Nature & Wildlife Thread

[Stephen T.]

I love the puffins! What a neat experience that must have been!

Addy, Crack-in-the-Ground is mostly 12-15 feet wide and at the narrowest, about 5'. You do have to scramble over some easy to get over boulders and there are a couple spots where the wall hangs out over the trail and you have to duck under. The shot of that narrow one might (would) bother me as well!

 

[addy1]

I love the puffins! What a neat experience that must have been!

Addy, Crack-in-the-Ground is mostly 12-15 feet wide and at the narrowest, about 5'. You do have to scramble over some easy to get over boulders and there are a couple spots where the wall hangs out over the trail and you have to duck under. The shot of that narrow one might (would) bother me as well!

Well that one I could do!

 

[Stephen T.]

We had to make a shopping trip to Medford, Oregon yesterday and decided to take a new (to us) route. Instead of the 75 mile drive over the Cascade Mountains on highway 140, we went the more northern route on 62. It's about 30 mile further and the pass is 1000' higher, along with being considerably more crooked and scenic. Just our kind of road! It passes through the SW edge of Crater Lake National Park, although well below and out of site of the lake. We'd heard that there were many waterfalls along the Rogue River on the west side, so this was a bit of a scouting trip combined with shopping.

We only saw one of the waterfalls, requiring a nice mile hike. The viewpoint without more hiking was not real photogenic, although a feast for the eyes. We'll have to do more exploring there. The best spot of the day was the Rogue Gorge, which is a very narrow 25 foot wide rock walled slot the whole river compresses through. It's formed from a collapsed lava tube. There's a developed path with fairly high fence along the entire length (not a place you'd want to slip and fall in), but the fence made photography challenging. There were a lot of people to add to the difficulty, we'll have to go back on a weekday after school starts in the fall!

We'll also have to see it during spring runoff, when it's really roaring through here!

 

[Stephen T.]

I forgot to mention the best thing yesterday! Driving back from Medford yesterday, on the other side of Agency Lake, we had a wolf pup run across the road in front of us, probably 100 feet from us! We were only going about 40 mph and with the cleared area along the edges and the road width, it had to cross 150' or so in the open. At first I thought it was a fox, but the shape was wrong and definitely not a coyote. It had that "fuzzy" look of a puppy and was pretty hefty in shape, way more so than a fox or coyote. I suppose, from it's size, it weighed about 25 pounds. Eve got a better look than I did, but we agree that it was a young wolf. Very cool!

 

[Gemma]

wow! How beautiful Nature is!
Thank you so much for sharing!

 

[pecan]

We went another hike Sunday. This one started at about 7000 feet and climbed up 9000 feet above sea level, 8 miles round trip. This trail was nice, few rocks and not too steep. Desolation Lake by way of the Mill D trail. Same canyon as the previous post. These alpine lakes are the watershed for Salt Lake Valley providing all our drinking water.

 

[Stephen T.]

I hope to be out and about Crater Lake soon, but there's still a lot of snow up there. In the meantime, it's a hike (very short) out to my pond, which I'm managing to work on lately. I place a dead manzanita bush/tree about 6' tall above my bog/spring and the birds really love having it as a perch.
The surprise is that black-billed magpies are coming in every evening about 7 to perch here, get baths and dry off. I've started putting some scraps of meat out in the tree, which they appreciate. Although there are lots of magpies in the area, in the 3 years we've been here, we've only seen 4 or 5 actually come into the yard, so this is great!

 

[pecan]

Better your place than mine @Stephen T. I don't like magpies because they bully and chase off all the other birds. They are thick in this area, but never had them in the yard. Though we do have a few Western Scrub Jays who made our place home. Almost as aggressive as magpies but smarter. They tease my corgi-chi mix and it's funny to watch. Here are a couple pictures I got of one of our resident Scrub Jays.

 

[Stephen T.]

We have the scrub jays too, I really enjoy some of the things they do. Ours don't seem to bother the other birds much. Our western scrub jays don't have the reddish hue, though, pretty much pure white with blue and gray.

We also occasionally have Steller's jays, they're real nasty, chasing all the other birds away, hogging the feeders and really noisy. When we lived out at Port Orford, on the southern Oregon coast, we had loads of them, to the exclusion of nearly every other bird, except the Cooper's hawk, who would get one every now and then (YES). Here's a steller's jay with a serious attitude.

 

[pecan]

That's an awful cute Stellar Jay showing his war face!

 

[CeeJayH]

Here are a few from a local lake, close to where I work. It's a great spot for an early-morning or lunch-time walk, with camera or binoculars.

Female Mallard with little one

Young Coots

Great Crested Grebe

Black-headed Gulls

Common Tern (with breakfast)

Goldfinch

 

[addy1]

I don't have a picture, but something so neat happened yesterday.

I was down by the ponds, looking at all of the lilies blooming, camera in my pocket, just wandering. I hear a loud rustle behind me, spin around thinking it is a ground hog.
Out of my flowers comes the cutest little bambi, around two feet tall all spots and legs. It runs down the path and back into the woods. Mom must have decided that was a good place for it to sleep!.

 

[addy1]

I have been gently removing some of the 8 ground hogs that have taken up residence here. So far the count is 5 ground hogs, three raccoons and today one opossum! Everybody but the ground hogs get released. Soon it will be to late to relocated ground hogs, they need time to establish themselves before winter

This little one acted dead then decided to hiss at me!

 

[j.w]

You @addy1 really do live w/the critters all around you. I wonder what wanders around our place at night? Have seen a bobcat just down the road, bear tracks in the snow and coyote, rabbits and deer. Taking my camera today to see if the snake pile will let me take a picture. Sometimes when it's warm they react more to me being there and take off.

 

[addy1]

Saw the cutest little foul dancing along the side of the road. A neat white heart on its side.

Missy had fun barking at the crabs, she could not figure out what they were! POOF they would be gone.

A ponder nightmare but pretty in nature