Ten Years!

I made it through the reunion in one piece! The experience was weird, but fun. It was similar to high school, only we're all ten year older. I've heard this is how reunions commonly go, but I guess I'd hoped it would be a little different. Some people have changed quite a bit, while others are stuck in their bizarre snooty rut. Around 10:30 the BBQ "portion" of the event started. It was nice to see everyone out with their families, there averaged almost one kid per person (though only about half of the people there had kids)! Julie and I watched an osprey feeding its young (which surprised me quite a bit) while at the BBQ. Their nest is on a lamp post in one of the baseball fields. After the BBQ we took the dogs for a walk. An irrigation ditch runs through the park so the dogs and I climbed in and waded around, trying to beat the heat. Later in the evening we attended the "formal" dinner. Everyone avoided Julie and I so we had a large table to ourselves until my "friends" came in. The majority of them were drunk most of the night. This weekend made me realize that I really am not like other people. I don't "need" alcohol, I've only been drunk once (and then not nearly as bad as most people I saw this weekend) and I quite frankly prefer my interactions to be sober. Anyway, the highlight of my night, other than meeting up with old friends, is discovering that Julie will dance if we are at a Reggae concert, therefore I will be trying to get use out to listen to Reggae more often!

My father helped me get some maps, with 10m grids, printed up for my vegetation surveys. He also loaned me a GPS, so that I can figure out exactly where I'm at when I'm looking at these maps! He and I have always had a rather tumultuous relationship and it always surprises me when he does nice things for me.

In the course of three days the black-capped chickadees and red-breasted nuthatches have consumed mass quantities of seed. They've slowed down on the suet, which seems counter intuitive. I'm always amazed by the number of birds I see at my parents' house. There was a brown creeper singing one morning while we were picking vegetables, I spotted him and pointed him out to my mother. Later in the evening a flycatcher was calling in the top of one of the ponderosa pines. A great-blue heron has been hanging out in their garden, probably eating the proliferation of pacific tree frogs. Mom's bird feeder is always busy, birds are almost always singing all around the house. The brown-headed cowbirds seem to have left, they usually spend the day riding around on Huka's back. After a short trip to Seattle I'll be back in the field for one more round of surveys and then vegetation surveys. I'm going to make every effort to do more bird watching this winter, because I like being outside, I like watching birds and working on my ID is never a bad idea!

Finally, we went huckleberry picking yesterday. There aren't very many ripe in Southern Oregon yet, but I know where to go to pick them. After cleaning them we have about 5.5 cups, enough for both pancakes and a pie! Next time we're in GP there'll be even more, we'll probably go picking again (then we can send some to Annie). I LOVE huckleberries and it brought me great joy to not only be out picking again but to be picking with my two closest friends.

Oops

Right now I should be at Finley, trudging through the (likely very wet) bushes. I crashed out last night, not setting the alarm or getting anything ready for today. I therefore woke up late, too late really. I feel as though it is okay, since it was raining pretty hard. They're calling for more rain throughout the day (though there is currently none). Yesterday there were scattered thunderstorms off and on all day. They weren't calling for them today, but I certainly wouldn't have wanted to get stuck in one while out surveying! We're leaving for Grants Pass Thursday, meaning I won't be surveying this week. Hmmm, how does this affect things? I'm not sure. Next week I go to Seattle with my parents, Rhonda and Audrey. We'll be leaving on the 26th and coming back on the 28th, meaning I'd have to survey Monday, Friday, Saturday. I haven't heard back from Doug, so I'm not sure what to do. Ugh . . .

I finished the Huckleberry rough draft yesterday. It is 10 pages of text. It may or may not be good, I didn't really read through the whole thing, just in pieces. The fact that huckleberries are in such high demand is quite amazing to me. I still go to the coast and run into people that don't know what they are, apparently they're only popular in areas where they occur on several thousand acres. This is a rather weird situation really. Nobody is sure how best to manage the plants or the people, people are lying to the forest service to get out of following commercial regulations and sometime people are bringing guns and dogs in order to protect "their" bushes. Yes indeed folks, here in the Pacific Northwest we are all CRAZY!

Julie and I are headed to the Oregon zoo. If we get a two plus one membership (same as at the aquarium) we can get into any zoo in the country. Cool! Now I suppose we'll be headed to Portland on a semi-regular basis too, not that I'd complain about that!

