Friday, November 30, 2007

They're baaack. Goats that is.

While shopping around the Auburn Supermall a few weeks ago, I looked over across from Sports Authority, and behind the fence, were a bunch of goats, nibbling at blackberries and studying me, while I was trying to whip out my camera phone to take a picture of them.

This summer, and next spring at PLU, where I work, the campus, which prides itself as being as green as possible, had out Healing Hooves, from Eastern Washington. Craig Madsen and his herd of 250 ruminants were on the campus for two weeks, eating every blackberry bush in sight, as well as all the tansy and morning glory they could find. Here is a story and flash/audio slideshow I produced on it.

I see today in The News Tribune, more goats, this time from Rent-a-Ruminant, based in Vashon Island. This company was created by a burned out paramedic, it seemed, who started the company as a joke. In Healing Hooves case, Madsen decided he was through with the environmental bureaucracy and wanted to try something new.

At first, his friends thought he was joking. But no, he now has such clients as the Port of Seattle, the City of Tacoma, PLU, natch, and King County Metro.

The goats somehow eat the invasive weeds, leave the native plants be, and fertilize while they are at it.

Photo taken by PLU Photographer Jordan Hartman.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

If you haven't had a chance to read about the Duwamish, take the time

I've been reading bits and pieces of it as this wonderful three-part series on the Duwamish moved through the week. The first part ran Monday, followed by Tuesday and Wednesday packages about a river that once was teeming with wildlife, and now is one of the most polluted rivers in the nation.

Yet, there are still salmon that swim upstream and wildlife that manage to live on or near its banks. There are still groups like Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, that work to save the river and land around it. And on Wednesday, prompted by this series, Sen. Patty Murray said she would start to ride the EPA to really do something about this river's cleanup. Hopefully this isn't so much political blustering.

Photo by PI Photographer Paul Joseph Brown.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

It's time to walk the beach at night

We Beach Naturalists just can't keep away from the beach for long, even if it is just above freezing or there's a not-so-gentle rain coming down.

Last year, about 100 people turned out for a nighttime beach walk at Seahurst Park. The event is sponsored by People for Puget Sound, the Environmental Science Center, the Seattle Aquarium (that's where the naturalists come in) and the City of Burien.


Sometimes there are some quite spectacular finds, like what the girl discovered in this picture. Sunflower stars are amazing each time I see them. Anyway, if you're tired of shopping and the tinsel, come out and see us. The beach walks this year are Dec. 22 from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm and again on Jan. 19 from 7 pm to 9 pm at Seahurst Park.


Bring warm clothes, wading boots and a flashlight. Last January, I believe they had a bonfire and goodies to eat! For more info, call Daoud Miller at 206-382-7007, est. 217.


Hope to see you there!

Picture provided by People for Puget Sound

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Let's not forget about the plants

With all the focus on wildlife, I sometimes forget about the plants. This article by Debbie Cafazzo, of The News Tribune in Tacoma, reminded me of that. Often plants are endangered species too, and intertwined with the animals they support. This rescue was by the Native Plant Salvage Alliance.

There are several groups that tend to the native plants around here, and WSU has a great native plant guide that's worth checking out. And of course there's the Washington Native Plant Society and the Central Washington Native Plant Society.
King County also have a native plant guide. I watch butterflies during the summer, and often prevent my hubby from pulling up every last dandelion, since many butterlies lay their eggs on them and use them for food. I'll have to replant our butterfly bush, which was ripped up by last year's windstorm. Also a multi use plant for the butterflies.

And since my husband grow orchids, I'm also reminded how linked these plants are to their pollinators. We once had a rather drap white orchid that didn't do much, until I got up at 2 am to let the cat out. A beautiful smell had filled the living room. It was the orchid (blc Little Stars, for those orchid lovers reading this), putting out a wonderful lure for its pollinator, a moth.

Photo by News Tribune photographer Janet Jensen.








Monday, November 26, 2007

They shoot opossums, don't they?


Now that it's winter, the suburban animals are beginning to look more aggressively for food, and for shelter. They've found both in my hubby's greenhouse it seems.


Someone has chewed down his prized geranium tree down to a stub, and now they are nibbling at his orchids (this critter has a death wish). At first, my rancher-bred mate said "let's set out some poison." Both daughter and I started giving him the hairy eyeball. He relented to the silent protest. Now we're talking live traps, for the 'possum, rat, squirrel or raccoon that's having a snack fest.

I guess I fear this might be one of the critter's we've named, such as whiteface, the possum; stubs, the raccoon (no tail), or rat tail, the squirrel (not much of a tail), who once came into our house and chattered at us in the middle of our kitchen until we gave him food.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.


Sunday, November 25, 2007

All fluffed and beautiful. By the way, what are you doing with that clam?

Often the prettiest denizens of the beach don't look like much when the tide's out. This especially holds true of the feather duster worms that hang out on rocks or the bottom of docks.

