Tryon Creek Naturalist Notes

The elusive Northern Pygmy owl with its whistling “toot” is beginning to be a well know visitor for the likes of citizen scientists, park staff and frequent patrons to Tryon Creek.  In fact, twice over the past week I’ve had incredible photos shared of this fierce little fluff ball roosted upon low hanging branches in the understory!  Consider yourself lucky to happen upon this pygmy owl inhabiting the upper canyon loops less than a mile from the nature center.  (In years past, I’ve only been fortunate enough to catch this owl in its more typical hangout, sitting atop the tallest conifer it could find.  I like to compare these tiny daytime hunters to Christmas tree toppers, resting on top of Douglas fir trees adding that perfect touch to the scene).

Photo by Daryl

Photo by Alberto Diez

Photo by Alberto Diez
*Note the eye spots on the back of the head!

Christmas tree topper

1/13 Varied thrush at feeder

1/22 Western red-backed salamander (bike trail south of Lewis and Clark Trail)

1/25 First Pacific waterleaf found

1/31 First flower of spring! Beaked hazel (side of parking lot)

2/2 Pileated woodpecker (Big Fir Trail)

2/10 Pileated woodpecker (Big Fir Trail)

2/24 Barred owls: 3 (Cedar and West Horse Loops Trails)

3/2 Green winged teal: pair (Obie’s Bridge)

3/3 Red breasted sapsucker (Red Fox Trail)

3/4 Pileated woodpecker (Equestrian parking lot)

3/4 Anna’s hummingbird (Equestrian parking lot and feeder)

3/7 Pileated woodpecker (Old Main Trail)

3/7 Indian plum in bloom (Old Main Trail)

3/8 Trillium (Maple Ridge Trail)

3/8 Salmonberry in bloom (near Red Fox Bridge)

3/8 Pileated woodpecker (Old Main Trail)

3/8 Skunk cabbage “buds” up (near Obie’s Bridge)

3/9 Skunk cabbage, salmonberry blooming (Cedar Trail near High Bridge)

3/10 Trillium on Old Main Trail

3/10 Male and Female Mallard (Red Fox Bridge)

3/12 Trillium 4″ (Big Fir Trail)

3/12 Barred owl (Cedar and Middle Creek Trails intersection)

3/15 Very busy Pileated woodpecker (Cedar and Red Fox Trail intersection)

3/13 Bald eagle (High Bridge)

3/13 Slug (Old Main Trail)

3/13 Cottonwood bud scales, fragrant (Old Main Trial)

3/13 Pileated Woodpecker (Upper Loop)

3/16 Coyote (Old Main Trail)

3/17 Barred owl (Cedar and Horse Loop Trail intersection)

3/18 Skunk cabbage blooming (by creek)

3/22 Cottonwood male catkins, spent (Old Main Trail)

3/25 Steller’s jay (Red Fox Bridge)

3/26 Purple finch, 2 barred owls, 3 great horned chicks, 2 Hutton’s vireos, 2 common ravens, sharp-shinned hawk

3/24 Hairy woodpecker and a snail (North Creek Trail)

3/29 Trillium: 573 (Center Trail)

3/31 Pileated woodpecker (Trillium Trail)

4/1 Pair of coyotes (North Horse Trailhead)

4/3 Red breasted sapsucker excavating, Cooper’s hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, pileated woodpecker, burying beetle

4/3 Coyote (North Horse Loop, Lewis and Clark Trails)

4/4 Red fox (near Rose Garden, Lewis and Clark College campus)

4/5 Western toad (North Horse Loop Trail)

4/7 Coyote (North Horse Loop)

4/10 Pygmy owl (Old Main Trail)

4/11 Barred owl (near Iron Mountain Bridge)

By Bruce Rottink, Volunteer Nature Guide

Who would have guessed that Tryon Creek State Natural Area’s first flower of 2013 would show up in January?  But as they say, truth is stranger than fiction!  And the award goes to — beaked hazel (Corylus cornuta), which just snuck under the wire by showing up on January 31st!  The beaked hazel pictured below grows along the edge of the parking lot opposite the Nature Center.

The beaked hazel is a large woody shrub that has two different kinds of flowers, male and female, on the same plant.  This female flower gets big points for its bright red color, but its size just about ensures that very few people ever notice it!  You could easily hold three of these flowers on your fingertip.

In contrast to the females, the male flowers of beaked hazel can be seen more than a hundred feet away.  These greenish-yellow catkins are generally 1-1/2 to 2 inches long, and produce the beaked hazel’s pollen.

These different sized flowers may seem odd, but once you understand the beaked hazel, it all makes sense.

The beaked hazel flowers aren’t pollinated by any animal; they are pollinated by the wind.  This type of plant is called anemophilous, [literally:  wind-loving] as opposed to plants pollinated by insects which are called entomophilous [literally:  insect-loving.]  So the female flower doesn’t need big showy petals to attract insects, it just needs to thrust its pollen-receiving parts (called stigmas) out into the breeze, and hope that it catches some stray pollen.

When a plant relies on the wind for pollination, it needs to produce lots and lots of pollen.  The large male flowers simply release their pollen into the air, and hope for the best.

When things work out, the beaked hazel produces a large nut that is beloved by many species of wildlife such as squirrels and mice, and was also used by various Native American tribes for food.

