This summer may go down in Central Oregon history as the “Year of the Moth.” First it was the thousands of tiny, nocturnal moths of spring bouncing off our front porch lights, vehicle headlights and light poles—moths that bats love to eat. Then came a few BIG ceanothus silkworm moths, followed by the small outbreak […]
Jim Anderson
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The Pandora Moth Has Returned
Think you need to eradicate them with chemicals? Don’t do that. Just wait a week
Yep, those are Pandora moths flying around your front porch lights. If they could speak, they’d be shouting, “We’re baaaaaack!” However, this has been a minor outbreak. Last time they appeared in massive numbers was in 1990 and ’91. As you can see, they’re attracted to lights—so if you don’t want them to lay eggs […]
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Highway Legend
The naming of the Oregon Rubber Road Snake
Some years ago—June of 1998 to be exact—while my family and I were traveling through Klamath County on a Great Gray Owl banding expedition with Tom and Casey Rodhouse, we discovered a beautiful specimen of a Rubber Road Snake, flexilius robustus oregonius. As far as I can find, this snake has never been described in […]
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Killing deer with kindness
A while back, I wrote a piece about the dangerous consequences to you and me by feeding deer and therefore inviting cougar into our backyards. I pleaded with people who insist on feeding deer to please stop before they attract cougar, which in turn will assuredly result in mayhem on humans—and the unfortunate cougar. However, […]
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Natural World
Cleaning up Bend, below and above the surface
Natural World Cleaning up Bend, below and above the surface By Jim Anderson Bend’s human population is growing; some say in an out-of-control fashion. But back in September of 1951 when I rolled into Bend on my Harley, there were only 11,409 people living in Bend (thank you, library), while today there are over 80,000! […]
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Velociraptors in my backyard
I have an old National Geographic article from November ’99 with a story in it about an Archaeoraptor, a so-called fossil eventually found to be a fake. According to another article written in USA Today, the so-called “missing link” dinosaur/bird is actually two animals pieced together—either as an honest mistake made by its discoverers in […]
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Oregon Legislative “Busy Work”
In 1927, when L.L. Patterson was our governor, the Western meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) was chosen as the state bird by Oregon’s school children in a poll sponsored by the Oregon Audubon Society. It’s a familiar songbird of open country across the western two-thirds of the North American continent. It lives in Oregon on both the dry […]
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What’s goin’ on, Ma Nature…?
There’s something fishy going on with Mother Nature. I’m not an expert on bird behavior or comings and goings of wild animals, but the appearance of a Common Nighthawk over in The Swamp (Portland) last week threw me a curveball. Then there’s the complete absence of house sparrows (or English sparrows) at my domicile, the […]
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The Effects of Feeding Deer in Town
Crowding and poor digestion lead to a deadly disease among deer populations
Mule deer have enough trouble getting through winter while coping with the cold and wet—so why people add on the extra burdens of disease and food they can’t digest is baffling to Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) biologists. Come on, people. Stop feeding the mule deer, those constant moochers in our backyards. In […]
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Why Government Environmental Agencies Matter
Watching over us and our homes
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is a state agency designed to help keep our planet Earth—and us—healthy. For one, DEQ encourages Oregonians to take part in a nationwide effort to collect unused, unwanted or expired medications so they can be disposed of properly. The National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day event took place last […]