Natural World Archives - Page 26 of 56 - The Source

Elephant Lessons: Expert coming to Sisters to share work on the troubled animal

Don Miller’s “Pachyderm Intrigue & Elephant Lessons” Lecture

Jim AndersonNovember 23, 2017January 4, 2023

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

Jim AndersonNovember 15, 2017October 21, 2024

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

Jim AndersonNovember 8, 2017August 14, 2024

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

Jim AndersonNovember 1, 2017August 15, 2024

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

Jim AndersonOctober 25, 2017November 10, 2024

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, […]

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A Different Kind of Classroom

Outdoor School is on for Central Oregon’s fifth and sixth graders

Jim AndersonOctober 11, 2017July 14, 2025

B ack in 1966, when Multnomah County began a five-day Outdoor School program for all sixth graders in their system, Betty Gray of Portland—wife of John Gray, who got Sunriver and several other Oregon-based projects going—thought her life-long dream of kids learning in the forest had at last come true. She left it with her […]

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Birds on the move

Jim Anderson’s Weekly Natural World Column

Jim AndersonOctober 4, 2017August 19, 2024

“T here are three birds over the butte on the east side, just under those puffy clouds…” Chuck Gates said, speaking under his binoculars. “Got ’em,” Peter Low responded, getting his scope up to his eye. “Looks like turkey vultures,” he said after a few moments. If Peter Low says they’re TVs, they are TVs. […]

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Saving Sage-Grouse

Jim AndersonSeptember 28, 2017October 6, 2024

O ne of the most rewarding wildlife projects I’m involved with, from about the middle of June to February, is the East Cascade Audubon Society’s Greater Sage-Grouse Conservation Project. From February to the middle of June, my life is dedicated to helping the Oregon Eagle Foundation know more about what’s going on with Oregon’s Golden […]

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Birds of Lake Abert (and the fun of getting there)

Jim AndersonSeptember 20, 2017August 23, 2024

A lot of readers have asked me why I spend so much time in, and talking about, the wilds of interior Oregon. Two very important reasons: 1. Golden Eagles nest and feed in that neck of the woods, and 2. I love it out there. For about nine out out of 10 Oregon residents, Lake […]

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A Crane Fly is a Crane Fly, is a Crane Fly

Jim AndersonSeptember 13, 2017June 20, 2025

C rane flies came flying into my life (again) last week with the arrival of a photo from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife wildlife biologist Kelly Hazen, who has them hanging around her porch light every night. Being a wildlife biologist and tour guide for the High Desert Museum, she thought I’d like to […]

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