Jim Anderson

“Tis the Season…” for the Christmas Bird Count (CBC), in addition to giving and getting gifts, of course. The CBC is more than a birding ritual, even though it's been going for over 100 years throughout the U.S.
The count period for this 112th Christmas Bird Count will begin on December 14 and you're invited. All you have to do is grab your binoculars (and/or spotting scope) and be in Drake Park at 7 a.m. on the count day (to be announced soon – watch for it on the East Cascades Audubon Society website: ecbcbirds.org).
Each of the citizen scientists who annually braves snow, wind or rain to take part in the CBC makes an enormous contribution to conservation. Audubon and other organizations use data collected in this longest-running wildlife census to assess the health of bird populations, and to help guide conservation action and look for “new” birds. With climate change affecting habitat worldwide, all forms of life, from butterflies to birds, are on the move.

Early last Thursday morning, Bess Ballantine, field manager for Wolftree, an Oregon-based ecological education outfit and her side-kick, Rachel Manzo, met with mentor Ed Brown, a plant specialist with the USFS Chemult Ranger District.
But that's not it. Also on hand were wildlife biologist Hailee Newman from the USFS Bend office, Cassandra Hummel, from the BLM office in Prineville, Tom Walker with the USFS, and Jennifer O’Reilly with the USF&WL Service – both fishery biologists. This seemingly all-star assembly met with La Pine Elementary teacher Anna Bajorek, and her fifth-grade class.
After a holy-cow-gee-whiz get-acquainted time, Bess explained the Scientific Method of conducting research to the class, and each student was given a field journal with instructions on how and why to record accurate field notes. They then broke up into groups of five, each group with a mentor (and parent) and headed out to explore the natural history of Prairie Creek.

Last Monday was an up-and-away day for the Sisters School District. Oregon’s Governor, Dr. John Kitzhaber, and first lady Cylvia Hayes were on hand to officially open a forest steward and biomass project that will pay off big for parents and students in Sisters High School: They’re going to stay warm in winter the way our pioneers did – by burning wood.
A wood-burning stove doesn’t sound like a master of efficiency, but when you get right down to the nitty-gritty of using today’s technology, it is, and in more ways than one. The correct term for wood-burning heat in this magnitude is “biomass fuel” and the benefit of using this heating method is that it saves a lot of money for the school – which then goes directly into student education. That also leads to everything about the project being local, from biomass, boiler design, employment and back out into the forest.
It all begins with the Forest Service (USFS) and “stewardship projects,” which supplies the wood to burn. Various stewardship projects throughout the Sisters District are designed to help a forest become – and remain – healthier; the healthier a forest, the more biodiversity and the less it is susceptible to wildfire. But to operate a true stewardship program in the forest, a lot of pieces of the biological, mechanical and economical puzzle have to fit together smoothly.

The new world of electronic communication we live in is nothing short of spectacular. There isn’t anything you can ask that you cannot become enlightened about by asking Google. But beware, some of the so-called “knowledge” that comes back to our monitors should be taken with a grain of salt. And that includes information about nature, too.
It’s the same with the gobbly-goop that comes to us via email. The political stuff fills my monitor more than I like, but the people who send it are sincere in their point of view, and feel I should be as well. Many of the people who send these political messages are good friends, so I glance at the stuff (to be polite) and then usually dump them in the world of “delete” – especially those that claim my big toe will grow to the size of a watermelon, or my first-born son will develop a mysterious rash on the end of his nose if I don’t send it on, or back to the sender.
But what really knocks me out is the gross misinformation that leaps on my MacBook monitor; it often elicits laughter or groaning, depending on how much damage the junk does.
The first one that comes to mind is the nonsense that hit the Internet about three years ago regarding Mars coming so close to the earth that it was going to appear, “as large as the full-moon.” That was a corker! Unfortunately, gullible computer geeks keep circulating it – I got it again just last week, in fact. The people who submit this goofy stuff – and forward it to everyone they know – mean well, but to save time and sanity, it should have gone into the “delete” or “junk” file when it first appeared.

