Species of the Week

Introducing "Species of the Week"

Introducing “Species of the Week”

I grew up an introverted, only child. With my cat or rabbit stretched out beside me, I spent many evenings curled up in some cozy corner, thumbing through animal books…

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Pacific Tree Frog: Species of the Week

Pacific Tree Frog: Species of the Week

Right on schedule for the spring equinox, Pseudacris regilla arrived several days ago in my backyard pond here in Portland, Oregon. I haven’t seen him yet, but I hear him every night inviting females to join him in his half wine barrel.

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California Condor: Species of the Week

California Condor: Species of the Week

For writers, the birds inside the head can sometimes be as lively as the ones outside the window. I’ve had a twenty-two pound bird with a ten-foot wing span squawking and flapping in my imagination for awhile now…

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Desert Tarantula: Species of the Week

Desert Tarantula: Species of the Week

Out of some 850 species of tarantulas worldwide, the genus Aphonopelma includes the four dozen or so species native to the United States. Aphonopelma chalcodes – the Desert Tarantula – is the one I’ll be most likely to meet in Arizona…

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Horned Lizard: Species of the Week

Horned Lizard: Species of the Week

Lizards, lizards, lizards. I love lizards. I’m not sure which came first: my nickname – Lizzy the Lizard – or my love for reptiles. I like snakes and amphibians too, but lizards make me especially happy…

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Ocotillo: Species of the Week

Ocotillo: Species of the Week

I suppose it’s inevitable that a temperate forest-dweller like me would be amazed by the oddities that grow in the desert. It’s been two weeks since I returned home to Portland, Oregon from a brief trip to Arizona, and I’m still sighing over the blooms I saw in the desert…

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Ladybug: Species of the Week

Ladybug: Species of the Week

They may be common and caricatured, but ladybugs (or as some scientists prefer, lady beetles) still give me a thrill. Because I’m a kitchen gardener, I’m especially excited to see ladybug sex. I found these two Coccinella septempunctata going at it in my herb bed last weekend. I tore off my gloves and ran inside for the camera, thinking they’d finish and fly away soon….

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White-Rumped Vulture: Species of the Week

White-Rumped Vulture: Species of the Week

About a month ago, I wrote a post on California condors, birds that had been haunting my imagination for some time. While browsing information for that post, I learned about the plight of carrion-eaters once common in the plains of Nepal, Pakistan, and India.

I lived in the plains of Nepal for three years in the late 80s and early 90s and also traveled through India during that time. I remember seeing parakeets, egrets, mynahs, and many colorful songbirds. But even though I must have passed by them hundreds of times, I don’t remember seeing Gyps bengalensis, the White-Rumped Vulture (also referred to as the Oriential White-Backed Vulture). Nor do I remember associated species, such as G.indicus (Long-billed vulture) or G.tenuirostris (Tender-billed Vulture). And they were all probably abundant….

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Ponderosa Pine: Species of the Week

Ponderosa Pine: Species of the Week

Growing up in Seattle on the west side of the Cascade Mountains, I always thought of ponderosa pines (Pinus ponderosa, also sometimes called Western Yellow Pine) as exotic trees. They belonged to what we called “the other side of the mountains.” Whenever we drove over Stevens Pass or Snoqualmie Pass, the first glimpse of ponderosa pines thrilled me. I knew we had left behind the rain and dense undergrowth of douglas fir forests (which I also loved) to more open stands where I could wander miles without a trail…

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Pygmy Nuthatch: Species of the Week

Pygmy Nuthatch: Species of the Week

I’ve been planting fruit trees, digging up sod, preparing vegetable beds, and planting seeds on our property in northeastern Oregon. But especially on hot days, it’s tempting to wile away the hours in the shade of some old apple trees downhill from our yurt and watch the birds – yellow-bellied sapsuckers, bluebirds, sparrows, wrens. Each of the ten or so trees has at least one cavity that contains an active nest. I’m especially intrigued by the pygmy nuthatches (Sitta pygmaea)….

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Bluebunch Wheatgrass: Species of the Week

Bluebunch Wheatgrass: Species of the Week

I hate lawns. I dug up most of mine on a city lot in Portland, Oregon and replaced it with fruit trees, berries, vegetables, and flowers. In the parking strips, I planted drought tolerant species. Now on our property in Northeastern Oregon, I’m battling a much larger swath of smooth brome and other introduced pasture grasses to establish an orchard and kitchen garden.

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Cougar: Species of the Week

Cougar: Species of the Week

In three months of writing this series, I have yet to cover a mammal, or any species with big teeth or claws. So this week, I ponder a mammal with both. It’s the land animal with the largest range in the Americas, from southern Canada to to the southern tip of the Andes: Felis concolor, more commonly known as cougar, mountain lion, catamount, or puma.

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Common Indian Toad: Species of the Week

Common Indian Toad: Species of the Week

The garden is in now, so it’s time to get back to working on my ethnographic memoir on living as a family member and anthropologist in Nepal. I’m currently revising the chapter where I describe an encounter with an enormous hibernating toad. My six-year old son and his Nepali uncle and cousin almost hoed it in half as they weeded around a lemon tree. My son called me from my academic writing to see it. I picked the sluggish toad out of its burrow and prodded it to hop off to a safer spot. Then I decided to pitch in to help prepare a vegetable garden and discovered a passion for growing food (and a lack of passion for academia) that continues to this day.

