay that some of these lingering pelicans may not survive the winter. It needs to be remembered that the biological world is in a continual state of flux. Populations are always in a state of advance or retraction, due to a host of interrelated factors. Weather is always one factor in an attempted range expansion of any creature. If it proves too hazardous to the creature, the attempt will likely fail. If it proves tolerable, a real range expansion may result, but it will not be without major setbacks from time to time as that organism adjusts to the new environment.
Brown Pelicans may indeed become more common in our area in years to come, but any attempt at expansion of their range or timing of migration will, on occasion, come at a price.

Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the creatures and habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

Faxon publishes 'A Year in Paradise'
[Posted Jan. 7, 2009]

Jan. 9
It is easy to listen to nature in spring, when she sings with full-throated chorus. To hear her in winter, when she speaks sotto voce, takes a bit more practice. The morning air is still and quiet, broken only by the gurgle of the brook. Around ten o’clock, a wrentit gives its accelerating keep-keep-keep-keep-keep-it call on the ridge above me. Its mate answers. A fox sparrow utters a throaty chuck from the brambles, and all again falls silent. Around noon, a gentle westerly wind begins to blow, sighing through the firs. As afternoon wears on, it increases in volume and velocity, until a soft mist begins to fall and mutes the wind’s sound. In the deepening twilight, a towhee voices a single zree from the safety of the blackberry vines, and a frog offers a lone croak from somewhere nearby, probably giving no thought to his role as harbinger of more vocal days to come.
– Darrel Faxon
“A Year in Paradise”

Writing coaches always say you should write what you know. If that’s true, then Darrel Faxon’s new book, “A Year in Paradise,” should be as real as they come. It’s about the cycles of life around his family’s farm in rural Lincoln County, where he has lived for nearly 70 years.
“A Year in Paradise: 365 Days on the Oregon Coast” is written as a journal and features photos and illustrations by Darrel and his wife, Laura Faxon, and photographs by the author’s sister, Letha Weaver. It’s a labor of love for Darrel, who has been working out-of-doors in Western Oregon since he was 15. He’s always been fascinated by biology in general, and birds in particular.
The book was triggered by a discovery he made while walking with his wife in October 2006. What he discovered, however, is what he calls a “trade secret.”
“At that point I determined to write a 365 consecutive day journal of what it is like to live, for a year, in paradise.
“The book is largely descriptive, detailing such things as flowers, birds, sunrises and sunsets, mushrooms, patterns of clouds, and a myriad of other things; the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feel of paradise, every single day,” he said. “The goal is to bring the reader into the experience of paradise, to enable him to experience vicariously the things I experienced, and as a result to become more aware of the paradise which surrounds him (or her) on a daily basis.”
The front cover features the author and his dog, Tony (it’s an old photo, taken “two dogs ago,” he said). It was snapped by Laura, who shares her husband’s fascination for all things biological. They met in 2002, and have been married for five years. It is the first marriage for both.
“A Year in Paradise” (104 pages, $20) is available at JC Thriftway Stores in Toledo and Newport, Canyon Way bookstore in Newport, the bookstore at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in South Beach, The Burning Bush at 820 SE Hwy 101 in Lincoln City, the Rainy Day Bookstore in Tillamook, and at the Tillamook Pioneer Museum. To learn more, head to the author’s web site: peak.org/~5hats/

Western Gull, by Darrel Faxon

Meet the Western Gull

[Posted Dec. 17, 2008]

Pick any day between Sept. 1 and April Fool’s Day, and if you are a knowledgeable observer you can usually find about 10 species of gulls along the Oregon coast. Pick a day in early to mid-summer, and chances are you will find but one, the Western Gull. Among the myriad gulls that spend time along our shorelines, it is the only species that remains here to breed.
In fact, the Western Gull is just that, a strictly western species. Its normal range is the Pacific Coast, from southwestern British Columbia to northern Baja California, and within that range, it is almost exclusively coastal. It is rarely found inland, even just as far east as the Willamette Valley, although stragglers have been found up the Columbia River as far as Umatilla.
Adult Western Gulls are among the easiest gulls to identify. They are one of the largest species, about 24 inches in length, and having a 58-inch wingspan. They are also the darkest backed of any of our gulls, the color ranging from medium gray to dark gray. The gray of this mantle is set off by black wingtips with white spots (mirrors) on the outer edge. The rest of the plumage is pure white, even during the winter. In fact, one of the distinguishing features of this species is the color of its head from September to March. Most large gulls show some blackish streaking or mottling on the head during this season, but the feathers on the head of a Western Gull retain their brilliant white color.
Other features of the species include pink legs and an oval shaped orange orbital ring around the eye. Younger birds (Western Gulls take four years and go through a number of plumage changes before reaching adulthood), and hybrids (and there are many of these) can cloud the issue of identification, but these plumage features are for the purists who delight in technical details. To the average observer the gulls along our coast are just sea gulls.
However, even for the layman, Western Gulls are worth observing. Sometimes, it is obvious the gulls are watching back. They are smart, and it does not take them long to figure out where free handouts can be obtained. Feed them once, maybe twice, and they will recognize your vehicle as soon as it comes in sight. They also will become tame enough, or at least bold enough, to nearly snatch food from your fingertips. Those interested in feeding gulls might consider this: while real Oregonians do not use umbrellas, real gull feeders might be advised to do so. The hint should be sufficient warning to the wise.
If you’d like to see gulls in their native habitat, go to places like Yaquina Head, north of Newport, or Haystack Rock, west of Tillamook. Western Gulls nest at these locations, and in many other places along the coast. Their nests, bulky affairs composed of sticks, are usually built out in the open where they can easily be observed. Incubation of the eggs is usually around four weeks. Then it takes the chicks an additional six to seven weeks to fly. So the time of rearing of the young is long for these gulls. At times the immature birds do their best to make it longer. It is not uncommon to see fully-fledged chicks in first winter plumage still begging from their parents even in late December.
Western Gulls seem to always be hungry. They will eat almost anything that moves, and plenty that does not. Their diet includes fish, marine invertebrates, eggs and young birds of other birds, clams (sometimes breaking the shells by dropping them onto hard sand or pavement from a height of 30 feet or more), and various kinds of carrion. They also not infrequently eat sea stars. One may sometimes see a gull standing around with part of a sea star hanging out its mouth while the other half is slowly being digested.
One of the true delights of gull watching, or coast watching, for that matter, is to observe the gulls flying by any particular point, especially in the estuaries. They sail with, against, or across the wind with equanimity; what would be impossible to the very best human hang glider, gulls demonstrate with greatest ease. No doubt about it, Western Gulls are truly one of the charms of the coast.

Photo by Darrel Faxon

Amphibians grow here by the foot
[Posted Dec. 3, 2008]

Quiz time. To what part of Planet Earth would you go if you wanted to see the world’s largest terrestrial salamander? Madagascar? Nope. Try again. The Brazilian rain forest? Wrong again. Would you believe the Pacific Northwest coast? It is true. The Komodo Dragon it is not, but the Pacific Giant Salamander is the largest of its kind in the entire world, and it lives right here on the Oregon Coast.
As salamanders go, it really is a big one. Most are slender creatures three to four inches long. The Pacific Giant can grow to as much as 13 inches in length, and it is not slender. A mature adult has a head over an inch wide, a heavy, chunky body, and may weigh as much (my estimation, as I couldn’t find specific weights for the species in my research) as much as half a pound. For comparison, a robin weighs about 2.7 ounces.
Like all salamanders, the Pacific Giant is an amphibian, a creature that begins its life in the water and goes through a developmental larval stage before emerging to carry about its adult duties on land. (Note: a number of the terrestrial salamanders in our area do not lay their eggs in the water; instead in damp crevices in rocks or rotting wood. The Pacific Giant, however, does lay its eggs in water and goes through the larval stage described).
The eggs of this species take as long as seven months to hatch, which is much longer than for most salamanders. Once the larva hatch, most will spend more than a year in their natal habitat before venturing forth to their terrestrial environment. At this time they will have grown to about three-fifths of their maximum size. An odd feature of this species is that some individuals never develop into the mature, land dwelling form. They retain the reddish, external gills and small legs characteristic of younger larva, and remain in the water for their entire lives, even though they grow to full length and attain sexual maturity.
On land, Pacific Giants are easy to recognize. In addition to their large size, they are often uniquely colored. Most tend to be varying shades of brown or gray. Some are heavily patterned with black markings which may take the shape of rings, splotches, zig-zags, or any combination of these. No two seem to be exactly alike. The one pictured is one of the most heavily patterned ones I have encountered.
Another unusual feature of this salamander is that it is said to be able to growl or bark like a dog, especially when disturbed. As I personally have handled dozens of Pacific Giants, and have never once heard any of them make a sound, I am inclined to wonder about the veracity of the printed information on this subject. However, they also are said to be capable of inflicting a painful bite. This I am inclined to believe. So in the case of the Pacific Giant, it may be that its bite is worse than its bark!
The bite of this salamander certainly is a serious threat to other small creatures of the forest floor. I have seen them in the process of devouring banana slugs and worms. They are voracious predators, also preying on insects, snails, other salamanders, and even mice or shrews. They do, however, avoid eating the highly toxic rough-skinned newt.
It would be my guess that most people living in Tillamook or Lincoln Counties have never seen a Pacific Giant Salamander. If this is the case, it is not because these amphibians are really rare. They can be found with some regularity in damp woodlands or along streams. However, they are largely nocturnal feeders. During the daylight hours they tend to stay hidden amid leaf litter or under rotting logs.
They do on occasion move about during the day, but are most often seen when some activity disturbs the debris on the forest floor. I once found three in a single day while I was removing the covering of weeds which had grown up in my garden over the winter. One is most likely to encounter them during the cooler, wetter parts of the year. During the hotter part of summer they are more inclined to remain hidden. In fact, they are known to burrow down into the soil, and have even been found to depths of 20 feet. It is much easier to find them in seeps and springs while they are in their larval stage. Captive specimens have also been known to survive well in terrariums.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the creatures and habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com

Pickleweed. Photo by Darrel Faxon.

Hardy marsh survivors are worth their salt

Posted Nov. 19, 2008

In a region dominated by forest and sea, it is easy to overlook and undervalue some of the lesser-known habitats between them.
Among the least known and appreciated are the salt marshes. They are often overlooked for a number of reasons. One is that they occupy only a small fraction of the total land mass with our region. Another is that they do not appear, at first glance, to be significant; merely a narrow strip of low-growing plants to walk over on the way to clamming areas on the mudflats.
So perhaps the first thing we might do is give a general definition of what is meant by the term salt marsh. It might be said to be an area where all the vegetation grows with its feet in salt water. In our area, all such salt marshes are found within the confines of coastal estuaries, basically at that point just above the mudflats, at the mid-way point between low and high tides. Here the vegetation at the margins must survive the twice-daily inundation of salt water brought on by the incoming tides, and also handle the extended periods of drying out, during periods of low water. As most green plants cannot tolerate such heavy concentrations of salt, those that live in salt marshes must be specially adapted to do so. Such plants are known as halophytes.
One of the common types is salicornia, with about 60 species worldwide. They have a somewhat spotty distribution, being native to North America, Europe, southern Asia, and southern Africa. Salicornia is also known by other names, like glasswort or marsh samphire. The species most often found in our area is known by most people as pickleweed.
Like most other halophytes, pickleweed is well suited to live in its harsh environment. For one thing, it is a succulent; that is, a plant which has the ability to store fresh water in its tissues. In that regard, it is similar to the stonecrops, flowering plants that grow commonly on the nearly bare rock habitat of some of the coastal headlands, where for several months during the summer, they receive essentially no moisture from the soil.
Pickleweed doesn’t want for water, but most is of the wrong variety; that is, salty. It stores the fresh water through a most unusual process. Since in the natural process of osmosis (the movement of fluid through the tissues of plants) the flow tends to go from areas of high concentration to areas of lower concentration, this plant stores in its root tissues higher concentrations of salt than that which is found in the surrounding water. This allows for the tissues in the upper sections of the plant to take on new inflows of fresh water.
Like many other succulents adapted to store water, pickleweed has rounded stems and leaves. This feature also makes it less vulnerable to physical forces like the crush of water or the force of coastal winds. If you happen to walk over a bed of pickleweed, you will be able to see for yourself how resilient it really is to weight. Although it looks fragile, it holds up remarkably well under the force of human feet.
Most of the year pickleweed is a light, bright green, with a pinkish tinge at the joints and, to some extent, on the stems. It tends to turn a bit more reddish in the fall. The flowers borne at the top of the stem are pollinated by the wind, and each small fruit has but one seed.
It almost seems odd, since this plant is covered so much of the time by water, but it actually is a host plant to some types of butterflies and moths, some of which are said to feed upon it exclusively. This is just one of the reasons pickleweed and its plant companions in the salt marsh form an important habitat community.
These marshes are nurturing grounds for many small fish and marine invertebrates that make up part of the huge biomass of the exceedingly complex and diverse estuarine habitat found in our area. Although the amount of this habitat in our area is small, it is critical to the cycle of life within our estuaries.
So the next time you cut across a patch of salt marsh (there is a sizeable portion of it in Yaquina Bay between the Hatfield Marine Science Center and the road leading to Idaho Point), take time to stop and admire the pickleweed. There will be a whole new world of wonder just under your feet.

