Right here in our very own backyard —quite literally—is the strangest insect we will ever see: The Jerusalem Cricket (Stenopelmatus fuscus). However, to begin with, it’s not a cricket, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Jerusalem. (How it got that name is as baffling as how it got here.) It really belongs in a […]
Natural World
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The Plight of the Western Pond Turtle
In this helter-skelter age it comes as a shock (to me) when suddenly someone says, “Hey, when was the last time you saw, this—or that—animal?” And that was the case when my herpetologist pal, Jesse Short from Central Oregon Community College, sent me photos of a western pond turtle, all excited about spotting it on […]
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Rattlesnakes: Born to do Battle?
In our travels assisting the Oregon Eagle Foundation to survey Central Oregon for active Golden Eagle breeding territories, my wife, Sue and I come across a wonderful variety of reptiles. When the days are nice and warm, just about all the lizards that live in the Great Sandy Desert dash across the road ahead of […]
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Mercury in Our Air, Water, Soil and Fish
In April of this year the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) issued a warning about consuming too many bass found to be contaminated with excessive amounts of mercury in fish tissue sampled from a number of water bodies across the state. Dave Farrer, Ph.D., toxicologist in the Environmental Public Health Section at the OHA Public Health […]
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The Sweet Sounds of Spring
Thanks to hearing device technology from Central Oregon Audiology, I am acutely aware of the cacophony of hundreds of male Pacific tree frogs in Central Oregon’s irrigation ponds, decorative water features, and drainage ditches that are making their presence known to one and all. They are gleefully summoning their lady-friend partners to come join them […]
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The Perfect Day
Breakdowns, books and baby eagles in the Oregon Outback
When my wife, Sue, and I start out each morning to conduct our golden eagle survey for the Oregon Eagle Foundation, we never know what the day will hold, except that it will be a wonderful adventure, and at some point we’ll end up lost in Oregon’s Great Sandy Desert, and we’ll be very happy […]
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Our Only Backyard Salamander
It’s always a pleasure for me to come out the back (or front), step off the porch and suddenly see a long, slender amphibian with a bright yellow patch on its back, madly scrambling for cover under the porch. If that happens to you some stormy night after a rain, don’t be surprised, for it’s […]
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Woodpeckers of North America
Present-day birders will certainly recall the name, Roger Tory Peterson, as the leader in nature field guides. It isn’t just birds that made up his list of interests, but subjects covering a wide area of natural history, from birds to edible plants. Today, the Peterson Field Guides continue to proliferate, and thanks to local birder, […]
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The Last Golden Eagle in England Has Vanished
Federal Eagle Protection Act ignored in Central Oregon land sale
England: Birthplace of Shakespeare and The Beatles, home of Parliament and the Tower of London, but there are no longer any golden eagles living there. Who’d have thought, with all the hard work of the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds (RSPB), that they’d lose the magnificent bird of prey so steeped in the […]
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The Monarch Miracle, Part Two
Since the recent story I wrote on the plight of the monarch butterfly in which I encouraged the residents of Central Oregon to create monarch waystations, I’ve been reminded by more than one person that I left out a couple of salient facts about the life history of monarchs: time and metamorphosis. Thus, regarding the […]