At the Des Moines beach, at low tide, they usually look rather slimy, brown and not exactly something you'd like to touch. But see them when the tide comes in, they extend their plumes and begin to feed. You'll see this! (taken on my camera phone)

While on the beach this summer, I was just back from snapping this picture when I came across a six-year-old boy banging something against a rock. I assumed it was another rock, until I came closer and saw it was a large horse clam (a fave of moonsnails for lunch). The boy had chipped out its outer rim, and his parents were just watching him do this.

In a calm voice I told him to stop, that he was hurting this creature and did he really want to kill it? He looked and me and made a move to start pounding again (again, parental units were still doing nothing at this point), so I simply took the clam from him and explained in my best Beach Naturalist voice that this was his (or her?) home, not ours. These animals live for like, up to 100 years, unless they become food for gulls or moon snails. He just ran away, looking for something else to torture I guess.

In the log book that day, the beach captain, while listing the day's finds, she did note I saved one clam from an untimely death. (: Probably became a moon snail snack the next day.





Saturday, November 24, 2007

Kelp Crabs, love 'em, just don't try to pick them up

This guy was none to happy with me.

I was trying to get a picture of him on my camera phone as I was working a Beach Naturalist shift for the Seattle Aquarium this fall, and he was busy walking around the muck underneath the dock at Des Moines beach park. One of our group actually ventured to pick him up (I tried that once in front of a Girl Scout troup only to have the beast pinch me, hard, with its very long claws). Long story short, a female was underneath, the guy was trying to mate and very annoyed his wooing had been interrupted.

We found another of his kind on the piers, all wrapped up in fishing line (I pick that up, along with plastic bags or all plastic, whenever I find it.) He was busy trying to pinch us, while we were busy trying to cut him loose.

While on the topics of crabs, every shift I pulled this summer and fall turned up a bunch of dead dungeness crabs underneath the pier. Now they weren't the result of the gulls. They were just dead. I think this was because folks crabbing off the pier just throw them back into the water if they are a. female or b. not legal. Unf. for the crab, getting tossed back into the water is like throwing one of us out of a 10-story window. They rarely survive the shock. I think the City of Des Moines should put a basket at the end of the dock for folks to lower the crabs back into the water, so they can live, pinch and mate for another day.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Crows were up early this morning too, and already having a snack

While driving to the Southcenter Mall at 6 am this morning (okay, I admit it, I was one of those in line at GI Joe's to see if I could snag one of those $500 gift cards. I didn't.) Anyway, after giving up on that and driving up Central, I saw a batch of crows in the road eating the carcass of a poor squirrel that had gotten smacked in the middle of the night.

They'd reluctantly hop away as the car neared, and then get back to their feast. My daughter isn't fond of this member of the corvid family, after watching a crow peck a baby pigeon to death that had fallen from its nest. But I like crows, and steller's jays. They are loud, but smart and I swear some of the bird feeder bunch in the back yard seem to know me. I rescued one of their tribe (a jay) and have the scar on my hand to prove it.

I want to also talk about the crow commute. True, lots of birds are on the flyway to the south these days, but each day, there are hundreds of crows that fly south each morn, and then north, back up the Kent Valley each evening at about dusk. I have no idea where they nest for the night. But each day like clockwork, you can see the bunch overhead.

On Halloween, they must have all taken a break at the Scenic Hill cemetery in Kent near my house. Hundreds of crows pecked among the graves and the overflow was on either side of the road. Made me want to go home and pop in "The Birds."

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Want a bird feeder, plant a forsythia


Arrived at mom's today just in time to sit down and eat turkey, and looked outside to see her forsythia bush full of birds that winter over in Washington, including a few Rufous-sided Towhees, which was busy eating (seeds?) off the bush, along with robins, house sparrows, black capped chickadees and bushtits-all birds fluffed up against the cold today.


So while I had written these bushes off as giving pretty yellow blooms for, say two minutes in the spring, maybe there's another reason to plant them-food for the birds in the winter.
Photo courtesy of the Seattle Audubon Society, Paul Bannick.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

In case you detest door buster sales, how about watching the fish?

I noted this in my second post, but just in case there are those of you who really, really, really don't want to brave the lines, the malls and the senseless mass consumer gluttony, how about watching the chum do their thing as they swim upstream to spawn now.

There are couple of events I found on Friday for those that want to stay away from the hordes.
The first is at the Carkeek Park at Piper's Creek from noon to 2pm on Friday. The other nearby chum run in the Seattle area is out in Puyallup.The best time for viewing apparently is from now until mid-December at Clark's Creek. Finally, heading out toward the penninsula on Highway 101 is Kennedy Creek, which will be open Friday from 10 am to 4 pm.

Oh, and bit of good news for all salmon - chums, pinks, sockeye and the like. Bush has apparently given up on his bid to chop down all the trees around their streams to appease the timber industry.

Was that a bird, a plane...or a turkey vulture?


Okay, lame segue, but this afternoon, before school let out at noon before the t-day vacation, my daughter looked up and saw a very large bird, big wing span, black body, and red head and neck.


Hmm. I showed her a picture of a sand hill crane, but nope, she said the body was was dark brown, almost black. Obviously the sand hill's feathers are dun colored (I've seen the transplants in Montana).