Elfin Saddle

The Elfin Saddle

[Posted Nov. 5, 2008]

It’s mushroom season again! Although some fungi can be found growing in our area in the spring, the greatest number and variety pop up in October and November, especially after the commencement of the fall rains.
If it is numbers you want, well, the Northwest has plenty from which to choose. Five thousand species of mushrooms are said to grow here. And within that tremendous number of species, there is of course a great deal of variety. In addition to those which have the standard stem and cap (like those pictured in all the story books), there are many, many kinds which come in other shapes and sizes: boletus mushrooms with pores on the underside instead of gills; cup fungi shaped as their name suggests; round puffballs; ones like cauliflower mushroom with curly heads; bracketed types like chicken of the woods; brightly colored globs of jelly fungi; the spiny looking coral types, and a host of others in a variety of forms and colors.
One of the most unusual looking ones which grows in our area is the Elfin Saddle. It has an odd, almost other-worldly look, especially if you get down on your hands and knees and look at it at ground level (an activity, by the way, which I highly recommend. It really is amazing how one’s perspective of things is changed when he begins to see things as a mouse or a worm would see them!). The grayish black stem, which is often pitted and grooved, is topped by a convoluted black hood which may appear in a great variety of shapes. Some actually are shaped like a saddle. It is not hard, for those who have a heightened sense of imagination, to view them as being quite capable of living up to their name; even to suppose that at some time he might see some diminutive sprite astride singing “heigh-ho”. (I did, you remember, suggest it might take a sense of imagination developed beyond the level of normality!). Others may be in the shape of a monk’s hood, or a plastic hair cap. However, in my opinion, most of them could likely be best described as looking like a wadded-up, oily rag.
In spite of their odd appearance, Elfin Saddles are easily overlooked. Seldom more than three or four inches tall, they tend to grow amid leaf litter, and this habitat, coupled with their drab coloration, makes them sometimes hard to see. They also can be found growing in more open ground under young fir trees, where they are more easily detected. These mushrooms tend to sprout a bit later in the fall than many species, after the weather has turned cooler and the heavier rains have set in.
If your interest in mushrooms is more than academic, and your courage is equal to your imagination, you might be one of those people willing to give the Elfin Saddle the taste test - and for a particular reason. The Elfin Saddle is related to the morel, one of the most highly sought edible mushrooms of the spring season. It is even said to have a similar flavor to that of the morel. However, anyone wishing to take his experience of this mushroom to the gastronomic level is advised to do so only with EXTREME CAUTION. In spite of its reputed taste, it is known to have poisonous characteristics, said to be especially acute in older specimens. Under no circumstances should this fungi ever be eaten raw, and never in quantity or with repeated doses in quick succession. This advice is what the experts say, and it is good enough for me. Elfin Saddles are interesting enough to look at and enjoy without tempting fate by eating them. My advice would be: If you should be so fortunate this fall to happen upon some of them growing along a roadside, or amid the fir needles on the forest floor, enjoy their unique appearance, get down on your knees and give them a mouse-eye view, then go your way, knowing you have made satisfactory acquaintance with yet another of the many marvels in this marvelously diverse part of planet Earth.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the creatures and habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com

Look for this exciting boring insect

[Posted Oct. 22, 2008]

Just as late winter and spring are the times to be on the lookout for migrant birds and blooming wildflowers, so late summer and fall are the times to be watching for insects. The number and variety reach their pinnacle at this season.
Among those the most interesting are the horntails. These impressive insects are actually quite common at this season, and may be heard noisily buzzing about, or seen crawling around on woodpiles. As they have what looks to be a large, formidable stinger at the rear of their abdomen, having a horntail buzz right past one’s head can be an unnerving experience, but these creatures are not closely related to bees and are quite harmless to humans.
As a matter of fact, horntails are actually most closely related to sawflies. Another name for them is wood wasps, and the label is fitting. Toward the rear of the abdomen, female horntails are equipped with a strong projecting spike called an ovipositor. They are capable of driving this spike deep into solid wood, then through it depositing their eggs into the cavity thus created.
Worldwide, there are over 100 species of horntails. They are found throughout the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, wherever there are woodlands. Several species are found in our region. One is deep blue, with transparent brown wings, orange legs, and black antennae. Another is similar, but has dark legs and white antennae. Both of these species are about an inch in length.
A third species (pictured here) is most impressive. It is nearly two inches in length, deep black in color, has a yellow spot on each side of the head, bright chestnut wings, banded black and yellow legs, and orange antennae. Due to their habitat needs, they are attracted to newly cut wood, especially fir, and may often be found about slash piles or stacks of firewood.
If you happen to find one of these insects climbing about on a woodpile, take the time to watch it for a while. You may be treated to the fascinating experience of seeing it deposit its eggs into the wood. Upon finding a suitable site on the log or chunk, it will push itself up as high as it can on its long legs, lower the ovipositor, and drill it through the bark and deep into the wood. It seems to do this as easily as you or I would push a needle through a piece of foam.
Once it has drilled to a satisfactory depth, it then will go through a series of pumping motions in order to inject the eggs into the cavity it has drilled. The process may take 10 minutes or more. Other than the pumping motion, the insect will remain motionless during this time, and may be closely approached. If you look carefully at the accompanying photo, you may see the horntail in the act of depositing its eggs as described. Note how the ovipositor beneath the central section of the insect’s body is drilled deeply into the wood.
The life cycle of horntails is also quite interesting. After the eggs hatch, the grubs eat away at the wood for up to two years, and in some cases, longer. Just before they are ready to pupate, they move to the outer edge of the log or chunk in which they have been living, and form their pupae just under the bark. So when the adults emerge, they have only a thin layer of material through which they must pass in order to reach the surface. In spite of their wood-eating habits, horntails are not considered to cause any significant damage to timber or sawed lumber.
Horntails do have natural enemies, particularly the parasitic ichneumon wasps, which lay their eggs in horntail larvae. These wasps are even more bizarre in appearance than the horntails, but that is another subject for another time.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the creatures and habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com

Birders on the coast witness a surprising tern of events
[Posted Aug. 21, 2008]

One of the exciting things about birding is that you just never know what might show up. Case in point (if you don’t mind a history lesson): Prior to 1983 there was one record of Elegant Tern in Oregon, of a bird seen offshore from a fishing boat. But that summer a strong El Niño current brought exceptionally warm water close inshore off the Oregon coast. As a result, a number of sea creatures normally found only far south of the Oregon border began showing up along the coast and in offshore waters: sea turtles, unusual species of shrimp and tuna, and yes, Elegant Terns. The terns came in massive numbers; hundreds, perhaps thousands, and moved up the west coast as far north as northern Washington. It was an unprecedented event.
In the years since, Elegant Terns have made the northward journey more frequently. A few of them have appeared somewhere along the Oregon coast nearly every year. Whether this movement is related to warmer water offshore, or perhaps is simply evidence of a species expanding its range, is open to speculation. In any case, this year the terns are making it into our area once again, this time in significant numbers. The movement thus far is not as large as the one in 1983, but the birds have been reported from nearly every estuary along the coast, from Brookings to the mouth of the Columbia River. The photo above is of one of the birds sighted at Yaquina Bay on July 13.
At first glance, one might take an Elegant Tern to be a Caspian Tern, a much more common species that nests by the thousands on sand islands in the mouth of the Columbia and can be found all along the coast from April through September. However, there are significant differences between the two species. Elegant Terns are smaller — 17 inches as opposed to 21 for Caspian. They are slighter in build; have a thin, slightly drooping orange bill instead of a heavy, straight, scarlet one, less black on the wingtips, and, in most cases during the time they visit here, some white on the forehead, rather than having a full black crown.
The timing of their appearance here has a lot to do with the appearance of the crown. Typically the family of terns to which these two belong have complete black crowns only during breeding season. The Caspian Tern, being a more northerly breeding species, tends to retain the black crown for a longer period of time than the Elegant, which breeds around the Gulf of California, and along the west coast of Mexico in what is our late winter, and moves northward after breeding season. By the time the birds begin showing up here in July, they are already losing the complete black crown typical of breeding birds.
The size difference between Elegant and Caspian Terns is more apparent when the birds are in flight. Caspians are large birds, with a 50-inch wingspan, nearly as large as our largest gulls. Elegants are much more dainty, with a 34-inch wingspan. In flight they more closely resemble the smaller Common and Arctic Terns, which also pass through our area in August and September.
Another distinguishing feature of Elegant Tern is the shaggy crest at the back of the head. It is the only tern in our area with this particular feature. Although this crest is less apparent in non-breeding plumage than it is on breeding plumaged birds, it is still obvious enough that it serves as an identifying characteristic.
If you happen to be out looking for Elegant Terns, keep your ears open. They have a peculiar, grating “kee-rick” call, somewhat accentuated on the second syllable, that carries for long distances as they fly over the water.
Those fortunate enough to see these birds hunting (or, more properly, fishing) are in for a treat. An Elegant Tern in search of a meal will fly back and forth over the water, usually about 20 feet over its surface, with its head slightly turned down, looking for fish. When it sees an item of prey, it will plunge headfirst into the water, usually at about a 45-degree angle. During such dives, the terns do not entirely submerge. Rather, they grab their prey out of the water and return almost immediately to flight. This flight is strong but exceedingly buoyant, making the birds appear to be bouncing along almost effortlessly.
Now is the time to be searching for the birds, if you want to see one. They typically remain in our area only through the early part of September, and likely will not be seen again until at least July — and it may not be next year, or even the next.

Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the creatures and habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com

Hard, hardy & splendid: Oceanspray
[Posted Aug. 6, 2008]

Since in our area the peak season for wildflower blooms runs from March through May, it is somewhat of a special treat to be able to appreciate the few flowering plants which blossom later, in mid-summer.
One of the most common of these plants is the familiar Oceanspray, or, as it is sometimes called, Creambrush. Both names relate to the color of the blossom. When it is fully opened, it is an off-white or cream hue, about the same as the foam which sometimes collects along the beach where the breakers touch the shore. Right now is probably the best time to look at the blooms of this plant. Before they burst into full bloom, they hang like tiny green beads on their stems, and after they have gone past the peak of their bloom, they turn a dirty brown. But now, in full bloom, they are beautiful.
Each blossom is actually a cluster of many individual flowers arranged in a shape similar to that of a lilac blossom. Sometimes there will be so many of these blossoms on an Oceanspray bush that they obscure the foliage. If you decide to examine one of these bushes, make sure that you also take the time to smell the blossoms. They have an exceptionally sweet fragrance that adds to their appeal.
The blooms are not hard to find. Oceanspray is actually a shrub that grows to a height of 12 to 15 feet. It prefers semi-open places at the edges of woodlands or along roadsides, but will also grow in the forest amid other deciduous trees. It is not, however, likely to be found in dense conifer forests, as it is a plant which needs a certain amount of sun to survive. The plants with the most prolific blooms are those that grow in the most open places.
Oceanspray is an important plant for wildlife. Deer and elk use it as a source of winter browse. Many species of butterflies sip nectar from its blossoms. At least four species specifically use the plant as a host on which they lay their eggs: Lorquin’s Admiral, Spring Azure, Pale Swallowtail, and Gray Hairstreak. The first two of these are common in our area. The bush is also host to a beautiful black and white insect which has exceptionally long antennae. So while you are admiring the blossoms, you might keep an eye open for the bugs. Of course, since it attracts so many insects, birds like chickadees also often forage through its foliage in search of a meal.
Although common in our area, this bush is widespread in its range in the west. It grows along the coast from British Columbia to southern California, and in the northwest spreads east to Montana. It is a hardy plant that will grow in a variety of sites, from wet rainforest to dry plateaus. Because of its hardiness it will usually tolerate being cut or burned, and is an important component in the plant communities which spring up on burned ground following forest fires.
The wood of Oceanspray is known to be exceedingly hard and strong. In fact, it is sometimes called ironwood. As a result, it has historically been used for many things. Native peoples used it to make shafts for spears, arrows, and harpoons, as well as bows, needles, digging sticks, and even fishhooks. And if you happen to ever get a chance to look around in any of the few old barns that remain in our area, check how the beams and timbers are fastened together. Rather than using nails, some of the pioneer people morticed them with pegs, and chances are those pegs were made from Oceanspray.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the creatures and habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com

Under a blood-red shell.... You, too, could learn to
Live (with) Red Rocks
Posted July 2, 2008

