Black Phoebe

This little flycatcher has been consistently hanging around the old barn out at the arboretum. I often see it perched on the equipment of the workspace on the south side. It usually will perch close to the ground within three to seven feet. That said, I also observe it sitting on top of the silo or at the apex of the roof. It spends time on a small brush pile at the entrance to the south meadow and next to the river catching insects.

It has a call that Peterson describes as “a sharp slurred chip.” It makes this call quite often, and I will usually hear it calling before I spot it. As I was taking these photos, it was constantly shifting its head as it watched for insects, and it would often turn to look over its shoulder.

Pacific Wren

I love this little bird. This year I noted that I hadn’t seen Pacific wrens around all summer. This fall I started seeing them and read that during the nonbreeding season, some males move to lower elevations. So, maybe these birds are breeding higher up in the Cascades or the Coast Range and wintering down in the valley.

A couple of days ago in the late afternoon I was lucky enough to catch a photo of this action-packed creature. It moves so swiftly and lightly as it flits through the ground vegetation gleaning insects. As I am watching this bird forage along the forest floor, it will often disappear under a log or the fronds of a sword fern. It will often reappear unexpectedly out of the underbrush beside me, as if it travelled through a secret passageway.

I usually get clued in to their location when I hear their call which Peterson describes as “a hard, two-syllable timp-timp.” They have a beautiful song that Peterson characterizes as “a rapid succession of high tinkling warbles, trills.”

Click here to listen to their calls and song:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pacific_Wren/sounds

Mourning Doves

This beautiful bird is often foraging along the gravel paths around the White Oak Pavilion. Its quiet demeanor and earth-tone coloration enable it to blend in well with its surroundings.

There were always doves around my home when I was growing up, and they will always remind me of my childhood. They have a gentle, peaceful song. When it takes off and lands its wings make a soft, whistling sound.

It’s comforting to see them around Mt. Pisgah, and I always look for them. The last few years I have seen them building a nest in one of the trees around the pavilion.

Click here to listen to there song and calls:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mourning_Dove/sounds

Hermit Thrush

I love this bird. When I come across a hermit thrush, it is because I’m moving very slowly and tuning into my surroundings. This bird blends in well on the forest floor, and it moves around quietly as it forages. In my experience, if I am quiet and still, it will usually tolerate my presence, and it will often forage quite close by where I can observe it.

While taking these photos, I noticed it would subtly shake its leg when it paused during foraging on the forest floor. The All About Birds website by The Cornell Lab states: ”They sometimes pick up leaf litter with their bills or shake grass with their feet to find insects.”

I also realized that the spots on its breast are blurry or smudged. You can see in the photo below that it has a rufous tail. As it perched on the limb, it had the behavior of cocking its tail and slowly lowering it. It would also lightly flick its wings.

Whenever I see this bird, I have a feeling of serenity and gentleness.

This bird has a beautiful, sylvan song. Click below to have a listen:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Hermit_Thrush/sounds

Chickadee Foragings

Over the past couple-three weeks, I have observed chickadees eating some part of the bud of the Oregon white oak. Sometimes it breaks off the bud, takes it to a nearby branch, dissects it and appears to eat part of the bud. Other times it will just hang on the branch, open the bud and eat. It all happens with typical chickadee exuberance, so it doesn’t take them long to get at the little morsel of food they are seeking. I saw them yesterday, for the first time, doing the same thing to the cottonwood trees along the river.

In The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior, he had this to say about the Paridae family to which chickadees belong: “Members of the Paridae share several diagnostic feeding behaviors. Specialized leg muscles enable these birds to feed acrobatically (they often feed while hanging upside down), making them particularly adept at exploiting resources in difficult locations, such as buds at the ends of twigs.”

Gratitude

The past few days, chilly mornings have evolved into pleasantly warm afternoons. As I entered the arboretum, I was greeted by the melodic notes of the song sparrow. The sun sure felt good, and a song was well suited for the moment. Thanks.

Chipmunk Hollow

Along the Lilly Pond trail, I keep crossing paths with this little chipmunk. As it navigates its way along the forest floor searching for food, I am impressed by its agility and ability to move quietly. On a number of occasions I have watched it climb up this tree, disappear into this small cavity and then return to the opening a few minutes later. Sometimes it will climb back down and return to its activities on the forest floor. I’m uncertain of the purpose of this cavity. Is this a place of shelter, a food cache or a lookout? I would like to spend more time observing my little friend and learn more about its life. I had my camera with me the other day and was lucky enough to take a reasonable photo of it peering out of its hollow.

