California Sister Gulped by Bullfrog

The bridge out in the wetlands is a peaceful spot to watch birds and insects. I am surprised how low the water level is and how much the area of water has shrunk. There is only a couple inches of water left at this point in the summer.

There have reliably been a couple of California Sister butterflies fluttering around out in the wetlands. I was standing on the bridge watching them and occasionally they would land on the carpet of green made by a small plant that looks like it is floating on top. Butterflies will often seek out puddles or damp soil with valuable nutrients dissolved in the water. During mating, the males will deliver a nutrient-rich package with sperm called a spermatophore. These nutrients collected by the male and passed on to the female are vital for reproduction.

Butterflies seem to get absorbed in this activity and will often let you get really close. Just before I was out here, I watched two butterflies on some dog poop and they allowed me to get close to them. I’m not giving dog owners a pass or an excuse for not picking up their dog’s poop! There is plenty of scat from coyotes around the arboretum to supply butterflies. Anyway, this absorbed behavior is great for observation and photography, but it is also dangerous. This California Sister was snatched off the top of the water by a bullfrog that was excellently camouflaged, very still and patiently waiting for its opportunity. The butterfly was too close and was unable to escape the lunging bullfrog.

It was funny to see the bullfrog almost unnoticeably swallow the butterfly and just go back to sitting there like a lump on a log. It did wipe its mouth, croak, or move whatsoever.

Millions of Years

Trees will secrete a sticky substance called resin as a defense mechanism to protect itself from things like insect predators, fungi, or storm damage. Resin has antiseptic properties to protect the tree from disease. It hardens when exposed to the air and helps seal wounds. Its stickiness prevents an insect from burrowing inside the tree and in some instances encases the insect’s body.

Amber is an organic mineral that is formed from tree resin. The amber forms when the resin ends up being buried by sediments in a river or by silt at the bottom of a lake. Over time, the pressure of the sedimentary layers transforms the resin into amber. It has preserved many fascinating plant and animal specimens that give us a glimpse of life on earth eons ago.

I found tree resin oozing down the thick, craggy bark of this Douglas-fir tree and it appears to have captured a millipede wandering around on the trunk. I discovered it while marveling over the cascading formations and the variety of golden hues. If all the conditions are right, maybe sometime in the next couple-three million years this millipede will be preserved in amber and be found by a curious naturalist wandering around exploring nature.

Small Black Fish

While turning over stones in the shallow water along the bank of the Coast Fork of the Willamette River running by the arboretum, I will occasionally discover this small, midnight black fish. It doesn’t like to be out in the open and will usually dart back underneath a stone when uncovered. Its body beautifully whips back and forth in a fluid, serpentine motion and quickly disappears.

In my research, I found a fish called a Black Bullhead Catfish that is an introduced species to the Willamette River. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife had this to say on their website: “Bullheads present in Oregon (brown, yellow and black) are distinguished from channel catfish by their square or rounded tails and lack of spotting. They seldom exceed two pounds and 18-inches long. Black bullheads have a square tail with a light vertical bar at its base and chin barbels that are all dark.”

This small, black fish seems to fit the description for the black bullhead. I can’t recall ever seeing a totally black fish like this one. It’s like watching a shadow of a fish move along the bottom of the river. I’m curious, has anyone who fishes for catfish around here ever caught one out of the Willamette?

Resource
Black Bullhead | Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife. https://myodfw.com/fishing/species/black-bullhead. Accessed 30 Aug. 2025.

Camas on the Bank of the River

Erosion of the bank has exposed some camas growing along the edge of the river. It is interesting to see how far down in the ground the bulbs are. I measured this one and it was around a foot below the surface. Camas bulbs have contractile roots which are able to expand and contract, drawing the bulb downward. This secures the bulb and allows it to access nutrients and moisture deeper in the ground. This also protects it from easily being dug up for food by predators and from being damaged by fire.

Camas is very nutritious and was a staple part of the diet of many indigenous tribes of the area. The bulbs were cooked in earthen pit ovens to transform the starchy plant fiber inulin into fructose. They were eaten directly or processed into cakes, dried and stored for food during the winter.

