Natural World

Every year at about this time, rattlesnake hysteria breaks out all across the West. Just the other day one person was bitten by a rattlesnake in one of the national parks in California, now parks personnel are going out in the field wearing snake protection on their legs and footwear.
Last week, I received an alarming email from a resident of Squaw Creek Canyon Estates near Sisters all in a tizzy because one rattlesnake was found dead on the road near the development and another was seen on someone’s back deck. A cry went up to locate the dens where the snakes spend winter and move them somewhere else for fear they’ll cause harm to children and pets. Then a report came in from a young lady in the same area who reportedly saw three “small snakes” that she thought were rattlesnakes, adding fuel to the fire.

If there is one wild animal that is taken for granted, overlooked in the wildlife management business, completely misunderstood by state agencies and killed relentlessly, it is our poor old black-tailed jackrabbit.
Jackrabbits are actually “hares,” not “rabbits;” they’re in the genus lepus and are twice as large as our local rabbits, and hares have taller hind legs and longer ears. Cottontail rabbits were named for a puff of fur that adorns their tails, while, on the other hand, jackrabbits were named for their ears, which initially caused some people to refer to them as “jackass rabbits.” Mark Twain brought this name to fame in his book, Roughing It. “Jackass rabbit” was, however, just too awkward and the name was later shortened to jackrabbit.
There is also another difference. Rabbits that are in the genus sylvilagus make a nest in which the female gives birth to naked, helpless and blind baby rabbits, known as kits. Pregnant momma jackrabbits don’t bother to build a nest and appear to be very nonchalant about where they give birth, but when you study them for a while, you will see some very clever hare-thinking in what they do.

Of all the spiders that crawl, creep, fly and jump about in Central Oregon, black widows are the most feared. There are others that can kill you, some quicker than the black widow, like Australia's the funnel-web spider, but throughout the entire world, black widows (latrodectus mactans) get the most press, and they should.
It's the adult female black widows that cause all the problems for man and beast as they pack a very serious venom and are also scary lookin’: Black, with a shiny, bulbous abdomen, long legs with (or without) the red hourglass.Anyone who thinks he or she has been bitten by a black widow should stay calm and seek immediate medical care, especially children and old duffers, like me. Black widow venom is very powerful, but usually not fatal to humans if taken care of quickly. There is a variety of treatments available that will prevent the venom from causing permanent damage and a complete recovery usually takes only about five days.

There was a time, way back in the '40s and '50s when Hampton Station was a regular stop for the Trailways buses going between Bend and Burns. Today, people go whizzing by without hardly giving the place a glance – me included…
But the other day, my wife, Sue, and I stopped at Hampton Station with my son, Dean, who just returned from a year serving with the NATO in Afghanistan. Sue wanted to use the restroom while Dean was getting his back-home-in-Central-Oregon fix, and he had a yen for something home-cooked to snack on.
I was waiting in the back of our old ’72 Chevy Suburban we use as a workhorse when we’re doing wildlife studies in tough-to-get-to places. “Hey, Pop,” Dean said, as he opened the back door of the Chevy, “Try this homemade apple turnover.” I did and it was deee-licious!

When some ignoramus trashes one of our natural or historical treasures, it's an insult to us all. That's what happened recently at Hidden Forest Cave, one of our more unique natural features in the Deschutes National Forest. They all but ruined it.
Like most of the lava caves we have in this part of Oregon, Hidden Forest Cave was formed so long ago that geologists count the time that's since passed in eons. It began when pahoehoe (meaning “smooth, unbroken”) lava flowed over the top of another lava flow. The surface cooled, but beneath the smooth crust the interior was still molten. As more lava surged through the lower surface, it eventually drained out at the toe, leaving a tube in its wake.
Water and ice seeped down into the tunnel again and again. At some point, the ceiling of the tube collapsed, leaving behind a large hole open to the sky. Soil eventually formed – including ash from the magnificent eruption of Mt. Mazama where Crater Lake shines in the sunlight today – and grass, shrubs and trees began to grow in the bottom of the hole, among them some magnificent ponderosa pines.

“Is this Jim Anderson who writes for the Source?” the caller will ask.
“Yes, it is,” I'll reply, “what can I do for you?”
“I want to know what those ugly (sometimes, “repulsive” will be used), twitching, hairy things are all over my bushes!” And that's the subject of the phone calls I'll be getting at least once a day over the next couple of months when the weather warms up.
Those squirmy, fuzzy things in the photo – and the obvious ones you'll see in silken tents really soon – are western tent caterpillars (which will eventually become moths) chomping the leaves of Antelope Bitterbrush, Purshia tridentata. Like most long-term residents of Central Oregon, you sort of grow up with tent caterpillars every spring. We notice them out of the corner of our eye as a causal part of the landscape, but once in a while, they seem to be “more-than-casual” and show up, “all over the place.”

Did you know it is possible to travel from your home to the Redmond Airport, plunk one’s self in the innards of a Continental airliner at 6 a.m., and – with only three connecting flights – find yourself in Quito, Ecuador, at 9 p.m. that same day? It is. I did just that a couple of weeks back on my way to the Galapagos Islands.
Never in my wildest dreams of “things to do, and places to go,” did I think that some day, when I was over 80 years old would I set foot on what is, without a doubt, one of the most exciting biological and geological treasurers on planet Earth. But thanks to many, many friends, and three people in particular – Jay and Teresa Bowerman and my dear wife Sue – it happened.

You've been hearing 'em for more than two weeks now, singing their hearts out to call their lady loves to join them in irrigation ponds, snow melt, backyard ponds and mud puddles. They are the true songsters of spring: soon-to-be daddy Pacific tree frogs.
The persistence of nature to ensure the survival of her kind is astonishing at times. The other night it was down to 19 degrees, and I could still hear those tiny tree frogs belting out their love songs just before I removed my hearing instruments and went to bed.
Temperature will eventually shut them down, but probably only because they can't blow up their air sacks with ice crusting around their tough little bodies. The only thing that will really shut down the cacophony is a visitor to the pond. Try sneaking up on singing tree frogs and you will see what I mean. It's like someone shut off the switch to the sound. If, however, you sit down and don't move, it will only be a few moments before you'll hear one timid chirp, then another, then two more and within minutes the whole chorus is singing again – no one wants to be left out.

Two years ago, during the annual Christmas Bird Count carried out by the East Cascades Audubon Society, three people conducting the count ran headon into a few (illegal) waterfowl shooters at Hatfield Lake. Judy Meredith, a longtime member of the first Audubon chapter started in Bend back in the '70s, was the leader of the CBC group, and didn’t take the verbal abuse the illegal shooters dished out. She called the law and they responded, leaving some very disgruntled shooters in their wake.
It turns out the eager-beaver shooters allegedly tore down part of the perimeter fence around the sewage plant and traipsed in, seeing Hatfield Lakes as their private hunting preserve.

Some years back – at least five, anyway – somewhere in the Northwest a blessed event took place high up in a bald eagle nest. After patiently taking turns incubating an egg for 35 days, mom and dad eagle watched their offspring slowly emerge from the cracked eggshell, flopping exhaustedly in the huge, grass-lined nest of sticks.