Crabbing is one of the activities that draws both residents and out-of-town visitors to our coast. No, not complaining about the government or the weather. The pursuit of those crustaceans which many consider a delicacy for the table.
Historically, the crab most sought for has been the Dungeness, but in recent years more and more people have taken to going after Red Rock Crab. While smaller than its cousin (Red Rocks seldom are more than seven inches wide), its taste is considered by some to be equal to, or even better than that of Dungeness.
Like all crabs, the Red Rock is a crustacean. That is, it has no internal bone structure; rather is protected by a hard exoskeleton, which most people call its shell. This exoskeleton is particularly hard, almost bony-like, on the front pincers. In addition to the pincers, these crabs also have four pairs of legs, which they use to move about within the confines of their watery habitat.
Red Rock Crabs are different from many other species of crabs in that they lack gill strainers. As a result they cannot prevent fine sediments from clogging their gills. Consequently they avoid muddy or sandy areas; instead, they can be found in parts of estuaries where the bottom is bedrock or gravel. They may also be found around man-made structures such as breakwaters and pilings, and are particularly fond of areas which support an underwater growth of eelgrass. They also prefer water with high saline content and, as a result, are most abundant in larger estuaries. It is fortunate for crabbers in our area that Yaquina and Tillamook Bays have the ideal conditions for these crabs, and thus hold higher populations of them than any others along the Oregon Coast, with the exception of Coos Bay to the south.
Another place one may look for this species is in ocean tide pools at low tide. They may be found in these places under rocky overhangs or some other hiding place. As they are largely nocturnal, it may take some searching to find them during daylight hours. They are also known, in places, to inhabit water as deep as 260 feet.
Young Red Rock Crabs come in a variety of colors and patterns. They may be whitish and striped, plain brown, bright reddish, or even green. Adults are easier to recognize. They are a dark brick red color, and have distinctively black tipped pincers.
Beware those pincers, as they are quite capable of inflicting a painful pinch on the flesh of the unwary. Just the appearance of these crabs, however, renders it unnecessary for them to come marked with a label reading, “Handle with Caution.”
These crabs live on a variety of both living and dead organic matter, which is the reason they can be easily attracted to baited crab pots. They are also known to be highly aggressive and effective predators. Their claws are strong enough to break open the shells of the clams, snails, mussels, and even barnacles on which they feed. If you want to gain some appreciation for this fact, sometime see how much force it takes to pry a barnacle off a piling, or remove a mussel firmly attached to a rock. Then attempt to open the shell with your bare hands. You will come away with more respect for the abilities of the crab -and perhaps a stronger resolve to stay away from those pincers.
The Red Rock Crab is sometimes called Japanese Crab, but the latter name is a misnomer. The species is native to the Pacific Coast of North America, and can be found from Alaska to the Baja Peninsula. In fact, as a native species it actually serves a role in preventing the spread of the introduced Green Crab, which has become a serious invading species in some places. However, the Green Crab is not found very often in areas inhabited by the Red Rock, for an obvious reason. Those pincers which are capable of opening clam shells have no trouble with the exoskeleton of another crab.
And who knows? Maybe Red Rocks find Green Crabs to be a delicacy on their own table — and they don’t even have to use a crab pot to catch them.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the creatures and habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com

Yearning to explore near Yachats?
That's a Perpetua notion

[Posted May 22, 2008]

From a biological standpoint, one of the charms of the Oregon coast is its great diversity, and it is hard to imagine a place that has more diversity that Cape Perpetua, at the southern boundary of Lincoln County. In what is really a very small area, there are perhaps ten or more habitats, each differing from the others, sometimes dramatically.
Part of the reason for this diversity has to do with the structure of the cape itself. A gigantic wall of basaltic rock rises hundreds of feet, almost straight up from the Pacific, creating a series of mini-ecosystems with each corresponding rise in elevation.
Walking along the trail leading west from the parking lot at the base of the cape, one travels through a forest of spruce trees shaped by the wind. Beneath them are sturdy plants of Cow Parsley and Sea Watch, both members of the carrot family which sport wide white blooms at the top of the stem. Growing with them on the forest floor are Wild Lily of the Valley and Fringe-cup, the former with a short spike of white blooms and the latter with a series of cup shaped, sweet smelling blossoms succeeding one another on the upper portion of the stem. At the edge of the spruce forest, Oregon Grape is showy, with a cluster of yellow blossoms protruding above the waxy , sharp spined leaves. Growing with it are many salal plants, each having a profusion of pink, urn-shaped blossoms.
After the trail comes into the open and takes a hard turn to the right, begin looking for other, more dainty flowers growing out of the trailside rocks. Some have numerous white blooms rising out of a basal clump of round leaves. Others have blue, lobed blossoms.
At the bottom of the trail you come to Devil’s Churn. Water from the Pacific often rushes impressively into this fiord like cut in the rock. At its edge are numerous types of algae and seaweed, as well as many other interesting forms of life, but one must view them with extreme caution. The ocean is very unforgiving to the unwary.
On the way back up , be sure to stop and admire the large burl on one of the spruce trees growing next to the trail. Also take note of the different varieties of fern found there. Note especially leathery polyphony growing on the trunks and in the crotches of branches of the spruces. It is a strictly coastal species that thrives in areas of abundant salt spray from the ocean.
Upon leaving the parking lot, take the drive to the overlook at the top of the cape. The south facing slope here is largely devoid of trees, and is a wonderland of plants which grow in open habitats. Large leaved lupine is abundant, and growing here and there with it are stalks of paintbrush, with brilliant scarlet blossoms. Along the rock faces are the succulent stonecrops, mixed in with dark red mosses which have gained a foothold in the harsh habitat. The stonecrops will bloom later in the season, but most of the rest of the plants mentioned are in bloom now, or will be shortly, so mid-May to early June is a wonderful time to visit the cape.
In the deep spruce woods to the north of the open slope there are other varieties of flowering plants. Many of these, such as trillium, are plants which bloom earlier in the season. So one may be treated to a high variety of flowers by visiting the cape at different times throughout the course of the spring and summer.
It is worth mentioning that just before you reach the top of the cape, there is a gated ( and posted) road which leads off to the north. A few yard this side of the gate, on the left hand side of the road, there is a rotting stump which is covered with the decayed remains of a growth of Chicken-of the Woods mushroom. This spectacular yellow and orange species tends to fruit in the same place season after season, so be on the lookout for this one from mid-July to early September, especially if there has been a summer rain.
Flowers and mushrooms are not the only attractions of the cape. During spring and summer the eerie pipings of Varied Thrush can be heard resounding through the spruce forest, the ventriloquil nature of the calls daring one to track down the source of the sound. And I once had a close encounter with a large black bear on the road toward the top. It came out of the canyon, crossed the road in front of me, and them was unable to scale the rock wall on the north bank. Result: one embarrassed bear, one delighted observer.

Darrel Faxon Photo

Miss these violets, and you will be blue

[Posted May 14, 2008]

For those who enjoy the out of doors, this time of year there certainly is no shortage of things to capture the interest. Every day now some new migrant bird shows up, some newly hatched insect emerges, or some newly blooming flower begins to show itself. The excitement of spring is so strong in early May that one could walk about, taking in all the sights, smells, and sounds, and quite forget he had other responsibilities. Yet springtime is such that, at least on occasion, one simply must be called away from those responsibilities and take time, as they say, to stop and smell the roses. Or, in this case, to admire the violets.
There are a number of species of flowers from this family that grow in our area. Best known, perhaps, are the yellow varieties, commonly known as Johnny-jump-ups. These bloom in great abundance in moist woodlands, and are one of our showiest early spring wildflowers.
However, I believe they are outdone in beauty by their purple relative, the early blue violet. This species is in bloom at the present time, and certainly is one of the native flowers that entreats one to take time to stop and look at it carefully. The bluish purple color of the blossoms is pretty enough in its own right, but upon close examination the blooms are lovelier still. The five petals are white at the base of the interior of the bloom, and the lower ones are marked with a network of deeper blue veins.
In spite of its beauty, early blue violet can easily be overlooked. For one thing, it is not nearly so common in our area as the Johnny-jump-ups. To find it, one must go to open, grassy areas. Then, he must look carefully amid the matted grasses and leaf litter from the growth of the previous summer to find its blooms, as the plant seldom grows taller than a couple of inches. It seems to grow best in ungrazed pastures and other sites with little disturbance, although it can also sometimes be found blooming in closely mowed lawns. One such site where it can be found is at Ellmaker State Park at the far eastern boundary of Lincoln County, but there are also many sites closer to the coast where one may expect to find it with a little searching. It may also be found blooming in the grass in some of the local cemeteries.
Due to its relative scarcity and its extraordinary beauty, I am personally disinclined to make use of this violet for table fare, but both the leaves and flowers are edible. They can be eaten raw, put in salads, cooked as greens, or even made into tea. Violet flowers are also sometimes candied, and used in cake decorations.
The lowest petal on the flower of an early blue violet has at the back a slender appendage known as a spur, which contains the nectar produced by the plant. Insects drawn to the nectar are guided by the veins on the lower petals toward the mouth of the spur. As they probe into the depths of the flower, they come up against the pollen laden stamens, and at the same time, the beards on the other petals rake off any pollen they may be carrying from encounters with other violets previously visited. In this way the violets are ensured of the pollination necessary for their survival and propagation.
If one is really interested in examining the flowers closely, he may peer at their interiors through a magnifying glass. If you have never attempted this procedure, I highly recommend it. Doing so opens up a whole new world of wonder for the observer.
So this spring, don’t overlook the violets!

Ground squirrels beg, burrow and steal

[Published April 25, 2008]

Please pass the vernacular. The name “Beechy Ground Squirrel” probably doesn’t mean much to most people, but I suspect that every kid who grew up along the Oregon coast and spent any time out of doors is well familiar with the term “gray digger.” No one I know ever calls them anything else.
These ground-dwelling squirrels are common in our area. Wherever there are parcels of open ground, one may expect to see them foraging, or sunning themselves on top of a stump or in the low branches of a tree. Although they will climb to such perches for this purpose, they are seldom seen more than 10 feet off the ground. When danger threatens, they show their true nature by heading for their underground burrows.
If one takes time to look at gray diggers closely, he will discover that they can be very pretty. They are basically brown to brownish gray, darker on the upper back, with numerous white tipped hairs on the neck, lower back, and tail. Often those on the lower back are in dense clusters that tend to form into white spots against the overall gray-brown coloration of the squirrels, giving them an attractive appearance.
Taxonomists place ground squirrels, in general, in a genus called Spermophilus. The term is taken from two Greek words meaning seed and lover. However, gray diggers are generalists. In addition to feasting on the seeds, shoots, leaves, and fruit of plants, they are also known, when occasion presents itself, to add mice, voles, small birds, eggs, and even animal carcasses to their diet.
So long as gray diggers are some distance from human habitation, their diet is of little consequence to humans, but woe to the person who has a gray digger take up residence next to his garden! In such settings, these animals can cause significant damage to seeds and newly sprouting plants, either by digging them up, or by tunneling beneath them. They also are capable of eating large quantities of ripening vegetables such as peas.
If one is not intent on growing a vegetable garden, and does not mind having the little beasts around his house, gray diggers can often be lured with bird seed, cracked corn, or grain of almost any kind. Over time, they may become almost tame. In the same places where humans feed gulls and crows, such as the open, rocky areas near jetties, gray diggers will also approach vehicles, expecting a handout.
As their name suggests, they are truly adapted for digging. They have long, sharp front claws that enable them to excavate dirt in the process of making their underground burrows. These burrows, often as deep as 6 feet, are often dug under the protective cover of a rock or stump, which keeps the bedding chamber dry even when heavy rainfall saturates the soil.
It is important for these ground dwelling squirrels to have such dry chambers, because in our area they usually hibernate for several months. It is rare to see one between the first of November and the middle of February, although occasionally some will be out and about during warm days in January.
During spring and summer, gray diggers eat mostly newly emerging shoots of plants, but in late summer they switch to seeds and fruit in order to store up fat for their three month sleep. The strategy must work very well. I am always amazed at how sleek and fat these creatures look when they first emerge from their burrows in the early spring.
In our region, gray diggers produce an average of five young per year. Born blind and naked, the young take nearly eight weeks to develop to the point of emerging from their underground birthplaces. Then they join the adults in clambering about the rocks and semi-open areas in search of food. Unwary, they are susceptible to predation by coyotes, bobcats, and a variety of birds. Those squirrels that survive their first season learn their lessons well. One may often hear them barking out their warning chirp at the first sign of danger.
I personally know only one person who has ever cooked and eaten a gray digger. But, on his authority and that of a mammal book I own, it can be stated that the flesh of these ground squirrels is tasty, considered equal to that of the tree squirrels which are in many parts of the country hunted for food. Tempted? Just be aware that they can carry diseases, and are often covered with fleas!