Incense-cedar Cones

Interestingly, in this photo you can see this year’s female cone still forming and next year’s male cone starting to form at the same time. The unpollinated female cone of a conifer is called an ovulate cone and it is very inconspicuous on an incense-cedar tree. So, I’m not sure if it is starting to form now as well.

The female cone will turn brown, open up to release its seeds, and drop to the ground around the beginning of October (Incense-cedar Cones, October 12, 2020). The male cones will mature and release their pollen in the winter, usually in January (Incense-cedar Pollen, January 11, 2021).

The male catkins of the hazelnut trees are forming at the moment too while the nuts are still maturing. This tree also releases its pollen in the winter. (Hazelnuts & Catkins, July 22, 2021).

Acorn Weevils

I finally found an acorn weevil!
Whoop! Whoop!

This creature is amazing and for me, quite elusive. I have been looking for one for a couple-three years. I probably have spent 20 hours poking around acorns, leaves, and branches this year, if you can believe that. Plus, you have to wait for a good acorn year. And I read that some weevils can be nocturnal, so I checked in the evening light into the dark to see if acorn weevils were active at night. One last thing, its fuzzy, brown body is well-camouflaged against the acorn caps and it closely resembles the oak tree buds. So as you can see, this little critter can be challenging to locate. Finding this one was well worth the effort.

Right now the acorns are well-formed and a lovely shade of light green. Based on all the holes I see appearing in the acorns recently, this is the time when weevils seem the most active. It has a long snout extending from the front of its body called a rostrum. On the tip is its mouth that has tiny mandibles which it uses to chew into the acorn and eat the nut.

The female has a longer rostrum than the male so she can reach farther into the acorn to safely deposit her eggs. Once she chews her way into the acorn, eating as she goes, she will turn around and extend her ovipositor into the hole and lay a couple of eggs. You will see these holes located on the acorn next to the top of the cap.

The eggs hatch out surrounded by a nutritious nut and the larvae immediately began eating and growing. As the summer wanes and fall approaches, the acorns will turn brown and fall from the tree. The chubby little larvae will then chew their way out and tunnel into the ground. There they will form a small chamber and molt into a pupa where it will remain for two years. It will then molt into its adult form, climb out of the soil and start the reproductive cycle over again.

That’s not all, it gets better. On the photo below where the weevil is on the underside of the leaf, you can see its antennae which are located around the middle of the rostrum. Seemingly, this would be a problem as the weevil extends its rostrum down in the acorn as it eats. To get around this, the rostrum has side channels called scrobes. The bottom half of the antennae fold into these grooves which moves them out of the way and protects them as the rostrum extends into the acorn. See, I told you this creature was amazing.

I’m not sure how long the adult stage lasts, so if you want to try to see an acorn weevil, my advice is to head out there now. Have fun!

Oh, one last thing, I serendipitously ran into Karen Richards when I discovered this weevil. She writes the blog on Mt. Pisgah’s website and has her own awesome site where she writes about insects called Ticklehead. Check it out. It was great sharing this moment with her.

Lesser Goldfinch

I have been watching a Lesser Goldfinch nest for the last three and half weeks. The nest is neatly tucked in a cluster of leaves at the end of an oak branch. There are two baby birds still in the nest.

It is thought that goldfinches are late season nesters in order to take advantage of all of the seeds. The parents regurgitate a mushy seed-porridge to the babies during nesting. Also, I imagine that the timing is beneficial for the juvenile birds to have a bountiful crop of seeds to eat when they leave the nest.

The meadows around the pavilion are full of grass seeds that the goldfinches love. It is fun to watch them forage. They will land on a grass stalk and move towards the seed head. This bends the stalk over where they can access the seeds and they can often be seen hanging upside down eating. Birds are acrobatic creatures.

You have to be observant and moving slowly to catch the goldfinches nibbling on seeds. They practically disappear in the dry meadow colors and the dappled sunlight under the oak trees. It is not uncommon for me to flush them out of the grass as I walk along. Many times they won’t go far and are usually fairly tolerant of my presence as I slowly inch closer to watch them.

