As a (sometimes extreme) conservationist, I find the idea of human-caused, species extinction, incomprehensible and unforgivable. In short, we know better. When a species is extinct, it’s gone. Done. Kaput. Dead forever. Our power to send a species into oblivion was first documented in 1598 when Portuguese sailors landing on the shores of the Southeast […]
Jim Anderson
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Natural World: I got him, Dad, and he bites too!
Around 40 years ago my first son, Dean, was born to parents deeply involved in the nature of the world. His sweet mom was a high school biology teacher who kept a pet opossum, “Dartmouth,” to whom she fed canned dog food from a fork, and a father who slept in eagle nests and played […]
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Humming into Winter
Keep those feeders full! Hummingbirds may still be kicking around
The topic of a lot of my phone calls, emails and text messages this fall has been about hummingbirds and feeders in winter, and to be perfectly frank about it, it’s a worrisome conundrum. Right off the bat, sugar water is not “food” for hummingbirds. It’s like humans and soda pop. The birds get an […]
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The Dark Side of Your Morning Cup of Coffee
Coffee and Birds, it’s not always a happy marriage
Not being a coffee drinker anymore, and not being in the bird-researcher loop as many of my friends are, the business of songbird conservation and coffee-growing methods went right over my head. That is, until Doug Baell grabbed my attention. “Are you going to do the story on coffee and songbirds?” he asked me one […]
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Natural World: The Tiger Beetle
On Oregon’s coast? Take a look in the sand.
One of fastest and most aggressive beetles crawling, running and chasing other invertebrates on the surface of our planet can be found on the Oregon Coast: the tiger beetle. While tigers have hunting methods similar to tiger beetles, they’re not normally found on the Oregon coast, or North America for that matter — thankfully, I […]
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Elephant Lessons: Expert coming to Sisters to share work on the troubled animal
Don Miller’s “Pachyderm Intrigue & Elephant Lessons” Lecture
On Nov. 28, the Belfry in Sisters will be echoing with the sounds of elephants trumpeting and stamping their feet in greeting. Don Miller, a wondrous photographer and lecturer—and also an outstanding humanitarian—will be there to tell us about his travels around the world, his help for people with medical issues and his work with […]
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Natural World
Spiders on my keyboard
S o, there I was, sitting at my desk with hacklemesh spiders in the forefront of my old, tired, almost-worn- out brain, when a hot-to-trot house spider suddenly ran down my face, onto my shirt, and vanished under my chair. Talk about being at the right place at the right time; it was followed by […]
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Nonprofit Champion: Kathy Deggendorfer
The Roundhouse Foundation: Supporting arts, health, the environment and much more
K athy Deggendorfer is a resident of Sisters, where she and her husband, Frank, and daughter, Erin settled in 1994, so, as Kathy puts it, “Erin could play basketball at Sisters High School and keep her horse at home.” That was the beginning, but very shortly, the reason the Deggendorfers remained in Sisters went beyond […]
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The Barnes Butte Monarch butterfly-ers
L ast Thursday was a day I’ll long remember. I spent most of of it in Prineville, at Barnes Butte Elementary School with first graders in their classroom and then at the Prineville Wetlands. That may sound like an incongruous combination, but when you consider what the Barnes Butte first grade Badgers were up to, […]
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Natural World: The trouble with people and deer
I f you take the time to read this column today you may not enjoy it; some of it is about misfortune and despair—but you can give it a happy ending. I’m going to make a prophecy—though not quite as innocuous as Roger Tory Peterson’s of 1936, when he predicted the cattle egret, Bubulcus ibis, […]