'The Wound and the Willows'?
The many varieties and talents of pussy willows

[Published March 28, 2008]

Spring, as they say, is bustin’ out all over. One of the surest signs is the now-abundant blooming of the pussy willows along the streams and ponds in our area. This bloom is perhaps now at its best, showing in the willows growing along the shallow rain-filled puddles near coastal dunes. One place where they can be found in abundance is immediately south of the road leading to the Yaquina Bay jetties, but there are many other places in our region where they are growing in equal abundance.
The term pussy willow is actually a misnomer, when applied to our native species. Technically speaking, pussy willow is a particular species of the willow family, Salix discolor, which is native to more northern and eastern climes. However, the term pussy willow, which refers to the soft blooms of early spring, has come to be applied to the blooms of the willow family in general.
It is probably just as well that it should be so. Willows as a group are rather difficult to separate into species. For the layman, pussy willow works just fine. Several species can be found in our area: Hooker willow, Sitka willow, Scouler willow and black willow are all common in proper habitats. Black willow tends to be found a bit more inland than the others, and Scouler willow is the one most commonly encountered in drier upland locations. The other two are exceedingly abundant in coastal lowlands, any place where water is nearby. Of the four, Hooker willow is the one which puts out the soft, white, egg-shaped blossoms which has led many people to refer to it as pussy willow.
These blooms are actually catkins, the blossoming part of the plant in which seeds will later develop. Most willows, Hooker willow being one of them, have male and female flowers on separate plants. The catkins themselves have a very interesting story. Since they are among our earliest blooming flowers — they bloom on the trees well before the leaves unfurl — the weather during their blooming period is often cold. The tightly-wrapped anthers which make up the bloom act like a miniature fur coat, trapping the warmer temperature offered by the sun breaks and holding the heat close to the interior of the bloom. Only as the blossoms mature do the yellow tipped portions of the anthers begin to show.
Although many related plants, such as cottonwoods, are dependent upon wind for pollen dispersal, willows instead are dependent upon insects. They are, in fact, an important family of plants for many types of bees and flies that come out early in the spring. If one goes now to closely look at the blooming willows, he will see that there are many insects in attendance at the blossoms.
Of course, such an insect attractant also draws birds. The willow bottoms at this season are alive with many species of birds, most notably yellow-rumped warblers, ruby-crowned kinglets, chickadees, and bush tits, all which feed on the abundance of insects found in the willows.
Most of the willows in our area could more accurately be called shrubs than trees. Many of them never grow more than 12 feet tall, particularly those growing closest to the coast. What they lack in height, they make up for in density. They often grow in multi-stemmed clumps, and a small patch of them can often defy human penetration.
In addition to being attractive to insects and birds, willows are also important for other forms of wildlife. Beaver make heavy use of those growing along streams, eating the bark, and using the peeled stems in the construction of their dams. Blacktail deer bucks find the Scouler willow a particularly attractive tree on which to rub the velvet from their antlers, and also to use as scrapes announcing their territorial claims during the rutting season.
Throughout history, willows have been used for many different purposes by humans. They were exceedingly important trees to native people, who used fine strands of peeled willow bark to make a variety of things such as fishing lines, nets, ropes, and lining for baskets. People in the modern world are also taking advantage of the propensity for willow shoots to take root. Willow stocks are being replanted in many stream restoration projects.
Willow bark also contains salicylic acid, one of the key ingredients of aspirin. When boiled down to a syrup, it can be poured on to the dressing placed over a shattered bone. As the mixture cools, it hardens into a therapeutic cast, which will last six to eight weeks. I once applied such a cast to the broken leg of a 600-pound Holstein heifer, and it worked just fine.*
(*Not FDA approved for use on humans.)

Photo by Darrel Faxon for the OCT.

Toxic Newt!
It's not just a great name for a rock band

[Published March 14, 2008]

Now that spring like weather has arrived, one of the creatures a person frequently encounters during walks in wooded areas is the rough-skinned newt. This salamander is one of the most common amphibians in our area.
Like all amphibians, it has two stages in its life cycle. Adults attach their eggs to vegetation or other underwater debris. The egg masses are usually four to six inches in diameter and jelly-like in texture. The larval salamanders that hatch from them have gills, and spend the first several months of their lives in the water, usually staying hidden among the vegetation. Upon reaching adulthood, they lose their gills, and often move out into terrestrial habitats. Young newts that move from the water to land may stay in the woods for four or five years before returning to the water to breed. Some populations are more terrestrial than others, and some more aquatic. In our area they are commonly found in both habitats. One may see them either crawling about on land, or sluggishly swimming in some pond or slow-moving backwater.
Rough-skinned newts are easy to recognize. They are about 6 inches long, dark brownish orange on the upper body, and bright orange yellow on the underside. As the species is found from Alaska to central California, there is some variation in its color over the entire length of its range. Some are redder than others. But in our area they are predominately orange and yellow.
At the lower elevations such as those in Tillamook and Lincoln counties, these newts tend to breed from February to May. At this season one may often see copulating pairs swimming together, or even large masses of them forming a ball of salamanders in watery habitats.
The diet of these newts is primarily invertebrates. Both larval forms and adults in the water feed on things such as water insects, leeches, frog eggs, and tadpoles. Those in terrestrial habitats eat insects, snails, worms, and similar fare. The attraction of these salamanders to earthworms sometimes results in them being caught on fishhooks by people using worms for bait.
On land, newts are slow and seemingly vulnerable. When a newt crawling on the ground is disturbed, it will often assume a defense posture, with raised head, and coiled tail. This posture is a warning for predators to stay away, and it is a warning that should be heeded. Rough-skinned newts are among the most toxic of all the creatures that inhabit our area. One of them is said to have enough poison to kill 30 men, and there are documented cases of people having died after eating newts. The particular toxin they possess has the capacity to interfere with the proper transfer of sodium through the cells of the body, resulting in paralysis and death. Although the flesh of these amphibians is deadly, apparently most people do not have any negative reactions from handling them. People sometimes keep them as pets, and I have personally seen children playing with newts with no ill results. And personally, I don’t know why anyone would be tempted to eat one.
One might think that such a toxic salamander would not have any serious natural enemies, but such is not the case. The common garter snake that inhabits our area is immune to newt toxin. It is the only creature known to have such immunity. There has been some discussion among biologists which indicates that the most brightly colored snakes, particularly those with red stripes running along their sides, are the ones which have eaten the most newts, and that the toxin is responsible for the bright coloration, but I do not know if this theory is, in fact, valid.
In any case, it is interesting to know that we have, right here in our area, a creature which is every bit as poisonous as the more famous poison frogs of certain tropical areas, and one which is easily observed. You don’t have to go to Costa Rica and tramp through a tropical forest to find a deadly amphibian. You can find one not far from your own back door.

Getting to gnaw - er, know - the beaver

[Published February 29, 2008]

Perspective is everything. To a worm, digging in the hard ground is more relaxing than going fishing.
Now let’s put the adage to the test: What comes to mind when you read the word “rodent”? You probably immediately think some negative thought concerning a rat or mouse, right? Let’s try again. What do you think of when you read the word, “beaver”? Likely something rather different (unless, of course, you are a Ducks fan, or perhaps, especially if you are a Ducks fan).
Sports mascots and loyalties aside, beaver do share with rats and mice the physical feature which give them the title of rodent: a set of long incisor teeth which grow throughout their lifetime, hence the less official-sounding moniker, gnawing mammals. The fact that their incisors never stop growing means not only that they can gnaw, but that they must, in order to keep the teeth worn down sufficiently for maximum efficiency.
When it comes to gnawing, perhaps there is no mammal on earth more efficient than beaver. With one bite, they can carve a chip nearly half an inch thick and 3 inches long from the base of a tree they are attempting to fall. If one examines the ground near the base of trees where beaver have been working, he may find a number of these chips lying all around. Most of the time, beavers tend to chew down trees a few inches thick, but now and then they take on much larger ones. The toppled alder tree in the above photo was 18 inches in diameter at the base (And, no, that is not a beaver standing beside it. That’s my wife. Yes, she does have nice teeth. Thank you. She is also a very nice person, who enjoys exploring the natural world with me, for which I am grateful).
Once a beaver has succeeded in bringing a tree down, its real engineering skills kick into gear. It then cuts off the branches and small twigs, chews off and eats the bark, and transports the twig to a nearby dam.
Beaver dams truly are marvels of engineering skill. They may be 3 to 5 feet high, sometimes much higher, and are structured in such a way as to make it nearly impossible to completely tear apart. Sticks of various sizes are laid crosswise to each other, and then packed over with mud, until the entire dam may be more than 12 feet thick at the base, and likely weigh more than a ton. The well-known engineering specification of 2 feet of width for every 1 foot of fill is nothing new to the beaver.
Beaver will generally live in an area behind the dam until the food source is exhausted in that particular area. Then they will move to another area where food is more plentiful, and repeat the process. In this manner, they keep the watersheds in a continuous flow of change that is so necessary to the health of ecosystems. Many other aquatic creatures benefit from the habitat these large rodents create in the streams.
In some sections of the country, beavers also build large lodges in the backwaters behind the dams. These lodges serves as places to rest and escape from predators as well as places to raise the young. In most of coastal Oregon, beaver lodges are rare to non-existent. Here, beaver dig burrows back into streamside banks. The entrance to these burrows is beneath the level of the water, providing the animals easy access and exit from the interior portions, which are above water level.
It seems almost a forgotten era now, but from the late 1700s to the late 1800s, the beaver played a very important role in opening the West to settlement by Old World immigrants. Beaver fur is warm and durable, and the demand for pelts was high in Europe. Consequently, trappers fanned out all across the west in search of this prized commodity. Much of the exploration of the Rocky Mountains and even points further west was done by fur trappers and mountain men like Jedediah Smith, even before the area began to be charted by more famous explorers such as Lewis and Clark.
As beaver are for the most part nocturnal, they are relatively difficult to observe. However, they are common in our area, frequenting many freshwater coastal ponds as well as mountain streams. If one visits an area where there is beaver activity, and sits quietly at dawn or dusk, he may occasionally be fortunate to see the rodents quietly at work. And even if he does not see the animal itself, he may certainly enjoy seeing the evidence of its magnificent engineering skill.

Hanging around: Meet the barnacle

Published Feb. 15, 2008

I have often found it amusing that astronomers periodically send space probes to other planets, hoping on their craggy surfaces or in their gaseous atmospheres to find some miniscule evidence of life.
Imagine, if you will (supposing such a thing is possible) a probe coming from some other part of the universe to earth on the same quest, and not finding life. It would be essentially impossible. Our earth is packed full of life. It oozes from every pore of the planet, from the deepest oceans and the highest mountains, and from the driest deserts to the wettest sections of rain forest. There likely is not a place on earth where one could put down his finger and not be laying it on top of some form of biological life.
Certainly one of the places this superabundance of life is most obvious is along the coast, in the rocky intertidal areas and estuaries. One cannot look anywhere without seeing many forms of living things.
One of these things is an organism known to many as the barnacle. These hard-shelled creatures are members of the class of living things known as crustaceans. Worldwide, there are around 52,000 species of crustaceans. The members of this class, which also includes such diverse creatures as crabs, crawfish, shrimp, krill, woodlice, and even sow bugs, share some physical characteristics. All are invertebrates, which have hard exoskeletons surrounding their soft bodies. Like insects, all have three main body parts: head, thorax and abdomen.
However, in spite of these similarities, some members of the group are very different from others. Most are aquatic, but a few are terrestrial. Many are free moving, but a few are sessile, that is, stationary creatures that do not move from place to place. Barnacles, of course, are in this latter class.
The life of a barnacle begins as a larval organism floating free in the water. Soon, however, it will bump up against some object to which it will attach itself, headfirst. There it will remain for the rest of its life, growing from the larval stage into a juvenile, and, eventually, into a mature barnacle.
They attach to an astonishing variety of surfaces: a rock or a piling in an estuary, the bottom of a boat, a strand of rope, the shell of a clam or the skin of a whale. Barnacles that attach themselves to the hulls of boats can cause significant damage, particularly to wooden vessels, so fishermen must occasionally scrape them off. And what may look from a distance like white markings on whales may in fact be collections of hitchhiking barnacles.
Regardless of the place of attachment, once a barnacle has determined to park there, it stays. Try prying a barnacle off a rock or piling sometime, and you will begin to understand why even the most savage forces of nature do not dislodge them from their chosen parking spot. From this attached position, barnacles reach out with feather-like appendages to filter edible material out of the surrounding water. Standing underwater on your head for a lifetime, catching whatever happens to float by, might not seem like much of a life to us. But for the barnacle it works just fine.
In our area, barnacles are extremely easy to find. All one has to do is look on exposed rocks or pilings at low tide. Many thousands of the creatures will be attached to such structures, often in company with various forms of algae, and other marine organisms. Beachcombers often find barnacle-encrusted shells, fragments of rope, or pieces of driftwood on the open beach.
There are a number of species that inhabit the Oregon Coast. Among the most common are the white common goose barnacle, the leaf barnacle, and the cone-shaped thatched barnacle. Next time you see one, take a moment to appreciate its anchored beauty.