So, off to the Seattle Audubon Web site. I think, after looking over the pics (where this one came from) she may have seen one of the 400 turkey vultures that migrate from Vancouver Island down to California or South America each year. Maybe this guy was off course or had lost the group somehow. Anyone else see stragglers out there?


I'd rather be eating a Heritage turkey than a Butterball; sorry mom

But, to be honest, a Butterball, one of those genetically crafted freaks, will probably grace my mom's dining room table in Everett tomorrow (although, with all due respect to mom, I'm sure it will be delicious).

I do remember, growing up in New Mexico however, when my bro and father went out in the bush to bag the Thanksgiving turkey the hard way. These wild birds are very smart and fast - they can reach flying speeds of up to 40 mph for short distances. (The wild ones look like this pic,courtesy of The New York Times.) We had to be careful when chewing to make sure we didn't swallow buckshot. But the bird tasted like something, versus the white meat off the Broad-breasted white.

These poor birds can barely waddle and can't even mate without help according to this Seattle times article on Heritage birds. Recently, the New York Times had a fine piece on a farmer who wrote his flock of Heritage turkeys into his will, to make sure they'd be cared for after he died.

Now, hours before the Thanksgiving feast, I'm sure it's too late to find one of these birds, but next year, I'll be searching for a farm in King County. If anyone knows of one, let me know. The Thundering Hooves farm is a possibility.
Photo Credit: Wild turkey shot by Miki Cullins for The New York Times. Close up by Alan Berner of The Seattle Times.


Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Bird's eye view of a Cooper's hawk


Driving westbound on Highway 18 in South King County, it's not unusual to spot a red tailed or Cooper's hawk sitting in one of the trees, waiting for road kill to show up, I guess.


But just as Highway 167 swung into 18, there was a Cooper's hawk at eye level with the onramp, looking down at something from its perch on a tree. Stop. Don't stop. Stop. Don't. I finally gave up and kept on driving into work. But I wish I had whipped out the camera I always carry with me to take an eye level shot.


At first I thought it was a Swainson's hawk, but no, according to my Audubon guide, they are in Argentina already (and rarely on this side of the state to boot.)

Monday, November 19, 2007

Celebrate the Chum!




I'll be looking for more salmon festivities over the next few weeks. But while listening to KPLU this morning, I learned of the Carkeek Salmon Celebration in Seattle that takes place on Nov. 23 from noon - 2 pm. This web site is by the state Fish and Wildlife Department, and lists other events going on at other parks in the area as the chum (still red, I guess, but less flashy than their oncorhynchus sockeye cousins).




This is to view the chum salmon making their way up the creek in the park, and I checked, not that many chum come up the Cedar River, near my house, so I'll have to look elsewhere.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Watching sockeye flirt, one last time


Looking out at the downpour this weekend, I was glad that I attended the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence, last weekend, when at least the sun was shining as about five of us hiked up the Cedar River Watershed, where the public is usually not allowed, to watch sockeye shimmy their way upstream.

Standing by the banks of Landsburg, I watched about 25 of the fish, slowly undulating in the river current. Every once and awhile a male would try to flirt (which amounts to the male flipping its fins in her face) with a female as she was about to create a redd and lay eggs. Or the males would charge at other males, including two-year-old jacks, with the same idea.

Often sunlight would sneak through the cedars and scarlet sparks would erupt from the river, as the band continued its slippery dance. I tried to take a picture, but wouldn't you know it, battery was dead. So I downloaded this free picture from the Manzanita Project at the California Academy of Sciences. Sockeye runs are fading out that far south, where runs once flourished, according to the experts on this trip. Blame global warming.

As frustrating as it might be to fertilize a females eggs, all these fish were going to find further frustration upstream, as Seattle City Light diverted the whole lot of the run into pens and dumped them downstream. The reasoning: too many sockeye (the endangered species are allowed up the river, but not these guys) attracting too many bears that would put too much poop in the river. Seems a bit of a stretch to me, but our cheery guide insisted this was needed to keep the water clean and avoid building a treatment plant.


Some of us, me for one, really didn't buy this reasoning, as we watched 20-lb sockeye jump again and again against their holding tanks. Some of the fish go up the river four times before they give up, spawn and die. The experts on my team questioned how trace elements like phosphorous, is going to get into the inland ecosystem, since generally these elements have only one way of getting into the inland environments: Fish to bears to poop.

At this point, Janice Mathison, from the Seattle Aquarium pipes up "I knew it, poop does make the world go around!"

So what happens with this wonderful creatures when they decide to become saltwater fish and then switch back again? According to Orlay Johnson, a NOAA geneticists, literally the fish have doubled up on genes and turn them on and off as needed. The moon, water temperature, hormones and age all determine which genes are in the "on" position. And that guides when these fish decide, usually after four years -since the eight year cycles have been fished out -to go upstream to flirt, spawn and die.
Closeup photo provided by the Jeremy Sarrow of the California Academy of Sciences/Manzanita Project