Hope you are getting in some good birding this summer. Thanks for reading my blog.

Raccoons in the Wetlands

It was a quiet afternoon. I was standing on the bridge out in the wetlands hoping to catch a photo that I had missed the previous week when I forgot my camera at home. It happens. So, now I was back on location and ready for another shot at it. I went to take a photo and my camera battery was… dead. That happens too. Anyway, I decided to hang out and see if I was going to miss my photo again. The photo was of this skipper that kept flying around and landing on this bullfrog that was sitting a little bit out of the water. The bullfrog sat completely motionless. At one point the butterfly landed on the frog’s eyeball and he didn’t move. The butterfly moved over to between his eyes and walked around on top of his head. When the butterfly got out towards the tip of his nose, the frog lunged to try and catch it. It missed and the butterfly circled back and landed on top of his head again. That was the photo I went back to see if I could get. It happens, rarely.

I hung out at the bridge for quite awhile and nobody came by. While I was standing there, I heard a slight rustle behind me which I thought was maybe a song sparrow that had been hanging around gleaning insects from the old pondlily leaves. To my surprise an adult raccoon followed by two little ones came walking out from under the bridge. They were quietly chattering to each other and walking along the edge of the water. The two small ones stayed hidden underneath the shrubs next to the water. I had seen them about a week ago. They were chasing each other through the bushes and came out running out on the trail in front of me. Now here they were roaming through the wetlands. I could see them curiously turning over small pieces of debris looking to see what was underneath. The mama raccoon was meandering farther out in the water. She appeared to find a few things, but I was unable to tell what it was and if she ate it or not. She was occasionally rubbing her front paws together and putting them towards her mouth. I watched them as they explored the area for about 10 minutes. I was honestly amazed at how quiet they moved through the vegetation. As they scurried off and hopped over a log, their movement didn’t make any sound. I could only slightly hear soft murmurings of communication between them.

I hope you are having a great summer full of time in nature. See you out there.

Western Pearlshell Mussel

I want to introduce you to the Western Pearlshell mussel (Margaritifera falcata). It is a bivalved, freshwater mollusk that can be found in the Willamette River.

Besides being a beautiful creature, they are important part of the ecology of a stream. They are filter feeders which helps improve water quality and clarity. Their shells store nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus that are slowly released back into the ecosystem when they die. Beds of mussels provide habitat for invertebrates, and the empty shells are safe havens for developing fish.

The breeding cycle of the western pearlshell mussel is fascinating. For fertilization to occur, the male will release sperm and the female will filter it out of the water. The embryos develop into larvae called glochidia and are released into the water where they must encounter and attach to the gill filaments of a host fish. The glochidia are parasites on the fish and remain on them for several weeks or months as they develop into tiny juvenile mussels. When they are ready, they release and fall back to the stream bottom where they to continue to grow and mature. Most freshwater mussels need a host fish to complete their lifecycle. The known host fish for the western pearlshell are salmonids, such as Chinook salmon, coho salmon, cutthroat trout, redband trout, and steelhead. Not only are these fish part of the lifecycle, they are important for distributing the mussels as they move and migrate through the river system.

Amazingly, these mussels have been recorded to live to over a hundred years old, so they are important indicators of the health of the ecosystem. Alarmingly, over seventy percent of North America’s species of freshwater mussels are listed as endangered, threatened or of special concern. This is due to factors like pollution, habitat loss, and decline in host fish populations.

This is another reminder of the crisis we are facing on this planet with the continual degradation of biodiversity and vitality of our ecosystems in nature. We know that we need to be better stewards of the earth. I hope there is a local place in nature that you visit often, have become connected to, and are inspired to help make it a better place.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I look forward to seeing you out there.

Sources
“Native Freshwater Mussels in the Pacific Northwest | Xerces Society.” Xerces.org, 2025, xerces.org/publications/guidelines/native-freshwater-mussels-in-pacific-northwest. Accessed 28 July 2025.