Something to Crow About

Published Feb. 1, 2008

Some birds, like wood ducks, we admire for their beauty. Others, like hummingbirds, we appreciate for their activity. Still others, like chickadees, we enjoy for their sociability. Then there are crows.
What can one say about crows? Well, they are black, unremittingly black: feathers, eye, bill, legs, the works. Occasionally along the coast one may see individual birds with white feathers in the wings or tail, but these are birds affected by leucism, an improper lack of pigment in the feathers. Most crows you see will be just plain black.
However, what crows lack in splendor and variety of plumage, they make up for in character. They are the buffoons of the bird world, walking or hopping about with an exaggerated swagger as if quite impressed with their own importance, particularly in regions where they have become accustomed to human presence. These urban crows, as I like to call them, swagger through the parking lots at the grocery stores and restaurants, hopping out of the way of passing humans or vehicles only at the last moment without any loss to their aura of superiority. I find it easy to admire crows for the same traits that in humans would be deplorable.
Of course, all this swaggering and posturing by the crows is not intended to get us to laugh at them or admire them. Oh, no. It is all about survival. Their apparent braggadocio is merely what might properly be called street smarts. On their prowls through the parking lots, or their meanderings along the beaches, they are always on the lookout for any morsel of food that might be dropped or offered by passing humans. Their sharp eyes miss nothing, and they are adept at seizing any chance of snatching anything edible.
They are indeed very smart. Once my wife and I were tossing peanuts to crows gathered near our car at the Yaquina Bay jetty. Most of them would grab a peanut, shell it out, and eat it on the spot. But there was one crow that was much smarter. He would always pick up four peanuts, arranging the first three crosswise in his beak and holding the fourth straight out. Then he would fly a short distance, hide them among the pines, and return for more. This particular crow also would never, under any circumstances, pick up a shell holding only one peanut. He would only accept larger ones, which held two.
Crows also show their savvy in other ways. They will drop clams onto pavement to break them open, and compete with gulls for food offered by humans. They are smart enough not avoid the gulls, who are larger and have quick reaction time. Yet, the crows still manage to get their share of morsels even when there are gulls all around. So if you would like some cheap entertainment, try feeding some of these street smart crows.
Further out in the country, crows are much more wary of humans. Here they are more likely to be found searching through pastures for grubs or grasshoppers, sometimes even turning over cow patties in search of whatever delectable items might be found there. At other seasons they will feast on apples, berries, walnuts, or practically anything edible. They will visit freshly planted gardens and pull up newly sprouted corn, and are not above stealing eggs or young birds from nests.
Around the first of April crows begin building bulky stick nests in trees, usually conifers. Here they will lay four to eight greenish eggs, which usually hatch around the middle of May. By mid June the young birds will be flying around with the adults. At this season it is easy to tell the two ages apart by voice. Adults have a sharp “caw.” Young birds have a much more nasal, drawn out “ cahhhrr”.
Actually, crows have a number of different calls: a sharp quick alarm call that alerts other crows to danger; a less harsh gathering call, and a variety of others. When in courtship they may also occasionally be heard making a variety of quiet cooing or warbling notes that have almost musical quality.
Crows are gregarious birds. They usually travel together in flocks of 20 to 50. Occasionally in winter larger numbers will gather at favorite roosting sites. They are also birds of the open country, frequenting pastures, beaches, parks, and other places where people gather, so they are easily observed. Anyone who takes time to see them as more than just black birds will soon realize that they are very interesting and entertaining creatures indeed.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail via Niki.

This photo was snapped Sunday, Dec. 16, 2007 in Otis. The successful strike resulted in a population drop of 1.0 tadpoles at the pond outside the Oregon Coast Today's Otis headquarters. OCT photo by Dave Price.

Patience pays for this perennial predator
The Great Blue Heron
Published Dec. 21, 2007

[click to see more photos of this g.b.heron's hunt]

Years ago I read a small poem about one of our most common birds. It said,
“The great blue heron, stately, grand,
Tired of mice in the meadow, and
Hungry, perchance for the frogs in the sedge,
Went and stood by the water’s edge”.
The poem states a number of things which are true about this bird. It is, in its own way, rather stately. To gain an appreciation for its stateliness, watch one as it is hunting in the shallows of an estuary. It may stand motionless for long moments peering down into the water, then with a sudden stab of its rapier bill will seize a luckless fish for its meal. If the fish is small, the heron may simply toss its head back and swallow it instantly. Larger fish, particularly if they happen to be those with spiny fins, may be grappled in the bill for a time, moved back and forth until mesmerized, then turned for a head first trip down the gullet.
Or observe one stalking prey at the edge of a marsh. In such cases herons often move very slowly along with deliberate footsteps, placing one foot cautiously ahead of the other, alert for any frog which may be so unfortunate to be sighted by the sharp eyes of the hunter. In these settings they are the picture of stately elegance.
Flushed from edge of marsh or shore, great blue herons will squawk loudly, and fly awkwardly away – at first. However, once away from the source of agitation, they fly off with easy, deep wing strokes which gives the flight a touch of grandeur.
The poem is also correct in its acknowledgement of the heron’s varied choice of feeding habitats and prey. They can be found hunting in almost any habitat except deep forest: in fields and meadows, both salt and fresh water, along fast flowing streams, and near quiet ponds, in large, open estuaries and small tree lined puddles – even fishponds. Woe to the person whose backyard goldfish pond is discovered by one of these active predators. Or at least woe to the goldfish. Great blues will eat practically anything they can catch and swallow: fish, frogs, polliwogs, salamanders, snakes, mice, and even small birds. Their primary prey items among saltwater fish are those species which are bottom feeders, such as sculpin, but they will also take perch or anything else small enough to be captured and eaten. In freshwater, they prey upon bullheads, carp, trout, and crappie, as well as other species. Herons are, in fact, the consummate predator.
One of the things which makes these herons interesting to many people is that they are so readily observable. They are large birds, standing four feet in height, and may often be seen in open spaces. At periods of low water in the estuaries, 40 or 50 of them may gather in the shallows, each defending a particular feeding territory from the encroachments of others. They are also year round residents, so one may expect to see them any day of the year.
Overall plumage of great blue herons is bluish gray. They have reddish thighs, and some white and black on the head. In early spring, they develop a number of long, whitish plumes on the head, neck, and chest, giving them a very distinctive breeding season appearance.
If you ever happen to closely approach one of these birds before being observed , you may be startled by the intensity of the stare it will give you when you are discovered. Earlier this year I had an opportunity to see it well. As my border collie pup crested a dike, it startled a heron feeding in the marsh beyond. For the instant before the heron saw me following, it gave the dog a look that had murder written all over it.
Great blue herons nest in what are called rookeries. That is, they are colonial nesters. In our area, a group of breeding pairs will usually build their large stick nests in a single tree, or perhaps a closely associated clump of trees. The two to six eggs they lay there will hatch in late May. There is usually some mortality among the young at the nest site, but the surviving ones will be ready to fly by the end of July. Young birds are usually less wary than adults, and may often be approached closely.
These large birds are also quite often active at night. If you happen to be standing outside after sunset, and hear a loud, raucous squawk coming to you through the darkness, chances are you have heard a great blue heron.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

It's easy to liken lichen to coral
Published Nov. 30, 2007

Picture yourself, if you can, in a tropical paradise, soaking up the sun on a white sand beach. Lying before you is a shimmering blue lagoon, beneath the waters of which lies a coral reef.
You decide to go for an exploratory swim. Donning scuba gear, you slip into the warm water. Soon you are marveling at the beauty and diversity of the coral. Its brilliant colors and branched configurations dazzle your eyes. No wonder, you say to yourself, they call this paradise.
Now go for a walk here at home in a coastal forest. As you tread along, you come to an old stump. It could be any old stump. There is no white sand beach here; no shimmering blue lagoon. Yet there is something which seems to the imagination strangely familiar. But what? Then you see it. On the stump in front of you is a diverse growth of branched organisms sporting many beautiful colors.
In a way, it greatly resembles coral. If you covered the stump with blue water, you might even be able to convince yourself it is coral. But it is not. It is lichen, specifically club lichen. And the absence of the blue water and tropical sunshine does not take away from the fact that you are still in paradise. The more closely you look at the lichen, the more likely you are to be intrigued by its beauty and diversity.
In our area, there are two main types of club lichen: Lipstick Cladonia and Pixie Cup. Both are classified as club lichen because of the manner in which they grow. The base of each consists of a small clump of leaf-like scales which clings closely to the stump or open ground on which it grows. For most of the year they are relatively inconspicuous.
However, in the fall, many inch-long fingers sprout from the bases of these plants.
These fingers resemble tiny clubs, from which the family draws its name.
Many of these lichens are extremely colorful. Lipstick Cladonia is bright green with an even brighter scarlet tip. The scarlet tip is actually the apothecia, or spore bearing fruiting body of the plant. Viewed up close, or better yet, under a magnifying glass, it is a very, very beautiful plant.
The Pixie Cups are somewhat different. They, too, are club shaped, but rather than coming to a point, the top is saucer shaped, with flared edges and a recessed center. It looks for all the world like a tiny chalice. Indeed, it takes but little imagination to picture a fairy drinking from the miniature goblet. There are several different species of the Pixie Cup lichens in our area. They come in a variety of colors, from gray or brown to green or black.
Perhaps you are one of those people who longs, during the damp Oregon autumn, to travel to the warmth and splendor of Tahiti. That’s fine. And I would most certainly admit that the appreciation for the beauty of lichen in an acquired taste. But anyone who will actually take the time to stop and look at an old stump covered with these lichens will be able to see for himself the strong resemblance to a bed of coral - and just maybe will discover that paradise is much nearer than he thinks.

Mundane? Magnificent!
Published Oct. 26, 2007

I have long said that there are a great many people who, in pursuit of the magnificent, lose sight of the mundane. As a supporting statement, it might be added that if people would spend a bit of effort to really look at the mundane, they might sometimes be surprised at its magnificence.
OK, OK, lest anyone begin to think this is an essay on philosophy disguised as a nature column, let me make the application to the biological point intended. It is easy to get excited about grand vistas such as those provided at Cape Foulweather; to become ecstatic over some huge old growth conifer tree: to be wowed by the sheer bulk of a gigantic whale. Such large and obvious things easily impress, and it requires little effort to develop an appreciation for them. Yet there are many extremely common yet less observed things which have the capacity, if one takes the time to look at them, to fill the eye of the observer with beauty, and his mind with wonder.
Take mushrooms, for example. To many people, I suppose, they are at best “toadstools” to be avoided, and at worst, insignificant blobs of fungi to be ignored. This time of year there are thousands of them growing literally at our feet almost everywhere we go, yet many people pass them by without so much as a glance of recognition. But if one takes the time to stop and inspect them, he just may discover a world of previously overlooked magnificence .
What brought this subject to my attention was a walk I took last week in a thick stand of Douglas fir trees about 20 years old. The area was typical of much of the Coast Range, which in recent years has been logged and replanted to conifer seedlings. In these young forests mushrooms are abundant. In the forest in which I was walking one particular species, for which I do not even know the name, was especially common. A small, white variety with a dainty rounded cap was growing everywhere on dead and decaying limbs and other vegetative material. In one place there were several dead salmonberry canes, still upright, which were completely covered by the mushrooms to a height of 3 feet. As the canes were close together, the white growth of fungi on them made them appear from a distance like several tapering incandescent lights arising from the ground in the dimly lit forest.
But the best was yet to come. In another place, I found 30 one of them growing out of a year-old fir cone, the cap of some of them being no more than one-16th of an inch across. Viewed at eye level (see attached photo), the whole became a micro-ecosystem of its own, a white fungal forest resting on the decadent remains of what once had the potential to become the genesis of a gargantuan forest of green.
Of course, one need not get interested in mushrooms to find similar beauty and interest. The same fascination can be developed by looking at some of our ordinary flowers through a magnifying glass. When vied in this manner, even some of our more plain blossomed varieties show patterns and colors of exquisite beauty.
Closely examine the next bird feather you find lying on the ground, and your experience will be the same. The intricately hooked fibers will show marvels of engineering that are astounding. Pick up a clam shell, or stop to examine a strand of bull kelp at the beach. Look closely at the anemones in the tide pools. Take the time to see if the slender black insect crawling along in front of you will surprise you by making a clicking sound while throwing itself several inches into the air, as click beetles do when in defense mode.
Marvel at the intricacies of a well-spun spider web. Listen to the roar of the wind in a southwest storm, or to the quiet drip of fog from the trees on a calm morning. Be astonished at the singular color of blue of the broken robin’s egg you find on the ground. See how many, and how many types of insects you can find in 2 square feet of weedy lawn.
None of the things I have mentioned are rare. In fact, all are exceedingly common. All it takes to appreciate them is a trained eye and ear, and a willingness to see the magnificence of the mundane. The School of Nature is open 24-7, tuition is free, transportation beyond your own back yard unnecessary, enrollment unlimited, and enjoyment guaranteed.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. E-mail him through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