Fire

When many people think of Western Oregon, the Willamette Valley in particular, they think "green" and "rain," maybe even "water." This leads them to believe that drought is unheard of and to not take proper precautions when working with machinery near grass and other highly flammable vegetation. Here in Oregon our grass becomes VERY dry and VERY ignitable in August. I don't remember a year where this wasn't the case. In Southern Oregon we actually have ordinances against running machinery, chainsaws, tractors, cats, and trucks for example, after 10:00 (sometimes earlier when it's really hot/dry). Apparently we don't have these ordinances in the Corvallis area, or we do and people don't follow them. There was a fire at EE Wilson between August 7, 2008 and August 14, 2008. It wasn't very big, ten acres or less I'd say. The burned area is directly across from my favorite site. I had to walk by it this morning and boy did it smell bad! I've been around burned areas before and I don't remember any of them smelling this bad, part of what makes me believe it was a recent fire (plus they were running tractors all over when I left on Wednesday). The grass is gone, several of the trees are gone, others of them look as though they're going to die. It's pretty crazy. Even crazier is that I could here common yellowthroats talking in the burned area!

I saw an adult coyote this morning. She stared at me while I told her how lovely she is, she didn't move far when she did decide to move. I also told her not to be so trusting of people because here in Oregon people shoot coyotes for sport (which is legal, there is a bounty on them). I like the coyote pack at EE Wilson, I see them every week and they let me get pretty close. With hunting season approaching I can't help but wonder what will happen to them. Do people shoot them just for the hell of it? Or because they believe that coyotes will affect their hunt? Ugh, I dislike most hunters very much.

When I got home I took the dogs out to go potty. I saw a turkey vulture while we were on Witham Hill. It was eating a grey squirrel that had been hit by a car. Oddly enough it was in the grass, maybe it carried the squirrel there? Anyway, the dogs wanted to chase it as usual. I didn't let them, and I encourage the turkey vulture to not fly off, too many crows around that would snatch up its meal! It stayed and let me get a nice long look at it. It was an adult, probably male because it was on the smaller side of turkey vultureness. He was lovely, his feathers seemed a little dull but they molt before migrating back in spring, these feathers are over 6 months old. If you can't tell I LOVE turkey vultures, I wanted to snuggle this one. I find them to be supremely wonderful to watch, I've been friends with a few at the wildlife rehab center I worked at and they do a service to all of us by eating dead things.

Finally, the western tanagers were very active today (yay). I saw and heard the first white-crowned sparrows at either location. The cedar waxwings are flocking, which I assume means they're getting ready to migrate south, american goldfinch flocks are getting larger, purple finches are starting to flock up too (and some males came out of hiding). There were several warblers at the site I was at AND there was a flock of about 40 bushtits (hurray!). Also a belted kingfisher (love these guys too), a juvenile osprey, a juvenile red-tailed hawk (accompanied by an adult), several bewick's and house wrens and wrentits (I highly recommend people check these birds out-they're awesome and found only on the west coast from the northern Oregon border to southern California, they won't cross large bodies of water!), a ton of western wood-pewees, even a few swainson's thrushes. It was a good day!

On the huckleberry front . . . Annie, there is a nursery out here that I will try to get the name of, that sells huckleberry starts. They don't grow well from seeds, cuttings are ify, but if the rhizomes can be gathered they grow okay (that's my understanding). Huckleberries haven't domesticated well yet but there is a house about a mile from here that has some growing in their yard and the experimental seed station has some. Either way we'll send you some huckleberry something or other :)

