Rain, You Say?

Big drops of rain spit off my hat as soon as I stepped out of the car. Opening the back door to retrieve my binoculars left a dark gray line of wet on the rear seat.  And, garbage bag in hand, we were off!

Soggy as it was, I have to admit it was kid-like fun splashing along the trails that are more like flowing streams, particularly in the southwest corner of the Patch. There, the water is flowing so quickly it doesn't have time to pick up any dirt, and the water runs clear as it slips toward the creek. In other places, sticky mud sucks at your every step.

It seems every new place I look now, with the vegetation in slumber and beat down by the rain, there is a new scattering of garbage.  I completely filled the bag today and had to stop. Then we found the bike, or what's left of it.....

On the positive side, the osoberry leaves are showing green:

Not one of my better pictures, but it was raining and I didn't want to soak my phone!

Nine species of birds braved the downpour, including a new one at the Patch for us, a Hutton's vireo!

Night No-Owl

The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1840 - 1844 

Last year about this time, I joined a night walk searching for owls on the Tualatin National Wildlife Refuge. Of all the time I have spent outdoors, I have rarely been out and about after dark. Usually I'm too wimpy cold, or I'm tuckered from all the day's activities.

The timing of the TRNWR walk was to coincide with the January and February nesting times for great horned owls.  Sure enough, about a mile into our walk, with darkness around us and city lights glowing on the clouds above, we heard a pair softly hooting to each other.

This year, we decided to visit the Patch at dusk and remain until after dark.  Several trees along the creek or in the oak grove seemed like possible habitat for great horned owls. We arrived while it was light enough to pick up a few items of trash and splash on paths that were really wet.  As darkness crept in, we listened around the perimeter of the grass field, then with headlamps and flashlights went into the trees.  

I have noticed before that there is a lot of background noise at the Patch, but it seemed to reach new volumes as we strained to hear a quiet hoo-hoo-hoo hoooo-hoo.  Sadly, there was so much noise from the freeway (about 1/2 mile away) that, unless we were very near, I'm not sure we would have been able to hear any owls.

We may try again, but unless we have some event to decrease the freeway traffic (snowstorm?), this may be an exercise in futility.

Last Day 2015: More sun, wind, garbage; less water, vegetation

After all the rain (and a little snow) we've had in December, a sunny day is a welcome change.

The last few visits to the Patch have made me realize just how much vegetation cover and fill we lose in the winter.

Open canopy

See-through woods

An effect of that loss is the appearance of a fair amount of trash that was previously obscured by green growing things.  We stuffed two plastic grocery bags with our finds today.

On a more uplifting note, we found the first positive sign that deer use the Patch.

Deer tracks in the mud

Some of the trails were crunchy with ice, but others were just mucky.  I can think of two possibilities: (1) the amount of sun in different locations; or (2) a slight flow in the water vs puddling. A nice benefit of the muddy places is signs of other citizens of the Patch:

Raccoon?

We also found one of my favorite winter fungi:

Orange Jelly fungus

I love the bright color against the browns and greens of a wet winter woods.

Think Like A Duck

To say we've had some rain really doesn't describe the last week.  Over 6 inches of rain in five days - more than three of those inches in one day.  Along with all the rain, we've also had some mighty big wind gusts.

At the Patch today, much of the trail was a little canal of water with swampy ground on either side. Glad I was wearing waterproof shoes.  

Near the creek, things must have gotten really exciting.  Water from a branch of the creek had overwhelmed a culvert and run right over the top of the trail, neatly combing all the grass in the direction of the water flow.  On the main creek, several alders in the flooded area fell and the underbrush was flattened.

In the flood plain

Amazingly, only one tree fell across the trail:

We also lost a snag that collapsed across the creek:

It was interesting to see how the area responded to all that water.  In a way, I wish we would have been out there at the height of the flood. Somewhere safe.

Also interesting was the flock of about 30 mourning doves spread through what was left of the underbrush until we scared them up into the trees.  I haven't seen that many mourning doves in this area for a long time.

Oregon's Oak A Vanishing Legacy HD

The oaks on the Patch are much closer together than those shown in this video.  Makes me think that thinning might be in the future.



One of the botanists in this video, Ed Alverson, was an instructor in my Master Naturalist program.

Amazing Trees and Ice

We've had a little wind lately and the oaks are pretty much bare, as are most of the other trees; surprisingly, the willows seemed to have the most persistent leaves.  The tree that I have been photographing on each visit recently is totally bare as is the other tree growing next to it.

With the leaves on the ground everywhere, the woods are much more open and it is easier to see how close we are to civilization on the Patch.  Houses hidden by vegetation before are now visible.

We noticed this tree stump today.  There is something unusual about it.  

Bark has continued to grow and has sealed off the cut.  Well, this tree has no needles (leaves) to supply energy, so how did this happen?  I think this is evidence that this (former) tree and another nearby are sharing a root system, perhaps through a mychorrhizal connection.  This stump is drawing energy from the needles of the other tree and has treated the severing of itself as a bark wound, which it has now healed.

Another interesting observation today was the presence of frost and ice.

It was 47 degrees while we were on the Patch today, yet water in several shady spots was still frozen from the 29 degree night we had 36 hours ago.  Our relative humidity is also quite low right now. I could find nothing (easily) on the maximum temperature in which ice will persist, but now I know it is at least 47 degrees.

Leaves Everywhere

As the human activity in the Patch slows, nature moves toward winter sleep.  The oaks are becoming more bare, but the leaf color provides a glow in the forest canopy.

Mushrooms continue to sprout, from the tiny and delicate:

to the massive:

foot for scale

The particular tree that I have been watching is now completely bare of leaves, but the oak next to it is holding on:

picture from a different angle so the evergreen is not directly behind my tree

The creek at the western edge of the Patch shows actual current flow (as opposed to looking like a pond like before) and, at the northwest edge, the path leading to the Tigard library is completely under water.

Our garbage haul for the day filled less than a plastic grocery store bag except for the family-picnic-sized foam cooler, complete with lid, that we picked up at the north end of the property.  We don't always walk to the north end, but I swear, the last time we did, this cooler was about 20 yards farther north onto another piece of property that is semi-fenced from the Patch.  If the lid was not with the cooler, I might have thought about wind or an animal moving them, but maybe the other property owner just decided to toss them over the fence.  I mean, who's gonna know or care, right?