As cool fall weather approaches and leaves begin to gather on the ground beneath the oak trees, you may notice something special if you look up into the treetops. Clumps of Pacific Mistletoe, known to scientists as Phoradendron villosum, are…
Debbie SchlenoffSports teams have often branded themselves with animal monikers (hello, Duck fans!). Football teams borrow from our feathered friends—the Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks. So it is sadly ironic that the massive football stadium…
Debbie SchlenoffI’m always impressed by the skill with which many birders can identify bird species by ear. The birds can one-up us though; they can recognize individual birds by song. Several scientific studies have demonstrated that birds can discriminate between…
People have long been fascinated by owls. Search for the term owl facts and you’ll find lists such as fun owl facts and awesome owl facts (because, well, owls are awesome). On some of these lists, you’ll learn that a…
Spring is in the air—time to talk about the birds and the bees. Perhaps not “the talk” that first springs to mind, but rather the one about pollinators and how important they are to life on earth (not to mention…
A heron’s slender body elongates as it stretches its neck to spear a fish; a chunky Marbled Murrelet beats her wings rapidly as she carries a breakfast of fish for her young from the ocean to the forest; small shorebirds…
Dave Stone When I wrote about the Greater Sage-Grouse in the November issue of The Quail, I mentioned that a final decision on protection of the bird would come in 2014. The Bureau of Land Management has just released its…
Debbie Schlenoff “Birds of a feather flock together.” This old saying applies to both birds and humans. The benefits of flocking for birds are many: They use mobbing to chase off potential predators, even when the predator is larger than…
At one time, the Northern Spotted Owl was found in old-growth forests throughout the Pacific Northwest. Heavy logging and other developments over the last 190 years have reduced spotted owl habitat by 60%. As a result, owl numbers have declined…
It’s 6:00 a.m. and still dark when we arrive at the Millican lek, just east of Bend. Even in the predawn darkness of this early May morning, we can hear the “thump-gurgle, thump-gurgle” of the male Greater Sage-Grouse as they…