Killer whales
Published Sept. 28, 2007

Killer whales don’t need to be movie stars to be fascinating. They provide plenty of interest on their own, without any hype from Hollywood.
They are, after all, very large mammals. A big male killer whale (also known as an orca ) can be a bit longer than 30 feet and weigh over eight tons. Even baby orcas are big, being as much as six to eight feet long at birth.
Orcas are also one of our most colorful marine mammals, or at least one of the most strikingly marked. They are black, with a white belly, a white patch extending onto the flank, and a white patch on the head. This pattern makes them almost instantly and easily recognized by even novice viewers, something which is not true for most other whales and dolphins. Another feature which aids in identifying them is the exceptionally long dorsal fin, which may be as much as six and a half feet long on large males, and often is distinctively curved at the tip. In fact, even individual orcas may be recognized by the peculiar shape of their dorsal fin.
While less common in tropical seas than in temperate and sub-polar waters, the range of these mammals is worldwide. There are separate populations in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In fact there are separate populations right along the west coast. There is one group which is essentially resident in the Puget Sound region, and at least one other group which migrates up and down our coastline. And part of the fascination surrounding these overgrown dolphins (for dolphins they are), has to do with the distinction between these two separate populations. The whales of the resident Puget Sound population are primarily fish-eaters. Those which range up and down the coast prey mostly on marine mammals, particularly seals. It wouldn’t surprise me if someday scientists informed us that these distinctive populations were in fact separate species. Taxonomists have done similar things with birds for less obvious reasons.
Regardless of diet, orcas are well equipped for eating their prey. They have from 10 to 14 conical teeth on each side of the mouth, and jaw muscles powerful enough to easily tear apart whatever they attack.
These large mammals usually travel in groups known as pods. Such pods are usually made up of only a few individuals, but at times may swell to 50 or more.
It seems that in recent years more people have taken to referring to these beasts as orcas, but the name killer whale, which formerly was more in usage, is well deserved. Captive specimens have given the public an impression of a harmless and loveable creature far removed from the reality of that which exists in its natural environment. Killer whales in the wild are known for their aggression and savage ferocity when in pursuit of prey. They have been observed sticking their head and upper body out of the water to survey ice floes for potential prey. They are also known to occasionally ram ice floes from beneath to dislodge seals and other creatures they intend to eat. I have read that in the process of doing so, they are capable of breaking ice several feet thick. It may be true. There is no doubt that they possess great strength. In the National Geographic I once saw a picture of a sizeable walrus which had been swatted out of the water by the movement of the tail flukes of a killer whale. The walrus was about 50 feet in the air, and was twisting and turning in preparation for what was likely to be a less than pleasant reception when it re-entered the water.
Although killer whales are relatively common off our coast, it is not often that one actually gets a chance to see one in the wild. I have been so privileged only once, when three of them once breached a few hundred yards off Seal Rock as I was walking on the beach. Others I know have been more fortunate. About once a year, usually right around April 15, a small pod of them comes into Yaquina Bay. Some people I know have reported that they raise havoc among the seals and sea lions in the estuary before returning to the ocean. So if you wish to see one of these fascinating animals in the wild, you might schedule a visit to this spot at that time of year. It would give you something to look forward to that might prove to be more agreeable than paying taxes.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. E-mail him through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com. Photo courtesy Depoe Bay Whale Watch Center.

Add aster ...
to your must-see fall flowers list

Published Sept. 14, 2007

Every now and then it is nice to come across something that doesn’t quite follow the normal pattern of things, and perhaps it is nicest when the non-conformists occur among our native wildflowers. Most of them bloom in the spring, beginning in late February and early March. From those dates, there is an orderly progression of newly blooming plants throughout April and May, but then the parade of blooms begins to diminish. There really are not very many flowers among our native species which come into bloom after the end of June.
One exception is the common purple aster which is readily found close to the coast. It does not generally come into bloom until July, peaks in blossoming in August and September, and continues to show off its blooms sometimes as late as November, providing a welcome dash of color when almost all other plants have long since ceased to bloom.
It is perhaps unwise for the novice to attempt to assign a particular species name to this plant. Or perhaps I should say plants. There are something like 35 different species which are known to grow in our area, and they are separable only by differentiating certain technical aspects of the blooms, leaves, and even roots which are beyond the scope of most amateurs. In fact, they have been known to cause grief to even professional botanists. Asa Gray, who was among that group, wrote, “Never was so rascally a genus! They … may reduce me to black despair.” So unless one is really into black despair, it is best he settle for the simple title purple aster. If you prefer, you might call it Michaelmas Daisy. It, or a similar species, goes by that name in England and in some of the commercial garden catalogs here in the United States.
The wild variety is a very attractive plant. Its flowers are pinkish purple and yellow. But the statement bears some explanation. Members of the aster family actually have flowers which come in two parts. There is a central disc made up of short tube shaped flowers packed into a tight cluster. These are known as disc flowers. Then there are the ray flowers – the ones we normally refer to as petals – surrounding the disc. These ray flowers are the ones the lovestruck pull out one at a time in an effort to determine if their intended loves them or loves them not. At least that was the story line once given to children. The validity of the experiment is at best dubious.
Like most members of the family, the purple aster is an open country plant. It can be found growing in meadows, clearings, or bluffs near the ocean. It seems to have a high tolerance for salt, as it can often be found keeping company with grass and pickle weed at the edge of salt marshes. In fact, it is one of the common blooming species along the edge of the asphalt trail which borders the estuary on the south and east sides of the Hatfield Marine Science Center complex in South Beach, Lincoln County. If you chance to walk that trail anytime from now on through this coming fall, be sure to look for its pleasing purple blossoms.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. Reach him through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

Tale of two talons: the bald eagle

Published Aug. 31, 2007

There are some things in nature that are beautiful; some that are majestic; some that are captivating. The bald eagle is all three.
Let’s start with beauty. No other bird in North America has the combination of dark brownish black body set off by a pure white head and tail. This unique pattern makes the eagle a feast to the eyes, whether it is perched quietly in a tree, or circling far overhead, and quite often it is the white head and tail which first capture the attention of the observer. They may be seen on a flying bird a remarkable distance away. The massive yellow bill combines with these features to make the bald eagle on of our most beautiful birds.
Of course, we are speaking here of adult bald eagles. It is four years from the time an eagle chick hatches until it reaches maturity and gains full adult plumage. Juvenile birds in the first year are mostly dark throughout. Second and third year birds can be a confusing pattern of mottled white and brown on the head, tail, back and even on the underparts. In these plumages they can look downright ratty, making one wonder if the story of the ugly duckling might somehow be applied to raptors.
As for majesty, well, that is a quality somewhat more abstract. Yet I suspect that anyone who has ever really looked at an adult eagle would immediately know what I mean. There is something about the bearing of this bird which suggests a superiority over its feathered compatriots. Perhaps this regal attitude is more a figment of human imagination than a quality actually possessed by the bird. If so, people of this generation are certainly not the first to succumb to its seduction. The founding fathers apparently thought the same thing when they named the bald eagle our national bird.
The beauty and demeanor of eagles is part of the reason we humans find them so captivating. After all, it is hard to look an eagle in the eye and come away unmoved. However, there are other reasons people are taken in by eagles – and by their story.
One is that the birds themselves have looked extinction in the face, and came away as survivors. This part of the story has, in a sense, more to do with us than with the eagles, but it nevertheless has become an indelible part of the aura which surrounds them. A few decades ago, the population of bald eagles was in steep decline as a result of a buildup of DDT in the food chain, particularly in fish. High levels of the chemical in the tissue of eagles led to low reproductive rates, due in part to egg shell thinning and low chick survival. Once use of the pesticide was banned, eagles began a slow recovery, and have once again become a common and numerous bird. Along the Oregon coast there has been a tremendous population increase of eagles in the past twenty years. Many nesting pairs inhabit our area, and it is unusual now for a person to spend a day on the coast without seeing one or more of the birds.
Another reason we find eagles fascinating, or should, is because of their incredible eyesight. There is a good reason sharp eyed people are sometimes given the term eagle eye, but it is hardly a fair comparison. The vision of these birds is many times superior to that of humans. I once watched one fly out of a tree on the east side of Hwy. 101 in Waldport, sail on set wings for at least three quarters of a mile, gradually moving lower and lower until it was just over the waves of the incoming surf, then pluck a sizeable fish from the water with its talons. It was clear that from the very beginning of the flight, the eagle had seen the fish, and took advantage of light and sea conditions to capture it.
While eagles do eat a lot of fish, they also feast on carrion, and are serious predators of birds. In fact, if you happen to be near the coast, and see a large group of gulls or ducks suddenly explode into flight, there is a pretty good chance that a bald eagle is somewhere in the vicinity. Eagles do take both gulls and ducks off the water on occasion, and these prey species are reluctant to let an eagle get closer than half a mile from them. The predation by eagles of murres nesting on the offshore rocks is also part of the ongoing saga between predator and prey here on the Oregon coast. In some cases it has caused murres to abandon long used nesting territories.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 59 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. Reach him through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

Photo by Letha Weaver

Discover the surprising Ctenucha moth

Published Aug. 17, 2007

For the person interested in biology, there is simply no end to things which are capable of catching his interest. Trees, flowers, mushrooms, birds, mammals, and a myriad of invertebrate creatures all clamor for attention. The other day I was talking with someone about clams and such, and this person told me they were actually more interested in the things which live on the clams. For those inclined to use a microscope, a whole new field of opportunity opens up before them.
Most of us, however, are likely to be interested in, or at least notice, things more obvious, and more spectacular. And in our area, one of the most obvious and spectacular things one might encounter would be a Ctenucha moth, more specifically, a red-shouldered Ctenucha moth.
First of all, lets get the pronunciation down correctly. Ctenucha is pronounced “Ta-nu-ka,” with the emphasis on the second syllable. The full scientific name is Ctenucha multifaria or sometimes C. rubroscapus, the latter name a Latin reflection of the given common name red-shouldered.
The apparent disagreement among taxonomists (those who classify and name living creatures) as to the proper name to assign to this insect seems to go right along with a general ignorance about it. In truth, there seems to be little that is known about the red-shouldered Ctenucha. At least there is very little printed information regarding its life history, diet, or reproduction. It’s curious, because this sort of information is abundant for other species. So if there are any budding lepidopterists out there – those who make a study of butterflies and moths – Ctenucha rubroscapus is just waiting for you to come along and document its story.
Even though there is little technical literature regarding this insect, there is still much about it which is interesting to the layman. For one thing, the red-shouldered Ctenucha moth is easily observed. It is a day flying moth which can be seen throughout the daylight hours; it is rather slow flying, and easy to follow; it frequently lands on grass or low bushes; and once it has landed it is unwary and easily approached. All these factors make it one of the easiest moths to observe and study.
The known range of these moths is somewhat spotty. They have been found along the west coast from southern Washington to southern California, chiefly west of the Cascade and Sierra divide. In our area they are most common close to the coast, much rarer even a few miles inland. They are especially common on places like Yaquina Head, or other open spaces such as the borders of estuaries where there is an abundance of grass. If one takes the time to look through the grass, especially in the morning, he may be fortunate enough to find mating pairs clinging to the stems.
So why would one want to stop and look at these moths?
Well, the fact is, they are beautiful. In flight, they often look dull blackish, but when one sees them up close, he gets a very different impression. The wings are black, tipped with white, but the body is a dazzling iridescent blue, and the head and sides of the thorax (the shoulders) brilliant scarlet. This combination of colors makes the Ctenucha moth one of the prettiest types in our area.
The larva are attractive in their own right, being black with a series of orange tufted hairs and a black tuft at each end of the body. They feed on grasses until mature. Then, like other moths, they go into cocoons and emerge later as adult moths. July and August are peak months for these moths to be out and about, so the next time you are walking through a grassy area near the coast, keep an eye open for them. If you have never done so before, take the time to really stop and look at one resting on the grass. You may be surprised by its beauty.

Tasty & toxic, the elderberry thrives
Published July 27, 2007

The blossoms of spring have turned to the fruit of summer, and one of the plants whose appearance was enhanced by the change is red elderberry. This tree — although it is more properly called a shrub, as it seldom grows more than 20 feet tall — is one of the most common and most interesting ones found in our area. And as it grows abundantly from the ocean shore to the eastern boundaries of Tillamook and Lincoln counties, it is easy to find and appreciate.
One of the things which makes this tree interesting is its exceptionally rapid rate of annual growth. Shoots which sprout from stumps will sometimes grow as much as 14 feet in a year. No other native tree in our area even comes close to that kind of growth rate. The shoots typically grow straight up the first year, with no side branches, allowing them to put all their energy into height. During their second year, the growth tends to be along lateral branches, which spring forth from the main stem. These lateral branches quickly form a canopy of shade over anything growing beneath them, which is why those attempting to grow planted conifers on recently-logged sites must cut back the annual growth of elderberry to ensure the survival of the conifer seedlings. Even Western hemlock, which is a shade-tolerant species, has a hard time competing with elderberry.
Economic considerations aside, red elderberry is interesting for other reasons. It is one of the earliest shrubs to bloom in spring, often coming into blossom in April. The pyramid-shaped clusters of blooms are a dull creamy white, and not nearly as showy as those of some other native species such as red-flowered currant or ocean spray. Nevertheless, they form an attractive part of the wildflower display in early spring.
It is not until the fruit comes on in early July that red elderberry begins to come into its own, with respect to beauty. Those nondescript blooms develop into clusters of bright scarlet fruits, and throughout that midsummer month the red and green of the plants forms a very attractive display along the roadsides and in the understory of our local forests. No other plant in our area has fruit of such a brilliant scarlet color.
This plant is also known to be toxic, although it is a matter of some debate. I have known people, for example, who made jelly from its fruit and suffered no ill effects from its consumption. However, such preserves tend to be frowned upon by so-called plant experts, who insist that although the fruit is apparently non-toxic, the stems, leaves, roots, and bark of the plant is known to be so.
What toxin that might exist in the fruit is apparently eliminated by cooking, which would explain why the fruit can be used to make jelly. As far as the rest of the plant tissues go, well, the toxins in them are known to be of the cyanide type. As they say, you do the math.
Toxins notwithstanding, red elderberry is an attractive and important food source for many forms of wildlife. I know of at least one occasion when a five point Roosevelt elk bull fed on the shoots in the early stages of their growth. This is a fact I find interesting, because none of the goats I have raised at various times would ever touch the stuff. However, the real attraction of this plant for wildlife is the fruit, especially for birds. Band-tailed pigeons, black-headed grosbeaks, purple finches, cedar waxwings, American robins, and Swainson’s thrushes all heavily feed on the ripe berries. Often these birds will completely strip a tree of its fruit, until there is not one berry left. The thrushes, in particular, go after the berries with great vigor, hanging from the tips of the branches in order to get to them. As thrushes are otherwise furtive birds, not inclined to give a viewer good, prolonged views, elderberry fruiting season provides a good opportunity to watch them when they are less attentive to human presence.

Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 56 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

Darrel Faxon photo.

Don't be afraid to hunt this chicken in the summer
Published July 13, 2007
Even though we are only a couple of weeks into summer, it is not too early to begin thinking about the fall mushroom season. Actually, to call it the fall mushroom season is inaccurate. Mushrooms will sprout whenever conditions are suitable for them. Many will not show themselves before cool weather begins in late September, but there are some species that begin fruiting in mid summer.
One of these early mushrooms is called chicken of the woods. It is not your typical round capped toadstool. Rather, it grows in fan-shaped, flat layers, often one on top of another, always on rotting wood. Only the base of the mushroom is attached to the log or stump on which it is growing.
As mushrooms go, chicken of the woods is one of our prettiest ones. The top is bright orange, and the underside bright yellow. Fresh specimens are particularly beautiful. Older ones tend to fade to dull orange, and then to white as the seasonal growth decays. However, if one finds a decayed specimen, he will likely to be able to find a fresher one there earlier the next year, as they often grow in the same location year after year. In favorable spots this mushroom sometimes will get quite large. I once saw one that had formed almost a colony on the side of a sizeable fir log. There were four or five layers of mushrooms, one above another, and the entire mass was about five feet long. There must have been well over a hundred pounds on that one log. Most of the time, however, specimens will be much smaller, maybe only two or three individual fruiting bodies per site.
The reason I use the term fruiting body is because what we generally call mushrooms are actually the visible mature fruit, much as apples are the mature fruit of an apple tree. For most of the year, mushroom plants, if one may call them that, grow out of sight underground, in stringy fibrous mats called mycelium. When proper conditions occur, such as the right temperature and moisture, the mature fruit will grow out of this mycelium, and pop out above ground. Different species are stimulated to produce fruit at different temperatures and amounts of moisture. Since we had significant amounts of rainfall in late June, chicken of the woods can be expected to appear almost any time in the next few weeks.
Another thing that makes chicken of the woods attractive is that it is edible. It is also one of the easiest species to identify, and not easily confused with anything else. However, no one should attempt to eat any wild mushroom unless he is absolutely certain it is edible, because many of them are poisonous, some extremely so. Check with an expert in mushrooms before sampling them.
If you find a chicken of the woods, and do decide to try the taste test, take a knife and cut off only the tender outer tip of the mushroom (about two inches wide). This is the only section that is really tender. The inner portion closer to the stem tends to be tough and woody, especially on older specimens. Extremely fresh specimens will be the most tender and palatable. There are recipes in some of the mushroom books for those who would be interested. I have eaten this mushroom a few times, and found it to be palatable, but not as good as, say, chanterelles. Some people I know think it is quite good.
Chicken of the woods grows throughout our region, and one may come upon one quite unexpectedly. It tends to grow in places of deep shade, and if you find one, its vivid colors will brighten both your day and the surrounding gloom of the dark forest.

Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 56 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

Cape Foulweather is the Fairest of them All
Published June 29, 2007
To the naturalist, or anyone even slightly interested in the outdoors, Cape Foulweather is one of those must-see destinations. This biological gem, located just of U.S. Highway 101 a few miles north of Newport, has a bit of something for everyone.
One of the things it offers is spectacular scenery. The parking lot at the cape is only a few feet from the edge of the rocky tip of the cape, where one may look down hundreds of feet to the ocean below. However, there is much more at this site than a panoramic view of the sea.
If it is flowers that capture your interest, well, Cape Foulweather just may be one of the most spectacular places to visit on the entire Oregon Coast, and for a reason many people might not suspect. The very tip of the cape, right where the bluff drops steeply off to the ocean, is actually a tiny fragment of Arctic-alpine habitat. Its rapid rise in elevation and its proximity to the cold waters of the Pacific have created conditions that are similar in many respects to the type of habitat one would expect to find at elevations above timberline in the mountains: bare rock outcrops, shallow soil, and consistently cool temperatures. One of the results of this unique set of conditions is that many of the flowers which bloom at the tip of the cape do so from mid-June through July, similar to the timing of the floral display high in the mountains. So if you want to plan a trip to Foulweather to see the flowers, now is an excellent time.
The only drawback to really being able to appreciate the display of blooms there is that most of them are just beyond the fence, on the rocky point which slopes very steeply off toward the ocean, so one is not able to admire them at arm’s length. However, a good pair of binoculars will enable anyone to see them well enough to appreciate their beauty. Nodding onion, with its grass-like leaves and drooping pink flowers, grows near the grassy edge at the top of the slope. Both red and yellow varieties of stonecrop are scattered all over the most bare portions of the rocks. Mixed in among the stonecrop are red paintbrush and blue-eyed grass, a small but beautiful blue variety of the iris family.
Just a few yards to the east, the vegetation changes abruptly to one that is more typical of the interior Coast Range. Mixed in among stunted Sitka spruce and cascara trees are the beautiful pink Nootka rose, Oregon grape, cow parsley, and fireweed. In the forest along the road leading south from the tip of the cape there is an abundance of fringe-cup, wild lily-of-the-valley, buttercup, hedge nettle and miner’s lettuce, as well as plenty of tall lady fern and red elderberry. Most of the flowering plants here reach their peak bloom in April or May.
If it is berries you want, there are plenty of them as well. Salal grows all over the cape, and it takes but a little searching to find red and black huckleberry and salmonberry as well. The berries of the latter are ripe now. The others will come on later in the summer.
The tip of the cape is also a good place to watch for migrating gray whales. If you see a spout of vapor from a surfacing whale, and focus binoculars or a spotting scope on the area, it is often possible to see the whales themselves slowly swimming along not far beneath the surface.
Many species of birds may be seen at or from the cape, most notably seabirds. Common murres by the thousands sometimes gather atop the large rock a mile or so offshore from the cape. Cormorants nest in the crevices of the rock, and may also often be seen flying over the ocean close to the mainland. Pigeon guillemots, with their white wing patches contrasting with their black bodies, also fly back and forth from their nests in the face of the bluff, as do a number of western gulls.
During spring and fall , one may also see long streams of loons and sea ducks such as surf and white-winged scoters flying past the cape, usually some distance from land. The real prize among seabirds to be expected here is the puffin, but one has to be lucky to see one. Tufted puffins have occasionally nested in some of the more hidden crevices on the rock offshore, and occasionally can be seen swimming in the ocean just off the bluff. The much rarer horned puffin, a straggler from Alaska, has also been seen there on a couple of different occasions.
Cape Foulweather: a biological treasure at any season. Come and see.
Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 56 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

This flower is nothing to sneeze at
Published June 15, 2007

One summer when I was about eight years old, I discovered a batch of pretty yellow flowers growing at the edge of a field where my family was putting up hay. I decided to pick some of them and take them home to my mother. My oldest brother, who is my senior by 18 years, told me not to do it, because, as he put it, “If you take those flowers home, someone will get hay fever.” Of course, the results of this interchange were entirely predictable. I ignored his command, picked the flowers. and took them home. Someone did get hay fever. It was me. For several days afterwards I had a sore throat and runny nose.
I suppose the moral of the story might be: Don’t disobey your elders. In this case, there might be a biological lesson as well. Don’t mess with goldenrod, at least not in close quarters. So far as I know, I have never been affected by it the same way since, but I haven’t made a habit of picking it and putting it in a vase inside the house, either.
Regardless of its pollen driven ability to stuff up the nasal passages, goldenrod is an attractive plant. Perhaps before launching into a description of its attractiveness, it would do well to distinguish what species of goldenrod it is of which we speak, as there are several. The one which grows in our area is known as Canada Goldenrod, although it certainly is not limited to the country of that name. It is relatively common throughout western Oregon.
Like some of our other flowering plants, part of Goldenrod’s beauty is found in its density of blossom. It tends to grow in thick clumps, where the subsequent profusion of bloom is more attractive than one blossom would be by itself. Seeing the hundreds of yellow pyramid shaped blossoms packed into a few square feet is one of the pleasures of a summertime walk. The timing of the bloom is also one of the things that gives goldenrod its appeal. It blooms from mid-summer through early fall, after most of our wildflowers have ceased flowering.
Look for goldenrod along roadsides, margins of cultivated land, and weedy fields as it is a sun-loving plant of open spaces. It can sometimes even be found in openings in the forest, but never in the deep woods. Since it is a perennial, it can be looked for in the same locations year after year. It does not require any real searching to find goldenrod, because it is a fairly tall plant, on occasion growing to a height of as much as five feet. Its size, bright yellow blossoms, and habit of growing in the open make it difficult to miss.
There is an interesting fact about goldenrod which has some significance in the history of our country. Reportedly at the time of the American Revolution, American colonists unable or unwilling to pay the high tax imposed by the British on tea used the leaves of goldenrod as a substitute. Desperate men use desperate measures! It’s a good thing it wasn’t the other way around. Boston Goldenrod Party just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 56 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

Stonecrop puts down roots on rocky shores
Pubished May 25, 2007

A lifelong fascination, to me, is how the ecology of the immediate coast is so very different from what is found only a few miles, and sometimes only a few yards, inland. The difference is sometimes like day and night. The birds, trees, flowers, and fungi which inhabit the coastal zone are often so dissimilar to those found inland that for all practical purposes they just as well be on another continent.
Of course, there is some overlap, particularly with plants. Typically, plants found growing, say, on rocky bluffs near the seashore, can sometimes be found growing in the same habitat elsewhere. So it really is habitat, more than location, which determines what species may be found in a given area. Nevertheless, there are a number of species, especially of plants, which may be found growing along the immediate coast that do not seem to inhabit the interior Coast Range. At least, I have never seen them there.
One such plant is broad-leaved stonecrop. It may be found growing on rocky bluffs very near the ocean. Although it likely can be found in similar habitats elsewhere, the only place I personally have encountered it is on Cape Foulweather. There is a considerable amount of it growing on the top of the high (very!) bluff just beyond the fence at the overlook there, and additional clumps of it can be found on rocky outcrops above the northbound lane of Hwy. 101 not far from there.
It always strikes me as odd to see it growing there. The places where it chooses to grow are almost bare rock: places that look like no plant of any kind could survive. To my further amazement, the plant is a succulent, a plant which has the capacity to store moisture in its fleshy leaves. Actually, the two facts go together quite well. Apparently because of the almost waterless places in which it grows, the ability of the stonecrop to capture and store moisture in its leaves is what enables it to survive in such a harsh environment. Still, whenever I see this vigorous plant with fleshy leaves growing on bare rock, it never fails to amaze me.
In respect to its ability to capture and store water, broad-leaved stonecrop resembles members of the cactus family. However, it is actually a sedum, one of several varieties of stonecrop which are native to the Oregon coast. All share the classification as succulents, and can be found growing in similar habitats. In fact, the name stonecrop is said to come from an old English word meaning “that which is gathered off stone.”
There are a number of interesting legends which have been associated with this plant, most having to do with romance. The leaves of stonecrop will stay green for a long time after the plant has been picked. Because of this quality, it was in medieval times used by young women for purposes of divination, the trueness of the heart of a suitor being determined by the length of time the leaves stayed green. Plants growing on the roof of a building were thought to protect the structure from lightning.
One of the nice features of stonecrop is that it tends to put out its blossoms in mid to late summer, after many of our native plants have ceased blooming. Its abundance of yellow flowers is quite attractive in their rocky habitat during the hotter days of July and August. So if you are traveling down the Oregon coast this summer, and have not made acquaintance with stonecrop, stop in at the overlook at Cape Foulweather. Walk out to the fence, and look over … carefully.