Western Pearlshell (Margaritifera Falcata) | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. https://www.fws.gov/species/western-pearlshell-margaritifera-falcata. Accessed 28 Jul. 2025.

Western Pearlshell Mussel | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/species/margaritifera-falcata. Accessed 28 Jul. 2025.

Williams, James D., et al. “Conservation Status of Freshwater Mussels of the United States and Canada.” Fisheries, vol. 18, no. 9, Sep. 1993, pp. 6–22. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1577/1548-8446(1993)018<0006:CSOFMO>2.0.CO;2.

Trailing Blackberry Fruit

Here are the fruits of the native trailing blackberry. It ripens to form a black, delicious berry just like you would imagine. Although, they don’t form the abundant clusters of fruit like the Himalayan blackberries that most people are used to picking around here.

It is fairly easy to identify the native blackberry. The vines are fairly thin and trail along the ground. They do have thorns that will grab on to you and snag a thread in your clothes or lightly scratch your skin. That said, they don’t form dense, impenetrable thickets of stout canes with sturdy thorns like the Himalayan blackberry that will easily shred you and your clothing. The trailing blackberry usually forms leaves that consist of three, ovate, toothed leaflets but they can form five leaflets too. The Himalayan blackberry generally has five leaflets but can also have three leaflets that are also toothed but have a more round, oval-shape.

The last photo below shows the Himalayan blackberry in the top of the photo and the trailing blackberry in the bottom of the photo for comparison.

Trailing Blackberry Flowers

I took these photos at the end of April and wanted to write about them in the spring. I imagine that in the busyness of work the time slipped away from me and the photos got a little buried as I continued to wander around looking at nature taking more photos.

Anyway, meet the our native trailing blackberry that is fairly prevalent out at the arboretum. Here’s a small patch that’s blooming along the river. It can form a dense thicket as it spreads and its vines trail across the ground. I few years ago I wondered why I wasn’t seeing a more abundant crop of berries like the non-native Himalayan Blackberry produces. I discovered that the trailing blackberry is diecious, the male and female flowers are on separate plants. Therefore, as the blackberries “trail” along the landscape and spread, it is not uncommon to encounter fairly large patches of blackberries vines that are only male and don’t bear any fruit.

Western Wood Pewee Sunning & Preening

In the early warmth of the morning sun, I watched this Western Wood Pewee sunning and preening. It spent most of the time with its back to the sun with its tail feathers spread out and its wings slightly open and away from its body. After a five minutes or so of sunning, it would have a session of preening that lasted approximately five minutes. Sometimes when it preened, it would flip around and have its other side exposed to the sun.

Occasionally an irresistible insect would fly by and it would swoop out, catch it, return to the perch, and continue preening. To my surprise, this lasted for around an hour.

I wrote about this sunning and preening last year, observing it in Robins and Steller’s Jays (Sunning, Feb. 28, 2024): This maintenance behavior isn’t completely understood but seems to be largely associated with removing parasites, such as lice, living on their skin and feathers. Studies have shown that exposing the feathers to direct sunlight can allow them to heat up enough to kill some of the lice. In addition, lice might move to escape the heat possibly making it easier to clear them away during preening, which often follows a session of basking in the sun.

Happy Birding!

Caterpillars Descending From Oaks - Update

I’m finally getting around to updating you on the caterpillars that repel down from the oak trees during the middle of May.

I put some soil, old oak leaves, and other debris from the ground in a screened terrarium and captured a bunch of the caterpillars as they descended down from the trees. At the end of the day, I checked in on the caterpillars and some of them had already started spinning small webbed cocoons in the leaf litter and even under the lid of the terrarium. A month later there were small moths fluttering around inside. They were beautifully camouflaged on the old oak leaves. They held their bodies in a diagonal position with their front legs propping up the front of their bodies. They have long stripped antennae that are the length of their bodies. They reminded me of the delicate tip of a watercolor brush.

iNaturalist identifies them as a moth in the genus Caloptilia. The larvae begin as leaf-mining sap-feeders. The latter instars usually exit the leaf and feed within a folded roll at the tip of a leaf lobe. You can see the tissue being eaten away leaving a brown spot on the leaf with the leaf veins exposed. When I unrolled some of the leaf tips, I found caterpillars inside some of them. They were either still crawling around or starting to spin a cocoon. With the leaf tips that were empty, I guessed they were the ones where the caterpillars decided to descend from the trees and spin their cocoons in the leaf litter on the ground. That certainly seems like a good strategy for avoiding chickadees.