Bird's Nest Fungus Update

I have been watching this patch of bird’s nest fungus since my post first post about it on Oct. 24. I realized that the new fruiting bodies were the small, light brown forms growing next to the old “nests.” The top of a new one has a thin shell and once it became broken open, I could see it filled with a watery substance that probably keeps the peridioles moist. The peridioles, which resemble tiny eggs, contain spore sacks. I can already see where rain drops have splashed some of them out into the surrounding area spreading the fungus.

Winter Gems

This bird’s common name is Steller’s Jay. Its Latin name is Cyanocitta stelleri. When I searched for the translation , I found that the name Cyanocitta is a combination of the Greek words kuanos, meaning "dark blue", and kitta, meaning "jay".

I love watching this beautiful bird. I caught it here, quietly perched on a branch in the sun observing its surroundings. Lately I have watched them busily collecting acorns and burying them in the forest. They have strong legs and can often be observed hoping around the branches of a tree.

Steller’s jays can be very vocal birds. Peterson’s field guide describes it this way: “Loud shook-shook-shook or shack-shack-shack or wheck-wek-wek-wek or kwesh kwesh kwesh; harsh jjaairr and many other notes. Frequently mimics hawks.” Try making these sounds.

Anna's Hummingbird

As I entered the arboretum, I saw a male Anna’s hummingbird performing his steep J-shaped dive. I watched him dive and circle back up to his starting point four or five times. He then perched on a branch towards the top of a tree where he began vocalizations and displaying his iridescent, gorget feathers. I soon discovered the female perched on this small branch in front of me. The male continued his displays, and I took a few photos as she perched there so still. When I looked at the photos at home I noticed that her eyes were closed in a bunch of photos. In The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior, David Sibley writes, “The female may appear mesmerized, often closing her eyes and becoming frozen in position during the shuttle displays.” Sibley also writes, “Hummingbirds do not form pair bonds; they come together only to mate. Males therefore set up territories where they will encounter females, while females claim territories with good nesting sites.” I am left wondering why all this is happening in December.

Vocalization description:
The Cornell lab says, ”Anna’s Hummingbirds have a distinctive song that is long for a hummingbird (10 seconds or more). It's a series of buzzes, then a clearer, more tuneful whistle, followed by more emphatic chip notes; then the bird may repeat the whole set of buzz-whistle-chip sounds.” Click the link to listen.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Annas_Hummingbird/sounds

Click on images to enlarge.

Sporangia

Sorus (plural sori) is a cluster of sporangia, which is the structure producing and containing spores. My first post back on September 30 showed licorice ferns unfurling from the first rains at the end of summer. Since then, the sporangia have been developing and you can see the sori on the underside of the leaves in two neat rows. They look so beautiful and delicate. Yet, I get the feeling that they sturdy and hardy too. I have been checking on them fairly regularly to see when they are going to release their spores.

Below you can see a forest of licorice ferns growing on a fallen tree, and there is another photo of the underside of the frond.

Fishnet Lichen

As you enter the arboretum at the White Oak Pavilion, one of the most noticeable features in the landscape is the lichen covering the trees, such as, the Oregon white oak and the Oregon ash. It feels like that If you stood in one place for too long, lichen might start growing on you.

Lichen is the combination of two organisms. It is part fungus which is known as the mycobiont. It is part green algae and/or cyanobacteria which is the photosynthetic organism known as the photobiont. The more I read about lichens, the more complex this partnership (mutualistic symbiosis) seems to be. Basically the fungus is able to obtain food that is produced through photosynthesis by the photobiont. The green algae or cyanobacteria benefit from the fungus by being protected from the environment, for example, to keep from drying out.

One that is particularly eye-catching is the curtains of Fishnet lichen hanging in the trees. They have a lobed structure that resembles a fishnet.

There are more than a 1000 lichens growing in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska)!

