Natural World

Every living thing on this beautiful old Earth will eventually die. Whether it be bunchgrass on the hillside, a towering Ponderosa or a flea – death is part of Life. In spite of that unalterable fact, we humans spend a lot of time trying to side step the issue, but when it happens instantly – as it did to our dear bird-loving pal, Dean Hale, in a head-on collision last month on Hwy. 20 between Bend and Sisters, we realize – wham! It’s all over…at least for this life.
Dean was a birder who spent thousands of hours watching and helping birds. It is an understatement to say he was dedicated to his avian neighbors and loved by everyone with whom we share Life with on this beautiful planet.

With all the hullabaloo over the mysterious death of honeybees and the impact on local beekeeping and honey production, Oregon State University (OSU) and our local Central Oregon Beekeeping Association (COBA) are coming to the rescue. Master beekeepers Stephen Harris, and his sidekick, John Connely, both of Bend, are teaching a yearlong course on apprentice beekeeping in Bend,
Harris grew up in Bend, has been raising honeybees for 30-plus years, and has several active and healthy hives around the west side of Bend. That’s a lot of years of honey production and about 80 millions bees that have passed through his life. Connely started out as a commercial beekeeper when he was in the sixth grade living in Phoenix, Ariz., selling honey from a roadside stand and has been keeping bees ever since.

The High Desert Museum’s painful loss of their premier live exhibit, Ochoco the bobcat, triggered memories that go back to the ’50s when I first became involved with rehabilitating wildlife.
The year was 1955 or 56, when I met a de-clawed bobcat of the same disposition as Ochoco being kept in horrifying conditions at a sporting goods store on the corner of 3rd and Franklin in Bend.
Customers and passersby would come into the shop and poke sticks at the poor animal that was stuffed in a four-by-four cage. It would hiss and strike out at the pestiferous people who, for some strange reason, got some kind of diabolical joy out of making it thrash about.

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. When I was a kid, we had a huge wood-burning furnace in the basement of the New England farm house where I grew up.
Woodcutting started in October in Connecticut, with oak and elm being the dominant species we used for keeping warm in winter, and the old two-man cross-cut misery whip was the saw we used to buck up logs into firewood lengths. I can still hear my Uncle Harry on the other end of the cross-cut: “Catsfur (my nickname), I don’t mind you ridin’ that thing, but would you quit draggin’ your feet!”
If I could have just hibernated, woodcutting wouldn’t be necessary, and think of all the money we’d have saved.

Aside from the coyote and wolf, no other mammal – including cows – has figured so dramatically in the commercial history of the state of Oregon as the North American beaver. Wars were fought over the beaver and much of western Oregon was impacted by the trapping of these animals and the sale of their fur. So much so, in fact, that by the mid-1800s they were almost extinct because of the international demand for their pelts. It’s no wonder we are known as the Beaver State.
In the 1800s, anything that helped in making a buck in Oregon was quickly exploited, such as virgin forests, salmon and beaver. But, it's a love-hate-relationship depending on what a beaver was up to, it was (and still is) sometimes maligned for its diet of green plants that live near water, which includes precious and expensive landscaping.

Reports of snowy owl (SNOL) sightings have been coming in by the hundreds from all over the Northwest, Midwest and East Coast. My pal from the old OMSI days, Bart Butterfield, who is now in charge of the GSI Division of Idaho Fish and Game, sent me an email the other day with an attached map of all the SNOL sightings in the U.S. and Canada.
But the first report I received came from Sisters photographer and Kestrel volunteer, Dick Tipton, last week. He found that beautiful female at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge feasting on rodents.
Snowy owls are the largest of our owls, both in weight and size. The great gray owl of our boreal forests is big, but it weighs only a fraction of our local great horned owl, and compared to the SNOL, they’re both lightweights.

Back in 1949, Oxford University Press published a remarkable book that changed the way conservation education is being taught, and in doing so, left behind a solid base for everyone wanting to see the conservation of our natural resources. That book, A Sand County Almanac, was written by Aldo Leopold, a man who many consider to be the father of wildlife management and conservation education.
Leopold’s legacy is found in his statement regarding habitat management, based on ecological interactions and education: “This science of relationships is called ecology, but what we call it matters nothing. The question is, does the educated citizen know he is only a cog in the ecological mechanism? That if he will work with that mechanism his mental health and his material wealth can expand indefinitely? But that if he refuses to work with it, it will ultimately grind him to dust? If education does not teach us these things, then what is education for?”

“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.