If you study the breeding habits of a stout gray seabird called the rhinoceros auklet on a couple of islands in Washington, a field season typically lasts from May until August. Come fall, then, you have a choice: you can either dive into the data and analysis and statistical whatnot, or you can spend some […]
Animals
In regard to the wildness of birds towards man, there is no other way of accounting for it… many individuals… have been pursued and injured by man, but yet have not learned a salutary dread of him. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species Darwin’s Finches All right, fine, the first few birds Could not […]
As we head into wave after wave of 100+ degrees Farhenheit temperatures in my home valley in Washington, this post from 2017 seemed worth re-upping: One way to understand a really big problem is to break it down into more manageable parts. That’s why scientists use specific, smaller systems to help them grasp the overall […]
A butterfly in my kitchen—that’s a surprise. It would have had to flutter up a lot of stairs and down a lot of hallways to get here from outside. I suspect it actually came in with some kale. I think it’s a cabbage white butterfly, a sweet little agricultural pest that arrived on this side […]
Earlier this summer I went on a bee hunt. I’m talking about native bees, not honeybees. In the words of Sam Droege, the guy leading the bee hunt, “If your model of ‘bee’ is the honeybee, you need to forget nearly everything you know about bees.” Droege works at the USGS Native Bee Inventory and […]
On the roadside the ground squirrel snacked The remains of a lunch, he attacked Now he’s developed a taste For anthropogenic food waste Beware, lest you be rodent carjacked.
We first saw the elk in September. Our route to the Wilder forest passed the Yaquina Bay, and there, between the road and mudflats, was an antler rack we initially mistook for a willow tree. Our neighbor said it was likely that hunters chased them out of the hills. That they were a smart herd. […]
They were dark forms scattered up and down the beach. One here, three there, a pair just beyond them. Their larger size distinguished them from the other shorebirds, drawing our attention. “What are they?” my dad asked. “Whimbrels,” I said. We were at Fort Stevens, a few miles outside of Astoria, Oregon, my hometown. My […]