Cirrus Clouds

High level clouds that generally occur at 16,500 feet or higher. They are made of ice crystals and have a wispy appearance as if its cottony fibers have been stretched out across the sky. There are different types of cirrus clouds, and I’ll mention just a couple that I took photos of today. Cirrus intortus are irregularly shaped clouds that are usually curved or as the Latin translation of intortus means, “twisted or wound.” You can see some represented in the photo to the right. Cirrus fibratus clouds derive their name from Latin, meaning “fibrous.” That’s what the clouds in the first photo below look like to me. The fascinating part was that all of these different cirrus cloud formations were in the same sky, and they were constantly changing as I stood there watching them.

Reference:
Ludlum, David M. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather. Knopf, 1993.

Mistletoe Berries

As I started out on a walk yesterday at the arboretum, I noticed some birds fluttering around In the oak trees by the parking lot at arboretum. They were in the trees just above the office. As I walked up there to take a closer look, I saw that they were western bluebirds. As I watched them, I noticed that the mistletoe was loaded with berries, and they were excitedly feasting on them. I hadn’t noticed the berries on the mistletoe, and I was grateful to the bluebirds for pointing them out.

Listen for the call of the western bluebird. Peterson describes it as a “short pew or mew.” Cornell Lab of Ornithology describes, “The most common call is a soft, quavering kew that may be given from a perch or in flight and is often given several times in succession.”

Click here to have a listen: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Western_Bluebird/sounds

Magical Mystery Tour

There is a science behind leaves changing colors in the fall. Chlorophyll is the green pigment produced by plants that enables them to absorb energy from the sun in the process of photosynthesis. So in the fall when deciduous trees stop making chlorophyll, the green fades and other pigments in the leaves come on display. It’s a fascinating story to read about, and I recommend you check it out.

On the other side of the coin, is the indescribable feeling when witnessing the exposition of fall colors. It reminds me that the world is so mysteriously magical.

Turkey Tail Fungus

When this organism first caught my eye, I thought it was a moth. Realizing it wasn’t a moth, I went in for a closer look. I was so struck by the beautiful bands of brown and the velvety texture. Elegantly nestled in the moss, it was attached directly, without a stem, to a decaying log. I lightly touched it, still imagining it would fly away. I looked it up when I got home and found that it was possibly a turkey tail fungus. I went back today to look underneath to see if it had pores, which it does. I found one on the ground, that had probably been broken off, and I was able to bend it. Flexibility is one of the traits of turkey tail fungus. Turkey tails also have a velvety texture on top, which I reaffirmed today. I’m so glad that these magnificent, little creatures are apart of my awareness now.

Yellow Torches

In the warm, autumn sun, a handful of dandelion flowers can be found bursting open - a yellow ember to hold in your heart to spark all of the new ideas conceived over the winter.

Hazelnut Catkins

It is interesting to see the hazelnut’s male catkins forming at the same time the leaves are changing colors and falling from the trees. I will usually start seeing the first catkins opening up and releasing their pollen sometime in January. The female flowers are the small, red stigmas that you see protruding from a bud. The flowers are wind pollinated and need to be from a separate, compatible, pollinating variety.

You can see the delicate splash of yellow leaves from the hazelnut trees in the forest above the White Oak Pavilion.

I have a hazelnut tree in my yard. If there is a sunny, warm afternoon and the catkins are open, I will sometimes see my honeybees foraging some of the pollen.

The Creek Is Flowing

With all of the steady rain, I saw yesterday that the creek has begun to flow again. It winds through the little valley that opens up at the White Oak Pavilion. There is a small spillway just above the lower bridge that leads into the pavilion, and I saw children attracted to the sound of the gurgling, splashing water. In the spring, I remember seeing birds taking lively, fluttering baths or swooping in for a drink. Welcome back little creek, I missed you.

Color, Pattern & Texture

As I walk around at the arboretum, I am amazed at the shapes, colors, textures and patterns of all the different life forms. In the first photo, the scaly leaves of an incense-cedar branch that broke off during a storm turned a beautiful copper color. Nearby on the ground was another fallen branch laden with lichen. Just around the corner was a dead tree that still felt solid and was adorned with vertical grooves. It seemed such a contrast from the fuzzy entanglement of the lichen. Then I find myself constantly drawn to the vibrant foliage of the licorice fern sprouting throughout the forest.

I imagine that a sign of a healthy environment is one that it is full of diversity. It certainly makes it a more interesting place to live.