Cattail tale
You could eat it, but...
All about this useful, historic and underappreciated plant
Published May 11, 2007

It has been said that familiarity breeds contempt. Could we settle for under-appreciation? One of the most familiar, and perhaps under appreciated, plants in our area is the cattail, but such was not always the case. This widespread aquatic plant was highly valued by the native peoples of North America before the continent was settled by immigrants from Europe. The leaves were woven together to make blankets, mats for bedding, chairs, rugs, and seats in canoes, used to make many articles of clothing such as hats and shirts, and also for bags in which other articles were carried. The fluffy dry seed found use as stuffing for pillows. It was also used as a dressing for wounds, and even as padding for diapers. And here you thought that disposable diapers were a new invention!
Of course, with easy accessibility to store-bought clothing, bedding, and such, cattail no longer is used for any of these purposes, but it is an interesting plant, nevertheless. Perhaps we should appreciate the fact that it is one of our most easily identified native plants. The classification of plants is at times very complex and confusing, but the most ignorant novice can recognize cattail in an instant.
For one thing, the habitat in which it grows gives it away. Find almost any freshwater slough or marsh, and you will find cattail. It loves to grow with its feet in the water along the edges of marshes, swamps, lakeshores, or anywhere there is slow moving or brackish water.
Another way to recognize this plant is by its associations. Particularly at this time of year, if you hear the gurgling “ok-a-lee” of a red-winged blackbird, you can almost assume that cattail is not very far away. The males of this species love to perch on the tops of the cattail stems and sing while showing off their brilliant scarlet epaulets to the females they are attempting to woo.
Or, if you hear a raspy “shrenk-shrenk- shrenk- shrenk” coming from an unseen vocalist deep in the marsh, you can bet that the Virginia rail you likely will never see is well acquainted with the plant which is so plainly visible.
Then there is the easily recognizable form of the plant itself. The long, narrow leaves sprout up from the base of the plant to a height of several feet, and above them protrudes the cylindrical brown flower head, which is so familiar.
In all probability many people do not think of it as a flower, as it appears more like a vegetable form of a corn dog. But it is a flower, and in fact, a rather complex and interesting one. The bottom portion actually consists entirely of female flowers, while the top section is made up of fluffier male flowers. Once the flower has matured, the male portions fall off, but the female portion turns darker brown and remains on the stalk for a long time, well into the following winter.
In the early stages of growth this elongated flower is greenish, and can be eaten like corn on the cob. I even tried it myself — once. Need I say more? There is a reason cattail has not become one of our favorite garden vegetables.
There are a variety of other marsh plants which often grow in close association with cattail, including hard-stemmed bulrush (often known as tule), water-parsley, and, at the drier edges of marshes, steeplebush (as shown in the photo). At times the combination of these plants cover many acres of low-lying watery habitat, even in our area. In some of the marshes in southeastern Oregon, such vegetable communities at times are many square miles in extent.
One of the best places to get up close and personal views of this plant in our area is along Beaver Creek Road, just east of Ona Beach State Park a few miles south of Newport, but there are many other areas where it can be found growing in abundance. So if you have not yet developed an appreciation for this familiar plant, next time you are driving by a marsh, stop for a few minutes. Listen to the song of the red-wing, and make a more thorough acquaintance with the cattail.

Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 56 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

Wild Carrot, or Queen Anne's lace
A European invader provides a splash of summer color

From the April 27, 2007 Edition. Scroll below for older columns.

We are now smack in the middle of the spring blooming season for wildflowers. Trilliums, spring beauty, fetid adder’s tongue, and pink lamb’s tongue are nearly or completely bloomed out. Meadowrue, fairy lanterns, and bleeding heart are now blooming. In the next few weeks, they will be followed by columbine, wild iris, buttercups, and a host of other flowers, but by the end of May most of the bloom will be over.
Then comes summer. The number of blooming wildflowers will drop off dramatically. However, there will still be some putting on blossoms well into September. So it is interesting to give some thought to the differences between these early and late blooming plants.
For the most part, the early plants are ones which grow in the shade, often the deep shade of the darkest woodlands. They frequently have only a few blooms per stalk, sometimes only a single flower. While often beautiful in color and form, they are often fragile plants which would not hold up well in harsh sunlight or exposed locations. Also, since they grow low in the forest, and during the season when it is often cold and rainy, they depend upon small flies and ants for pollination, and seed dispersal is local.
By contrast, many of the plants which bloom later in the summer are composites; that is, plants which have many hundreds of flowers in a cluster at the very top of the plants. While also pollinated to some degree by insects, they depend much more upon wind for seed dispersal. Often the tiny seeds within the blossom come equipped, when mature, with a tail of fluffy down, which is easily caught up in the breezes and carried many miles away from their original place of growth. Dandelions and thistles are two types of plants whose seed is dispersed in this manner.
Another contrasting feature between the two types of flowers is the habitat in which they are found. Most of the early bloomers grow in undisturbed soils, or at least in places where there has been little disturbance for many years. The later blooming plants seem to often thrive best where the soil has been disturbed the most: along roadsides, on cutbanks, or in parking lots and other places where the surface layer of soil has been removed or altered.
Unfortunately, one of the reasons that many of these late blooming plants have been able to gain a foothold in such places is that they are not native to North America. The disturbed soils which accompany the building of places for human travel and habitation have proved an ideal setting for their incursions into our native landscape. Some of them have managed to arrive on our shores on their own, but many were deliberately introduced by well-meaning, if perhaps misguided persons.
One such invader is wild carrot. Originally from Eurasia, it was long ago introduced to the New World, and now is found throughout North America. Although the wild ancestor of our cultivated garden carrot, it likely was not brought to our shores by reason of its edibility. The root itself is said to be of bitter taste. It is more likely that it was brought here because the seeds were thought to have value as a contraceptive, as they had been used for that purpose in Europe since before the birth of Christ.
In any case, since it has successfully colonized our continent, we should just as well learn to enjoy it for what it is. In ways, it is a beautiful plant. The leaves are quite lacy and delicate, leading to the plant sometimes being called Queen Anne’s lace. One has to wonder, if it were named that by peasants during the Victorian period, if Queen Anne blushed upon hearing news of the nomenclature of the plant among the common folk. Perhaps so. The center of the blossom itself, in its early stages, is flushed with a delicate pink which is really quite attractive. As the flowers mature they may turn an even darker pink or even purple, contrasting to the whitish outer margins of the flower head.
Wild carrot is a rather common plant in our area. It often grows in very conspicuous places, such as those previously listed as being proper habitat for such invaders, and even though it is an introduced species, it does provide a certain display worth noticing during the hotter months after our native wildflowers have ceased to perform.

Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 56 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

Darrel Faxon

Seals, for your inspection
These mammals are easy to spot - no need to haul out binoculars

By Darrel Faxon
For the Oregon Coast Today
Published March April 13, 2007

Generally speaking, people who come to the Oregon coast to observe wildlife are likely to be looking for birds. After all, for the most part they are quite conspicuous, come in a variety of colors and flavors (species, that is), and readily tolerate human presence. Mammals, on the other hand, for the most part, tend to stay out of sight, are not so colorful in pattern or diverse in type, and tend to avoid close encounters with people. So as a general rule they are not so eagerly sought after. An exception to the rule is the harbor seal. In many of our local bays at times they outnumber the birds! This fact is particularly true in Alsea Bay at Waldport, where many hundreds of them may often be seen.
In such sites where they gather in abundance, the seals can be seen swimming along, often with only their head out of the water. Other times they float in more of a vertical position, with the tip of their nose sticking straight up. When they are in this position it is easy to mistake the pointed shape of the nose for a swimming bird until one looks at it closely.
When the tide is out, seals often crawl up on sandbars and rocks to sleep. Such sleeping places are called haul out sites, and unless repeatedly disturbed from such places, seals tend to use the same sites over and over. These sites must be close enough to the water that the seals can slip back into it at the first hint of danger.
Harbor seals are somewhat of a curiosity among mammals in that they do come in several different colors. Most are medium gray with black spots, but others vary from nearly pure white to almost completely black. Although it appears that a seal is gray or white or black because of differences in skin pigment, it is actually a covering of short hair that gives them their distinctive coloration. In fact, Harbor seals are also known by the name of hair seals.
Along our coast seals seem relatively tolerant of human presence, so long as they are not approached too closely, especially at their haul out sites. While swimming, they often will approach to within a few yards of people. Doubtless they feel a greater measure of safety while in the water, because their swimming ability is far superior to that of humans. They can sometimes be seen at places like Seal Rock, swimming right in the roughest surf with apparent ease.
Their tolerance of close contact with people is a relatively new thing, as prior to 1972 some people used to harass seals in the estuaries, and even shoot them. The Marine Mammal Act passed by Congress that year brought those activities to a halt because it placed the animals under federal protection. To this day, the act remains controversial, because it led to a tremendous buildup of seals in the estuaries at a time when the salmon population was already declining. Since seals do, in fact, eat salmon as well as other fish, the presence of large numbers of them in the estuaries may indeed have a negative impact on the population of salmon, particularly since in these places the fish are bottlenecked into narrow passageways where the chance of predation by seals is greatly increased. Young seals, known as pups, are born in the spring, generally in April and May. They generally suckle the mothers for six to eight weeks before they are weaned. At times during this period a female seal will leave her pup on the open beach, close to the water’s edge, while she forages for food. There are signs at numerous places along the Oregon coast warning people not to consider these pups to be abandoned and attempt to “rescue” them. Locals tend to know it, but first-time visitors to the coast should be informed that such attempts are both unnecessary and illegal.
Full grown seals reach a length of a little over five feet, and will weigh as much as 220 pounds. Apparently they do not need to be in a big hurry to grow up, as they live for a long time. Seals kept in captivity have been know to reach the ripe old age of 32. And no, I am not going to tell you how old that is in dog years.

Darrel Faxon, a resident of Lincoln County for 56 years, has had a lifelong interest in the habitats of the Oregon coast. Send him an e-mail through niki@oregoncoasttoday.com.

Hummingbirds return to the coast
Published March 23, 2007

By Darrel Faxon
For the Oregon Coast Today

Time to put those hummingbird feeders up! The rufous hummingbirds are back. In fact, in most places here on the coast they have already been back for a couple of weeks. As is typical, the adult males show up first, and the females and immature males show up a week to 10 days later.
Well, more on hummingbirds in a moment. First of all, let’s give a little attention to the feeders. There are many varieties available at local stores. The best ones come with a bee guard which prevents bees and wasps from reaching down into the tube for the contents. While most of the time the insects are not a problem, if they do start to use the supply of sugar water put out for the hummers, their presence will certainly keep the birds away. It is really sort of strange that it should be so, because by nature hummingbirds are quite pugnacious (rufous hummingbirds very much so), and often will drive birds much larger than themselves away from their staked out territories. But they are quite afraid of bees and wasps.
Once you have purchased a feeder, you should fill it with a solution of one part sugar to four parts water. It seems to work best to boil the water briefly to ensure that the sugar mixes in. After the solution has cooled it may be poured into the feeder. It is not necessary to add red food coloring. Hummingbirds are easily attracted to the red color on the feeders themselves. So fill the feeder, hang it up in an appropriate place, and get ready to watch the show!
It is quite a show to watch, too. In addition to being able to fly forward at terrific speeds, hummingbirds are the only kind of bird in North America that can also hover and fly backwards. At feeders they often can be seen doing both, and sometimes also rising up and down in one spot as if they were attached to the string on a yo-yo. Add to their powers of flight the brilliant color of the throat of the male, and you have all the ingredients for a spectacular avian performance.
Actually it is not quite accurate to refer to the color of the male’s throat – for two reasons. One, the brilliantly colored throat feathers are actually known as a gorget, and can be extended beyond the sides of the neck. Two, the feathers in it are iridescent, reflecting different colors at different times and at different angles. Sometimes the gorget looks scarlet, other times orange, or black, or occasionally yellow. The females lack this gorget, and tend to be green, rather than russet, on the back. Immature males usually show some coloration in the throat, but do not develop the full gorget of adult males during their first year.
If one is fortunate enough to live where an adult male has staked out a breeding territory, he may be treated to its spectacular dive display during the breeding season. The hummer will fly nearly straight up to a height of about 100 feet, then turn sharply and go into a power dive that covers the distance climbed almost faster than the human eye can follow.
At the bottom of the dive he pulls up sharply in a shallow flight curve, then repeats the process several times at different angles.
On some occasions, before climbing for another dive, the male will perform a back and forth display, with tail held high, and wings beating a noisy buzz-buzz-buzz. As this performance is done for the benefit of the female, if one looks closely in the underbrush or cover directly in front of the male, he may see her sitting there, demurely taking it all in.
Good as Pa Hummer may be at attracting a mate, he is not much when it comes to other domestic affairs. Once mating is accomplished, he usually goes off on his own, leaving his mate to tend to the eggs and young. From moss, lichen, and spider webs, she builds a cup shaped nest about two inches wide and conceals it on some blackberry vine or bush, usually in heavy cover and within a few feet of the ground. In it she will lay two (rarely three) white eggs about the size of a small bean. The young will fledge about a month after the eggs are laid. These young birds will often come in uncountable numbers to feeders in mid-summer.
By late June, most of the males leave our area. Females and immature birds typically linger until mid-August. If you see a hummingbird later than that, it is probably an Anna’s, a species which over winters – but that is a subject for another column.

Photo courtesy Darrel Faxon.

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