It isn’t every day that someone with the credentials for caring about our good Earth comes to town. But last Saturday afternoon, Dr. Jane Goodall, primatologist and planet Earth activist, wowed more than a thousand people – including several hundred parents with their young children – who came to hear her talk at the Hooker Creek Events Center at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds in Redmond. And as is her way, she had everyone greet her in chimpanzee grunts and hoots.
It was a sell-out audience that not just came to hear Dr. Goodall speak, but to show their steadfast appreciation and support for all she has done for those beautiful mammals that share so much of our DNA, chimpanzees in particular. One teacher brought along her entire class to hear Dr. Goodall, and it wasn’t even a school day.
This wonderful program would not have been possible without the dedicated and active group of volunteers from Chimps, Inc. of Tumalo. They all greeted the audience with big smiles, positive assistance that helped to make Dr. Goodall's presentation the overwhelming success that it was.

My wonderful and curious neighbor, Chuck Stahn, who has a magnificent greenhouse and garden, delivered a magnificent bug (pictured above) to Sue and I the other day in a cranberry juice jug. Chuck was gassing up his car at a lighted Madras gas station when suddenly a woman in the next bay let out a scream while pointing to a very large “bug” on the gas station pavement.
“Whoa!” Chuck exclaimed, and with a chuckle, added, “I’ll bet it ran out of gas,” and scooped it up, not realizing what was going to happen next. Before he could get it into a container, he discovered (painfully) that it had its sharp, hypodermic-like mouthpart shoved into his finger. He let out a yell, disconnected the beast, and then – using marvelous self control – put it in the juice jug without killing it.

You have to be swift to catch sight of a swift zooming by in pursuit of a moth, mosquito, beetle, gnat or other small flying insect. And, if it happens to be a Vaux’s Swift (pronounced vox, or vawx, your choice), you have to be even swifter. They’re smaller than the other swifts we have zipping about Central Oregon.
If you go on a birding excursion to Fort Rock between May and July you’ll see hundreds of white-throated swifts swooping around the steep walls of the old mud volcano, pursuing flying insects, many of which are mosquitoes. If you’re keeping a life list of birds, a visit to the coast may have a sighting of the black swift, a rare visitor to Oregon. Like all the swifts, they too look like a flying cigar with crescent-shaped wings. While most swifts, such as the black and white-throated, have a well-defined tail, Vaux’s Swift’s body looks exactly like a cigar.
The neat part of all this swift business is that the residents of Bend don’t have to travel anywhere to see Vaux's Swifts, throughout most of September they put on an air show everyone can enjoy right in town. Just before dark (about 7 p.m.), what looks like a wisp of smoke appears in the darkening sky heading for the little craft shop, Christmas Presence, on Harriman between Hill and Franklin. As the “smoke” gets closer, individual dots can be made out, zooming about each other, and in a few seconds you will be able to make them out, 30 to 100 Vaux's Swifts. Then, with astonishing accuracy, they all go spiraling down into the tall, brick chimney on the roof of the craft shop.

There’s nothing, dear readers, that scares me half to death more than a pickup truck passing me at 70 mph with a dog sliding around in the back. Dogs being dogs, the poor animal thinks he’s having a great time, ears flapping in the wind, nose quivering at all the spectacular scents wafting by and all kinds of exciting things to look at – life couldn’t be more fun!
Then comes the sharp bend in the road or the passing lane, and things quickly go from fun and games to sheer terror. The poor animal starts sliding from one side of the pickup bed to the other as the driver swings out and around, and then back in front of me. I fear for the life of the animal, and feel sorry for the driver who either doesn’t understand the danger the dog is in, or worse yet, doesn’t care. Maybe he or she even thinks the dog is “having fun.”

Dan Kraus of Bend brought me the good news about a month ago. Dan’s a meteorologist and astronomer, who, like most people who deal with the stars and the weather, can’t help but be interested in other things that take place around him. He called with the message I love to hear: “Jim, there’s a swarm of bees in an apple tree next door.”
Central Oregon, and especially Bend, is a wonderful place for bee swarms to suddenly appear in spring. That’s because over the years, beekeepers like myself “lost” bees when they swarmed. Sometimes it was out of just plain bad beekeeping that we allowed a swarm to escape, while at other times we were doing other things and didn’t know our bees had swarmed. Offhand, I’d say there are at least 25 wild bee colonies within the Bend is city limits. They’re usually in hollow trees, but I’ve removed them from the walls of houses, water shut-off boxes, and there’s a huge one right in downtown Bend that produces strong swarms every spring.