Please forgive me for being redundant, but the magnificent specimen pictured here came right to me and landed on my hand! It just wanted someone to tell its story, and because I love to do it, so here it is… Last Thursday, as I was leaving Tumalo, I approached the junction of Gerking Market Road […]
Natural World
Posted inOutside
Wildlife and Diseases
Following a local death due to Hantavirus, a primer on how to handle rodents in or near your home
“Never let a mouse live in your house; they will steal the breath of your children.” That’s a saying I’ve heard came from the people of the Hopi Nation—and also an accurate description of the symptoms of Hantavirus. The Hopi people apparently recognized the role wild rodents play in the spreading of diseases among the […]
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The World of Lizards
And how grandkids can bring some spirit to your backyard
If you want to know (and would like to see up close) what kind of wildlife you have on your place—either in town or out in the country—just turn your grandkids loose and they’ll find it/them. I have a particularly inquisitive grandson, Daxon, who can find a needle in a haystack. He started seeking living […]
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The Lighter Side of Banding Eagles
When monitoring wildlife, the “call of nature” is just part of the game
Just having turned 90, it occurs to me that I’ve been working with golden eagles over 60-plus, years and it continues to be an adventure. I started reading about them in William L. Finley and Herman T. Bohlman’s great bird books in the late ’30s. I also recall back in the ’50s, when the U.S. […]
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An uptick in tick-borne illness
Got a tick? Here’s what to do—and how to know whether it’s the Lyme disease-carrying kind
Stories about Central Oregon tick encounters are popping up all over social media. Last month, Kaylin Landry, who studies social sciences at Oregon State University-Cascades, described her tick confrontation by posting, “Guess who had her ‘Oh god, that was a tick that fell off my neck and into my cleavage!’ virginity taken today?” Landry explained, […]
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Natural World
Bring On the Butterflies
I am one of those fortunate people who married into butterflies. When my wife, Sue, and I tied the knot I didn’t have a clue, until one day I discovered this beautiful woman was head over heels in love with those gorgeous, six-legged gossamer-winged insects and started dragging me out to meet them. Today, I go […]
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Hjelp humlene med bolplass!
Or how to help native pollinators in Central Oregon
I never know what my wife and I will come home with when we go out on our seasonal look-see at the 150+ golden eagle breeding sites we’re responsible for watching over. Sometimes we’ll come home with only one American badger sighting for the day, or none, which is very sad. Other times we’ll witness a […]
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Look out!
The Nature of our Earth is in big trouble
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, would someday populate the U.S. His prophecy was that the cattle egret, which had arrived in South America early in the ’30s—presumably after flying across the Atlantic Ocean in a storm, […]
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Why Not Sleep Through Winter?
The antics of hibernating critters
The longer I live, the more I wish scientists would succeed with “induced hibernation,” especially for old duffers like me. I hate winter! Well, not really. I do enjoy going out with my family getting in the winter wood, something I’ve been doing almost all my life, but not a much as I did when […]
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What to do about outdoor cats?
If you’re dealing with feral or outdoor cats in your own yard, here’s what to do—and what not to do
A somewhat recent news story featured a dead cat, hung over a fence for all to see. Very sad, but one-sided. Sure, the guy who did it was wrong—very wrong—and broke the law killing his neighbor’s cat. But what about the cat, who was trespassing on that neighbor’s and others neighbors’ private property? As readers of […]
