Natural World

Nothing is safe when an outdoor cat is on the prowl. Last week I gave the High Desert Museum the glad hand for the many things they are doing to further conservation of our natural and cultural resources. The principal subject was the excellent work they are doing with spotted owl reproduction with captive owls.
 
In my opinion, the spotted owl work the High Desert Museum is doing is akin to the art and science carried out with the (once nearly extinct) California Condor in similar institutions around the nation.
However, when it comes to carrying out conservation of wildlife that inhabits the Museum's grounds the HDM is a total flop! At this moment they are not going to get the "glad hand," but the back of my hand. Why? The Oregon High Desert Museum is allowing one of the most destructive alien species in the country, the housecat, to kill Oregon's indigenous wildlife on museum property.
Let me tell you how this all came about…

About three days before my son, Caleb, turned (who is now grown with a son of his own) 16, we were zipping along Highway 26 between Sisters and Redmond, preparing him for his check ride with the Motor Vehicle Driving Examiner. As we passed the Cline Falls Airport I spotted two young boys standing next to a sign, "Lizards and skinks for sale."
"Whoa! Caleb!" I said. "We have to go back."
"Why, Dad?" He asked. (He was asking "Why?" about everything! Now his son asks the same questions. Love it!)
"Because there are some kids back there selling lizards and skinks. That's why!"
Pulling up to the lizard sales booth, two young men about 12 years old watched us eagerly with the sense of a big sale written all over their faces.

Adult Northern Spotted Owl going home with breakfast. The Bush administration has proposed cutting 1.5 million acres of Northwest forests considered critical to the survival of the Northern Spotted Owl. On the brighter side, however, the High Desert Museum is helping to save the owls.
As if the administration's bungling of wildfires and old-growth forest mismanagement are not enough, even Mother Nature has thrown a rock through the spotted owl's window in the form of the Barred Owl, a close relative and fierce competitor. They are so closely related that mixed breeding has been reported, which has professedly produced a bird known as the "Sparred Owl."

A major weather modifier, erupting volcanoes. I've lived here for over 50 years and can't remember a spring as cold as this one, and like me, you have probably been asking, "why?" If "global warming" is to be believed – which seems irrefutable – why isn't this phenomenon warming up Central Oregon? The reason may be what is happening in other places, such as erupting volcanoes.

In the not too distance past, exploding volcanoes had considerable impact on what happens to the weather throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
Take the year 1816 for example. In New England, it was known as "The Year There Was No Summer," the "Poverty Year" and "Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death." Moreover, it wasn't just New England, the entire Northern Hemisphere suffered. In Ireland people starved to death because potato crops failed, while the resulting famine caused cholera to spread across northern Europe bringing widespread death and horror.

Dog flea, Ctenocephalides canis, and cat flea, Ctenocephalides felis. They can cause more problems than the entire spider combined. Last week we had a discussion regarding how brown recluse and spiders are made scapegoats for misdiagnosed human ailments. This is a timely topic because of the recent misinformation published in newspapers and an extreme email circulating that purports to show the thumb of a man that was allegedly bitten by a brown recluse.
 
What the medical community and pet-owners have apparently overlooked as the culprit, and should be looking at, is the tiny flea – that enigmatic little beast that has been living with and on Man ever since we walked out of our caves into the sunlight.

The real bad "guy" (but really a "gal"), the infamous Brown Recluse. Spiders in Central Oregon are in a heap of trouble, and so are you. I say that because of a recent article in The Bulletin regarding a woman and her son who allegedly were bitten by so-called hobo spiders in their rental home in Terrebonne.
It is time for the medical community and those who suffer from arachnophobia and other arthropod-tainted fears to get their act in shape.
I've lived in Central Oregon for over 50 years in homes filled with just about every species of "house spider" there is, and have never been "bitten." My children have been exposed to them from the time they were born, and they have never been bitten, chased or otherwise harmed by a spider, and neither have my neighbors or my neighbors' kids.
Thousands upon thousands of people are living here and never experience an alleged "spider bite." So let's get off it! Let us find out what those alleged "bites" really are and what is causing them.

the buzz on bees isn’t goodOK, people, listen up! Bees are our friends! Especially bumblebees. Got that? Without those big, scary-looking black and yellow (some orange) buzzers, almost every flowering plant in Central Oregon would have trouble making seeds for new plants.
Yes, soil, water and sunlight are what it takes to keep plants going, but without bumblebees (and other pollinators) plants could not reproduce their kind. So, the next time you have a bumblebee buzzing around your backyard please don't try to kill it, say "thank you," instead.
Bees, and a long list of other insects, depend on flowers to make a living. Commercial beekeepers travel thousands of miles in the spring hauling millions of bees back and forth between California and Canada pollinating everything from celery to peaches to ensure bigger seed crops and better fruit yield.

Look forward to summer! Ringlet and Hairstreaks on Oregon Sunshine in my backyard. Well, now that winter is on the wane, it's time to warm your soul a little by looking forward to summer and short-sleeve gardening. (Don't let all the snow fool you, this is just a normal Central Oregon spring – honest!)
 
Audubon – as in The National Audubon Society has a nifty idea on their website, "The Healthy Yard Pledge," a common-sense approach to being a "greener" gardener and, therefore, a better steward when it come to conservation of our land, soil, air and water.
"Conservation," said Aldo Leopold, "is a state of harmony between man and the land."

No matter what the name, or how it is used or abused, Bachelor is still a fine old volcano.Most residents of Bend, Sunriver and Redmond see the lovely, 9,000-plus-foot-high volcano every morning. It stands alone, like an old bachelor, among the crowded Cascade skyline. Millions of people have hiked and been hauled to the top, then hiked or skied down her slopes and – I'm sorry to say – probably never given a thought as to when and how it got there.
 
Bachelor wasn't alone in its violent and hot past. It belongs to a string of volcanic events about a mile and a half long, known geologically as the "Mount Bachelor Volcanic Chain" (MBVC).
If the volcano hadn't become an outstanding skiing area, it would probably still have its early name, "Bachelor Butte" as it was known when it was just a fair-to-middling shield volcano just across the Cascade Lakes Highway from Tumalo Mt.

Golden Eagle suffering from lead poisoning. (Note scars on toes from walking on its knuckels.) As if shootings, electrocution and collisions with vehicles are not
enough for eagles to cope with, now portentous lead poisoning has
reared its ugly head.
Lead is a toxic metal deposited in the
environment through hunting, fishing and recreational shooting, and
will not break down into less-toxic compounds and will persist
indefinitely. Lead toxicity can have lethal consequences that
compromise avian survival and reproductive success. Consequently, lead
has killed a variety of birds, and it won't be too long before it will
travel through the food chain and seep into the human body.