Tryon Creek’s flower-watching season has begun.  More flowers will be showing up soon.  Keep an eye out on your next hike, and enjoy the spring at Tryon Creek State Natural Area.

By Bruce Rottink, Volunteer Nature Guide

The forest has many delights – massive Douglas-firs, a spring symphony of birds, a colorful splash of wildflowers, and occasionally, an intriguing mystery.  I was lucky enough to encounter one such mystery recently on the Middle Creek Trail.

It was a cold January day, but bright and sunny after the morning’s dense fog had lifted.  The forest floor was adorned with its typical winter coat of dead brown leaves, green mossy logs, and grayish mole hills.  This made it all the more startling when I spotted a stick lying on the ground that was purest white.  Closer examination showed the stick was covered with what one of my hiking companions described as “cat fur.”  It was beautiful, but what was it?

I must confess that my previous experience with finding white fuzzy objects at Tryon Creek consisted of two things; clumps of cottonwood seed-fuzz in early summer and mold-covered dog poop, the “gift” of thoughtless dog walkers.  This discovery was clearly neither of these.  What could it be?

What was special about this stick?  Why was this the only one I’d found on my hike?  My first thought was “mold.”  But mold, in the middle of winter?  It was freezing out!  That’s not a prime environment for mold.

Then I started to examine the stick more carefully.  Parts of the stick were bare, they had no fuzz.  I delicately picked off several hairs of the fuzz.  Pure white; about 3/8” long; and then, to my surprise, it slowly turned into a tiny pool on my finger!  It was ice!  But how did it get here?  Why wasn’t everything covered in ice?

One more intriguing clue was that upon my return to theNatureCenter, Park Ranger Deb Hill reported she had seen one and only one similar white stick on the South Creek Trail that day.  It sounded like they might be the same phenomenon.

Overnight, my brain merged some common sense with some four decades-old memories from my college course in Climatology and Meteorology.  A quick check of my textbook and the Internet the next morning, and the answer was clear.

What I saw is called “rime ice.”  Rime ice forms when super-cooled water, which is commonly found in cold fogs, hits any object such as a tree branch.  The result is large, oftentimes linear or needle-like crystals of ice. These crystals attach to whatever the super-cooled water hits.  These crystals are what I initially thought was fuzz.

Super-cooled water is really fascinating stuff.  We all learned that water freezes (solidifies) at 32 °F (also known as 0 °C.)  Well, that’s not quite the whole truth!  Water will remain liquid well below 32 °F unless there is some “nucleus” around which it can start forming a crystal.  This nucleus can be as simple as a tiny dust particle.

Well that fit because we did have fog, and subfreezing temperatures that morning.  Why were these branches so rare?  Well, as is often the case, during foggy weather, the wind was virtually non-existent, so very few branches fell to the ground.  By the time I was taking my hike, the day had warmed just enough so the rime ice had melted off the tree tops, but the stick I found had fallen onto the ground earlier, where a slightly denser, colder layer of air protected the crystals from melting.

So there is was, mystery solved:  Super-cooled fog droplets had frozen into rime ice on the tree branches, a very few branches fell into the colder air at ground level, then the air temperature rose enough to melt the rime ice off the tree tops.  The bare spots on the stick were probably where it had hit other branches on the long fall to the ground.  Cool!

Solving mysteries can be fun and educational!  What mysteries await you at Tryon Creek?

Tags: rime ice, Tryon Creek

5/1 Male Anna’s Hummingbird

5/1 Female Rufus Hummingbird

5/2 Three fluffy Barred Owlets

5/5 American Robin chicks

5/7 First Swainson’s Thrush of the season calling

5/8 Common Raven calling

5/12 Male Wilson’s Wabler

5/12 Female Rufous  Hummingbird

5/12 Harry Woodpecker

5/14 Fledgeling Robin

5/21 Wood Duck mother with four ducklings in creek near Beaver Bridge

5/22 Band Tail Pigeons

5/23 Bald Eagle on the Cedar Trail

5/28 Olive Sided Flycatcher

6/1 Harry Woodpecker

6/1 Western Wahoo on the Middle Creek Trail

6/1 Mole on Middle Creek Trail

6/1 Swainson’s Thrush singing

6/2 Live Mole

6/2 Three Barred Owls

6/4 Inky Cap Mushrooms

6/13 Baby Bunny under Nature Center

6/18 Mole on entrance road

6/17 Brown Creeper on the High Bridge

6/22 Pair of Downy Woodpeckers on Old Main Trail

6/28 Pair of Downy Woodpeckers

7/2 Brown-tail Deer on Boones Ferry Horse Trail

7/4 Young Coyote on Iron Mountain Trail

7/6 Mole on Old Main Trail

7/7 SNAKE

7/20 Banana Slugs on Lewis and Clark Trail

7/20 Short Tailed Weasel in Nature Center

7/29 Mole near the High Bridge

7/31 Young Deer on Boones Ferry Horse Trail

8/1 Northern Goshawk pair on Red Fox Trail

8/8 Banana Slugs on Red Fox Trail

8/12 Douglas Squirrel on Center Trail

8/16 Doe and Fawn on Iron Mountain Trail

8/17 Doe and two Fawns on South Creek Trail

8/19 Doe and Fawn on Trillium Trail