One of fastest and most aggressive beetles crawling, running and chasing other invertebrates on the surface of our planet can be found on the Oregon Coast: the tiger beetle. While tigers have hunting methods similar to tiger beetles, they’re not normally found on the Oregon coast, or North America for that matter — thankfully, I […]
Natural World
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Elephant Lessons: Expert coming to Sisters to share work on the troubled animal
Don Miller’s “Pachyderm Intrigue & Elephant Lessons” Lecture
On Nov. 28, the Belfry in Sisters will be echoing with the sounds of elephants trumpeting and stamping their feet in greeting. Don Miller, a wondrous photographer and lecturer—and also an outstanding humanitarian—will be there to tell us about his travels around the world, his help for people with medical issues and his work with […]
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Natural World
Spiders on my keyboard
S o, there I was, sitting at my desk with hacklemesh spiders in the forefront of my old, tired, almost-worn- out brain, when a hot-to-trot house spider suddenly ran down my face, onto my shirt, and vanished under my chair. Talk about being at the right place at the right time; it was followed by […]
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Natural World: Don’t step on the eggs!
There are two ground-nesting birds common to Central Oregon that need help when it comes to surviving during nesting time: the killdeer and common nighthawk. Both lay eggs (almost always four) that are all but invisible because they look like the pebbles surrounding them—often getting mushed by people, cattle or wildlife. Recently, while leaving Sisters […]
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Natural World: An unexpected encounter
The last thing the people at Lowe’s in Bend expected to see last week was a lone common poorwill (a bird very closely related to a nighthawk) standing in the middle of the garden center. You have to admit, that bundle of feathers with red eyes just doesn’t fit into a bird category—unless someone knows […]
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Natural World: Lights out for birds!
In the mid ’70s, Oregon’s environmental watchdog governor, Tom McCall, started the 1,000 Friends of Oregon. Those were heady days for old-growth forest management, water usage, fuel shortages and the use of electricity. McCall advocated the shutting down of unnecessary lights after sundown, and in his usual sledge-hammer style of making suggestions, targeted the businesses […]
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Natural World: It can be tough to spot a pygmy owl, but sighting one is well worth the effort
Ken Hashagen, president of East Cascades Audubon Society of Bend, and I often get together to discuss bluebirds, kestrels, Great Gray Owls, eagles and other boring topics. “Boring!?” I should say not. After just a few minutes we’re waving our arms about and I can feel my blood pressure building up as we get into […]
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Natural World: From Marsh Hawks to Northern Harriers
There was a time in the long-long-ago of “bird-watching” when today’s Northern Harrier was known as the Marsh Hawk, because the low-flying, small bird- and mammal-eating raptor could almost always be seen in western marshes, flitting along just a few inches above the foliage, always looking down and rarely where it was going. Those were […]
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Natural World: Owls, owls and more owls
Recently I’ve had some interesting phone calls to my home and travelin’ phones, giving me cause to suspect the alien barred owl population (from the eastern United States and Canada) may be on the rise, and people are confusing them with our native great gray owls. Great grays are owls of the open spaces in […]
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Natural World: Journey’s Adventure
Sisters Middle School science teacher Susie Werts’ record-setting monarch butterfly, “Journey,” named such by her students, is back in the news. Professor David James of Washington State University at Pullman—who issued the numbered tag placed on the underside of the butterfly’s hind wing—is keeping in touch with researchers in Carpinteria, Calif., who originally reported the […]