Now I am wondering where things go from here. The caterpillars spun their cocoons and hatched out into moths. Do the moths overwinter and lay their eggs in the spring? Or do they mate and lay eggs that overwinter and hatch out in the spring? Also, I don’t remember seeing the caterpillars again later in the summer the same way I see them in the spring. So my guess at this point is that there isn’t a second generation this year. I’ll just keep trying to stay aware, be curious, observe, and research them.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I hope to see you out there!

Correspondent from the Blue Beyond

A translucent, powdery blue crawdad speckled with stardust from hitchhiking on comets around the universe has come to visit planet earth on his travels. Ziggy writes poetry for the magazine Cosmic Jones and has generously shared a poem he has been working on:

Even Crawdads Get The Blues

Vibe.

Strive
to be
always be
striving.

Live.

Be kindling
for kindness.

Cleave.

Stay tuned
to the current.

Marvel.

Love all
the creatures
features.

Visualize.

There’s no
such thing as
time.

Elevate.

Lift up
your mind.

Believe.

Find the wealth
inside yourself.

Arrive.

It’s the
moment.

Sweet Dreams

I was out walking around the arboretum the other evening enjoying the cool air and a slight breeze as the day was coming to a close. I was walking along the incense cedar trail and could hear the ethereal notes of brown creepers flowing through the forest. I stopped to listen and saw one swoop down to the base of a tree. I watched it for a little while as it sang and moved around on the furrowed trunks of old incense cedars looking for food. I lost sight of it in the waning light, but I could still hear it singing in the canopy. Suddenly it swept down to the base of an incense cedar in front of me. It went up the tree and came to a small cavity in the bark where a tree limb used to be. It hopped into the entrance and perched there. I watched as it sat there looking around. After about five minutes or so, I saw it nestle a little more into the old knot hole. I occasionally saw it gently close its eyes for a moment and then reopen them. I began to wonder if this was where this brown creeper was going to spend the night. I decided to sit down, wait for night to fall, and see if it stayed. I watched it over the next forty-five minutes or so, occasionally glancing up to see if it was still there. The last time I looked up there I saw that it had tucked its head inside, and I imagined that it had nodded off to sleep. So I said goodnight, quietly stood up, and walked on to go home and do the same.

Great Horned Owl - Thermoregulation

In the later part of spring, there was a hot weekend where the temperature got up to around 90 degrees Fahrenheit. It was the first day of the year where it had become that hot and it felt like summer had suddenly arrived in a blast of heat. I felt a bit drained from the surge in temperature and was staying in the shade as I walked around the arboretum. I was at the beginning of the zigzag trail when I heard a robin alarming on the hillside and went to check it out. I found two great horned owls—a parent and a juvenile. They were briefly on the same branch together and then the parent flew a little ways down the hillside. The juvenile stayed behind and I could see that it was eating a northern flicker. As it sat on the branch, it was occasionally making a screeching call that seemed to be a begging communication to the parent and to me, a possible signal that it was uncomfortable in the heat.

To remedy the stress from the heat It was perched in the deep shade of the hillside where it was coolest. It was also cooling itself by holding its wings open to allow the air to circulate over its body. I could also see that it was holding its mouth open and vibrating its neck. Some birds will perform a version of avian panting called gular fluttering where they open their mouths and vibrate their neck muscles to try and remove excess heat. Basically, opening their mouth and fluttering their neck muscles (in the throat or “gular” region) increases blood flow and moves air across the moist membranes in their mouth and esophagus, resulting in evaporative cooling.

As the daytime highs are consistently rising into the 90’s, I recommend fluttering your feet around in the river. Stay cool everybody. I hope to see you out there!

