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Wildflower Photo Dump
Here, have some wildflower photos that I like too much not to post somewhere but that aren’t ever going to get individual blog posts of their own. I particularly like the one of the Mariposa Lily, for...
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Deerhorn, Deer Horns
Two photos to start out your week, both taken at Bridge Creek Wildlife Area last Thursday. First, Clarkia pulchella, a wildflower first discovered by Lewis and Clark. It has several common names, but...
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The Butterscotch Tree
Across large areas of the American West, one tree is the undisputed king of dry montane forests: the Ponderosa Pine, Pinus ponderosa. “Ponderosa” is literally Spanish for “ponderous,” a name which...
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Butterfly Pick-Up Lines
The two butterflies on this yarrow flower head are Blue Coppers (Lycaena heteronea, not to be confused with Blues, which are a different but very similar-looking group of butterflies). The one with its...
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Blue Basin
How about some colorful scenery to start your Monday? On Saturday I hiked the Blue Basin Overlook trail, in the Sheep Rock unit of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The name comes from the...
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Nobody Likes Junipers
Juniper trees are the nemesis of many ranchers around here. As a result of the region’s altered fire regime – no more wildfires sweeping through and keeping trees from establishing themselves –...
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Wildlife & Conservation Link Round-up
I was going to check out another local hiking trail yesterday to get some blog fodder for this week, but ended up deciding to stay home instead and work on my knitting and make another attempt at...
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Owl Pellets
If you saw these gray blobs on the ground under a tree, would you recognize them for what they are? I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t – and not only am I birder, but at one point I actually lived in a...
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Plantstagram
Work on Thursday found me hiking up a steep trail in the North Fork Umatilla Wilderness (part of the Umatilla National Forest) in the company of a pair of teenage boys. We were supposed to be...
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From My Nightstand
Work is kicking my butt this week, so in lieu of new photos and natural history, I thought I’d share a bit about the books I’ve been reading lately that are at least kinda-sorta relevant to this blog....
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The Corvid Method for Approximating Altitude
This June, during my big cross-country move, I was chugging up toward a mountain pass in my heavily-laden car when I noticed that the pines that had been lining the highway had given way to fir trees....
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Fire and Fireweed
This is what the “forest” I was in for work yesterday looked like. One of the teenagers I was with asked me why someone didn’t just cut down all the standing dead trees, and I explained that snags...
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Wildfire Country
As someone who’s never lived in a seriously wildfire-prone part of the country before, the last week has been a trip. The town where I live was never seriously threatened, but some neighborhoods of the...
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Butterflies as Pests?
Yesterday this innocent-looking white butterfly landed on a coworker’s hard hat and I made her stand still so I could take a photo before it flew away. This is a male Pine Butterfly, Neophasia menapia....
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Hairy Trees and Edible Lichen
Some of the trees here appear to have rough brown hair draped from their branches. This is a type of lichen, specifically one from the genus Bryoria. Some Native American tribes have stories about how...
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Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off
Coyote in Death Valley, California. Photo by Manfred Werner via Wikimedia Commons. On Monday of last week, I posed a question on Twitter: “Hey everyone, do you pronounce the word ‘coyote’ with two...
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I Live in a State with Volcanoes
I spent Monday through Wednesday this week at a training that was being held at a camp in another part of the state. Here’s a satellite image of the area, courtesy of Google Maps: Green and forested,...
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Mount Hood Greenery (and Red-ery and Blue-ery)
The forests of the Cascades are pretty different from ours out here in the arid east – I saw lots of hemlocks and cedars while at Mount Hood, which was a nice change of pace. I also made the...
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“Wilderness in My Heart”: An Essay
In June I submitted a piece of my writing to an essay contest by the Sierra Club on what wilderness means to the millennial generation. I was notified recently that I didn’t win, which means I’m free...
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Wildlife Linkspam for Your Reading Pleasure
It’s that time again – time for one of my irregular collections of wildlife and conservation links from around the web that have caught my eye. Bird-heavy, as always. Enjoy. In Praise of Boring, Local...
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