Huckleberries

Julie's posts about Pendleton and AAA's questions about huckleberries have inspired be to put a little of my research for FW 470 in my blog. Huckleberries are part of the Vaccinium genus. This genus also contains blueberries and cranberries (both of which can be found in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest as well). All told there are 400 species of huckleberry worldwide (Vaccinium spp), 26 found in North America, 17 in the Pacific Northwest. Nearly all tribes in this area considered the huckleberry to be sacred. Before non-Indians began settling the area the tribes would dry the berries, eat them raw, or make them into "patties" or "cakes" and then dry them. When non-Indians moved out here and saw them eating the huckleberries they began picking them too. Huckleberries were canned or made into jams, jellies, pies, etc by euro-american settlers. When the depression "hit" the commercial harvesting of huckleberries by non-Indians increased, often creating conflict with Indians on traditional picking grounds. Today fire suppression has caused huckleberry production to decrease (they are rhizomous early-succession plants, they need light!). With the increased popularity of huckleberries in gourmet cooking, magazines, restaurants, and their increased use by cottage industries (syrups, jellies, candies, etc) less of the annual harvests are being left for tribes and home use. The saddest part of this story is that huckleberries have not been domesticated yet. This means that wild huckleberries, which also provide food for countless species of birds and both brown and black bears, are being over-harvested. Our national forests contain a high percentage of the berry field used by commercial harvesters . . . meaning huckleberries have reached a first come first served status. Pickers are often bused in before the picking season opens, to scout out areas with high numbers of berries. These pickers have no ties to the area, to the plants, or to their maintenance. This causes them to be rough with the plants. Huckleberries grow in clusters, so this carelessness also causes unripe berries to be picked along with ripe berries. The following link is for a US Forest Service Research Station publishing: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr657.pdf.

On another note, it was 95 degrees here today . . . boo! I was really sick last night, I believe due to be out in the heat and having not drank enough water, so I didn't go survey today. Now I have to go tomorrow. The vegetation survey is taking much more time to put together than I expected. I'm frustrated by the management at EE Wilson and I find my interest in this study shifting slightly. I'm interested not so much in just what birds are using these areas, but in the differences between them and the possibility of management types affecting the diversity of species and numbers between the two sites.

Hot, hot, heat . . .

Alright, this heat has got to stop! I was drenched in sweat by about 9:30 again this morning. I know I live in Oregon and that hot weather is normal, but PLEASE . . . it's too much! I'm just glad I'm not doing these surveys in Southern Oregon, then I probably would want to cry. The birds were pretty inactive, visibility wise again today. I did see some Black-capped Chickadees but not many. There were very few black-headed grosbeaks too. Wilson's warblers and macgillivray's warblers were not to be found, but yellow warblers were there early this morning. Red-breasted nuthatches were really active today. I saw an adult with a fledgling "begging" along behind it. The lack of birds has become quite fascinating. Even the rufus hummingbirds and swainson's thrush didn't make an appearance. Weird. This could all relate to the increasing amount of mowing they're doing at the refuge. I must say that I'm quite disappointed in the EE Wilson management team. Not only are birds hunted at this refuge but so are large game (deer) and cottontail rabbits. My horror keeps growing as the bushes and grass become less. It all seems a little too "canned hunt" for me. Anyway, the best part of my day was watching an adult female norther flicker (red-shafted) chasing an adult female american kestrel. An adult female cooper's hawk made a very brief appearance as well. How do I know it was a female? The bird was quite large, in fact at the large end of the cooper's hawk size spectrum.

On the way back to the truck I consumed a large quantity of blackberries. They were delicious! I ran into a family picking berries too. The husband and wife were armpit deep in blackberry bushes and their son was standing in the middle of the "road" staring at me. It was rather amusing.

As I walked I pondered life. What I'm doing right now seems valid, at least I keep telling myself that. Both sites are managed for a very specific person. Finley is managed for the dusky canada goose and EE Wilson for the hunters. While I should feel like I'm doing a good thing I feel like it is rather pointless. This could be hormones talking, sometimes I get dejected when I'm hormonal. Either way what difference do the songbirds make? They won't bring money to either refuge. In fact EE Wilson doesn't even charge for its permits . . . they manage for the hunters who don't pay them a dime to hunt there. They pay for the license obviously, but what is the point of the permit if there is no charge? I suppose to keep track of how many hunters are coming through the area. Elk hunting on the outskirts of Finley opens soon. There is an extended season because of the elk population. People that live near the refuge complain about the elk coming onto their property and causing damage. My opinion? They're some of the last elk in the valley . . . shouldn't you think it's neat to see them? I know I do, and I've seen elk in Southern Oregon and near the coast. All of this brings me to my final point. I used to think I would rather live in a community kind of like Corvallis. Now I don't know. Maybe I'd rather live in a quasi-urban area so that I can try to restore what has been altered, and work to prevent damage as urban areas expand. Eh . . . this whole grad school thing has me perplexed.

On a more positive note, huckleberries should be ripe soon. The research paper I've been doing on huckleberries has them permanently on my brain. They are my favorite fruit EVER and they're really good for you (as are pie or tart cherries and the cherries native to the Willamette Valley). I need to go huckleberry picking, maybe it'll ease my mind.