Resources
How Birds Keep Their Cool | Audubon. 1 Aug. 2012, https://www.audubon.org/news/how-birds-keep-their-cool.

How Do Birds Keep Cool in the Summer? | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. 11 Jun. 2021, https://www.fws.gov/story/how-do-birds-keep-cool-summer.

Western Wood-Pewee Nest

The nest of the Western Wood-Pewee is so elegant. It is tightly woven out of fine plant fibers and held together by spider webs. It is a work of art. I love watching the parent sitting on the nest as the branch gently sways in the breeze.

As I sit and watch this nest, it all seems unbelievable. This little bird flies all the way from South America to nest here at the arboretum! The range maps have them breeding in Western Canada and up into Alaska. The migration of birds is truly miraculous. I can’t even imagine all of the landscapes and obstacles this bird had to navigate to get here. And by the end of the summer, they will be on their way back along with the new hatchlings! That is a long way from here. This blows my mind!

Brood Patch

I found a pair of violet-green swallows nesting in a natural cavity of an Oregon ash tree. There were small, dead branches right outside of the entrance that made the perfect perch. As the female landed and began to preen her feathers, I could see that she had developed a brood patch.

For an egg to develop normally and hatch, a certain temperature range must be maintained. One of the ways birds achieve this is by sitting on the eggs and incubating them. To help facilitate the transfer of heat from the parent to the egg, birds temporarily develop a bare patch of skin on their belly called a brood patch. Certain hormones are produced that cause the feathers to fall out in this spot and to create additional blood vessels in the bald area to help transfer warmth to the eggs. Some birds, such as ducks and geese, may pluck their feathers to create a brood patch. The feathers that are shed can also be used to insulate the nest to help with temperature regulation. The time spent incubating eggs varies based on the insulating properties of the nest and the temperature of the environment. The bird can sense the temperature of the eggs through its brood patch and will adjust its time spent incubating the eggs accordingly. Birds will also periodically turn the eggs to warm them evenly and prevent the embryo from sticking to the shell.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I hope to see you out there.

Resource
Ehrlich, Paul R., et al. The Birder’s Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds Including All Species That Regulary Breed North of Mexico. Simon & Schuster, 1988.

In the cosmic stream swirling about my feet, there is a messenger carrying a spiraling incunabula of time where no words have ever been uttered. To decipher its contents I must forget everything that I have ever learned. I have to wash away every memory, every thought. Then I will be able to feel the silk of its foot grabbing on to mine. Slowly, I enter the stillness of the stream. Me, with my wrinkled snout pushing through the viscosity of the elements. My striped antennae swaying back and forth reading the ebbing and flowing concentric rings. That is all.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

The blue-gray gnatcatcher is a beautiful, little bird. The male is blue-gray above and white below. He has a white eye-ring and a black line that starts above one eye and curls around the forehead to above the other eye. The females are gray above and white below with the same striking eye-ring. They both have dark tails with white outer tail feathers.

This is a fun bird to watch flitting around through the landscape. When it perches, it has a noticeable behavior of cocking its tail, slightly fanning out the feathers, and swaying or wagging it back and forth.

Its nest is an open cup that is woven with small fibers and decorated with bits of lichen or bark. It looks similar to a hummingbird nest. Peterson has the length of the blue-gray gnatcatcher at 4.5 inches and Cornell lists it as 3.9 - 4.3. So they aren’t much bigger than a hummingbird.

The range map on All About Birds by the Cornell Lab doesn’t have them this far north, but lots of birds are expanding their range northward. This bird’s breeding range covers a lot of the United States from coast to coast. There is a small band across the lower part of the country where it can be seen throughout the year. Check out the range map at Cornell.

This bird is small and can be challenging to spot, so it’s helpful to also stay tuned into its vocalizations to find it. I love checking out how Roger Tory Peterson describes its voice in his Field Guide to Birds of Western North America. Here’s what he says: “Call a thin, peevish zpee; often doubled, zpee-zee. Song a thin, squeaky, wheezy series of notes.”

Happy birding! I hope to see you out there.