One of the things I enjoy about burning wood to keep my home warm is the added enjoyment I have watching who and what falls out as I put the wood in the wheelbarrow. When I’m burning mixed conifer, wood-boring beetles seem to be the most abundant insects that fall out of the firewood, and […]
Natural World
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Making Indian Ford Creek healthy again: Youth ChalleNGe cadets join the restoration fight
As he digs up another shovelful of rock from an illegal dam on Indian Ford Creek, 17-year-old Jason McCabe says, “Im glad to be out here, this is my favorite part of the program, a chance to give back to the community.” The Damascus resident is a cadet in the Oregon National Guard Youth ChallenNGe […]
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Don’t Forget the Water!
All summer long the farmers, gardeners, anglers, water skiers, swimmers and just about every insect and other animal on this beautiful Earth are using water to stay alive and enjoy life. In winter, the robins who pig out on juniper berries and other fruit must have water to go with their veggies or they will […]
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A Story of Hope
Shooters target one beautiful bird—but a Sisters rehab facility is nursing it back to health
In late October, the staff of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Summer Lake Wildlife Management Area found a severely wounded adult Trumpeter swan and transported it to Broken Top Veterinarian Clinic between Bend and Sisters. The staff of Broken Top contacted Elise Wolf of Native Bird Care, a Sisters wildlife rehab center. From […]
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Moulton Alexander Rockefeller
Somewhere along life’s trail one of my ancestors told me that my wonderful old great uncle, Moulton Alexander Rockefeller, my grandfather’s brother, was a graduate of Columbia University with a degree in journalism. Be that as it may, I knew him as a quiet, peaceable alcoholic who leaned on a shovel for the city of […]
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Killing Wildlife for Fun
A case against sport killing
When I was a kid growin’ up on the farm in Connecticut during the Great Depression, my grandfather and uncles had a Thanksgiving tradition of going waterfowl hunting early that morning. I usually went along. When we had our limit of black ducks—the East Coast equivalent of the mallard—we’d come home, clean our ducks and […]
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Bigfoot and the Late Great Chief Lelooska
The mystery of the Big Men of the Mountains
My old pal and fellow eagle researcher, Frank Isaacs, recently sent me a Bigfoot news release that reminded me of that fabled beast of mountains and forest, and an experience worth sharing. Back in the '60s my young family and I often were a presence in the life and home of Chief Lelooska, a man […]
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Eagle, Eagles, Everywhere
There is nothing to relieve the boredom of the straight paved freeway coming at you like an eagle, or better yet, many, many eagles. I went on a family and business journey to Minneapolis, Minn., recently, and the return trip home was eagle after eagle. Eagles have been a love of my life from the […]
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Strange Job Title: Fish Watcher
Lee Spencer has one of the most unusual job titles in Oregon—Fish Watcher. For the past 18 years Spencer has kept watch over thousands of returning summer steelhead in Steamboat Creek, a tributary of the upper Umpqua River System. Every May Spencer returns to his trailer headquarters along the banks of the Steamboat. He has […]
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Rare Sighting
The Sierra Nevada Red Fox
In all the 65 years I’ve had the pleasure of living in Oregon (except for a short stint with The Nature Conservancy in Arizona running Ramsey Canyon Preserve) I somehow missed bumping into a most remarkable animal, the Sierra Nevada red fox. The first I ever heard of this beautiful resident of the Oregon High […]