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Species, Satellites, and Old Houses

Species, Satellites, and Old Houses

Living off-grid in a yurt is mostly wonderful, at least this time of year. I know that spending time in such a beautiful place is a luxury not everyone can afford. So please understand, I’m not complaining….

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Chipping Sparrow: Species of the Week

Chipping Sparrow: Species of the Week

A number of small, brown songbirds have enlivened my spring and early summer on a daily basis. One is the chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina)  

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Sagebrush: Species of the Week

Sagebrush: Species of the Week

One of the things I like about writing regular posts on various species is that it challenges my own tendency to overlook or take for granted species that are common, mundane, or unpopular. Last week, I had the good fortune to take a brief vacation in the high desert country of Central Oregon. I decided it was time to learn more about a plant I see everywhere throughout the Great Basin but know little about: Artemesia tridentata, or sagebrush.

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Northern Pacific Rattlesnake: Species of the Week

Northern Pacific Rattlesnake: Species of the Week

I had originally planned to post on another species this week. In fact, I have a backlog of species that have been inspiring and distracting me. But rattlesnakes have a way of making themselves heard above the din of all else  

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Great Horned Owl: Species of the Week

Great Horned Owl: Species of the Week

I first heard the strange noises in late June: whistling squawks that sounded like sea gulls five hundred miles off course. The calls began at sundown every evening and continued throughout the night. I couldn’t imagine what besides an owl would make so much noise after dark. But owls hoot. Right? Couldn’t possibly be owls, I thought….

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Townsend's Big-Eared Bat: Species of the Week

Townsend’s Big-Eared Bat: Species of the Week

On our Northeast Oregon property, we have an old house that’s rotting. It has little historic or architectural value, so we’ve been leaning towards tearing it down. Then my nephew, Gerek, found the bat in the closet….

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Quaking Aspen: Species of the Week

Quaking Aspen: Species of the Week

This time of year, I’m one of many throughout the West enthralled by – and worried about – one of our most striking fall color trees: Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides ). Utah and Colorado have acres and acres of aspens.  In northeast Oregon, we have smaller groves dotting the more prevalent bunchgrass slopes and ponderosa  

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Chameleon Blogging: Changes to "Species of the Week"

Chameleon Blogging: Changes to “Species of the Week”

Yeah, I know. This is a Carolina anole, not a chameleon. When I was a kid, I lusted after chameleons. But anoles change color too, and they were cheaper and easier to find in local pet stores, so that’s what I got….

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Western Larch: Species of the Week

Western Larch: Species of the Week

It was hard to leave our yurt in northeastern Oregon with Western larch (Larix occidentalis) in full copper-yellow glory. But when the flanks of the mountains there blaze with what looks like a procession of candles, it’s time to get ready for a harsh winter or move to lower elevations….

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Wild Turkey: Species of the Week

Wild Turkey: Species of the Week

Unlike my stepfather and his clan, numerous cousins, the son I spawned, and many friends; I don’t usually look at wild animals and think: meat. Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo), indigenous to North America, have become a recent exception….

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Spinner Dolphin: Species of the Week

Spinner Dolphin: Species of the Week

During the cold holiday season, I find myself remembering trips to tropical waters and the species I’ve encountered there. I may write about sea turtles, reef sharks, octopus, and triggerfish in the future, but it’s the spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris) that have been on my mind this past week….

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Irrawaddy Dolphin: Species of the Week

Irrawaddy Dolphin: Species of the Week

Polar bears: they get all the climate change attention. So this week as negotiators meet in Copenhagen, the Wildlife Conservation Society highlighted “unsung species” that are just as vulnerable to climate change. This isn’t to diminish the grave situation for the world’ biggest bear but to make sure we don’t lose sight of less familiar – and less popular – animals….

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Douglas Fir: Species of the Week

Douglas Fir: Species of the Week

I’ve spent most of my life among Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga sp.) Although I love other trees and plant communities, Douglas fir forests still speak to me of home. In the Pacific Northwest, they’re ubiquitous from the Cascades to the coast. Douglas fir and other conifers of the region are why I’ve never felt at ease in the deciduous forests of eastern North America (as lovely as they are), where bare branches in winter make me especially homesick….

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Yak: Species of the Week

Yak: Species of the Week

I’m still celebrating the publication of my first poem in the High Desert Journal and its subject matter — cows. So perhaps now is a good time to share a shaggier bovine fantasy I’ve been nursing over the last few years….

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American Pika: Species of the Week

American Pika: Species of the Week

The calls and whistles (listen below) of the American pika (Ochotona princeps) are one of the delights of hiking into remote alpine areas — and such a refreshing escape from the noise of daily news, courtroom dramas, and political debates. Now the tiny rabbit relative may unwittingly generate press releases, research reports and legal briefs higher than its hay piles….

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Bushy-Tailed Woodrat: Species of the Week

Bushy-Tailed Woodrat: Species of the Week

Tomorrow, we drive to NE Oregon to spend a week or so in our yurt (and a few other places). The creature I fear most on this trip is not the cougar, wolf or porcupine. It’s much smaller. Most females and the younger males of the species could fit into the palm of my hand….

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