Tryon Creek Naturalist Notes

This year’s annual Wapato Bird Walk on January 14th was attended by an amazing group of bird enthusiasts.  Although the day started out pretty dry, we were drenched by the last half mile of the loop around Virginia Lake.  We didn’t let that stop us though; stopping to admire each and every bird along the way.  Once again, I’m reminded what a jewel this property is!  I can’t wait for the next hike.

Date: Animal, Location sighted

5/13: Barred Owl, North Horse Loop
5/17: Barred Owl, North Horse Loop
Red Breasted Nuthatch, Nature Center
5/30: 3 Barred Owls!
6/5: Black-throated Grey Warbler, Western Tanager, and Black-headed Grosbeak, Parking Lot
Cooper’s Hawk, Lewis & Clark Trail
Cooper’s Hawk, West Horse Loop
6/6: Northern Pygmy Owl, Old Main Trail
Barred Owl Family (awww!), Cedar Trail (NW of Hemlock Trail) @ 3:00
6/7: Blooming wild ginger, Middle Creek (near Big Fir Trail)
6/12: Evening Grosbeak and Townsend’s Warbler, Parking Lot
Rufous Hummingbird, Feeder on Back Deck
6/14: Western Wood-Pewee and Hutton’s Vireo, Equestrian Lot
6/18: Coyote, crossing Terwilliger Road
6/19: Hermit Warblers, Wilson’s Warblers, Purple Finches, Black-headed Grosbeaks, Warbling Vireos, and Swanson’s Thrushes, along Cedar Trail and along creek
6/25: Pair of Pileated Woodpeckers, Lewis & Clark Trail
11 Banana Slugs, Opossum footprints
Garter Snake and Hairy Woodpecker, Lewis & Clark Bike Path
7/1: Baby Fox Squirrels, outside Nature Center
7/3: Purple Finch, parking lot
7/7: Spotted Towhee Nest, Hemlock Trail
Brown Creeper
6 Banana Slugs
2 Pileated Woodpeckers
7/20: Indian Pipes, Old Main Trail
7/21: Banana Slugs & snails
7/24: Cooper’s Hawk, Old Main Trail near Red Fox
7/27: 3 Cooper’s Hawks, Old Main Trail near Red Fox
8/3: Squirrel Kitchen (chewed Douglas Fir cone), Big Fir near Middle Creek
8/6: 2 Juvenile Great Horned Owls, Bunk Bridge
8/8: Western Redback Salamander
8/9: Coyote, Old Main Trail @ 3:00
8/21: Cooper’s Hawk, High Bridge
9/3: Black-tailed Deer, Cedar Trail
9/26: 4 Pileated Woodpeckers, West Horse Loop
3 Pileated Woodpeckers, Middle Creek Trail (near High Bridge)
9/27: Deer and 2 fawns, Meadow
10/3: Owl (possibly Great Horned Owl juvenile), Old Main Trail
10/4: Great Horned Owl, Maple Ridge Trail
Northern Pygmy Owl, Big Fir Trail
10/16: Sandhill Crane, overhead
11/6: 7 Ensatina salamanders, 2 Red-back Salamanders, Giant Pacific Salamanders (larvae), slugs, beetles, and millipedes
12/8: Great Horned Owl! Yes!
12/20: Crows chasing Barred Owl on West Horse Loop

Yesterday morning I led a guided nature walk entitled Drummers of the Forest, where we explored the amazing adaptations of the woodpeckers of Tryon Creek.  We walked Old Main and Big Fir Trails stopping along the way to check out old nesting sites and rotten snags with obvious feeding holes.  Although we tried calling both Pileated woodpeckers and Northern Flickers along the way, we concluded that the woodpeckers were waiting for the morning frost to burn off before showing themselves.

We gave one last attempt at calling a Hairy Woodpecker before walking briskly back to the nature center, and got a response (much to our surprise!)   As I was searching for its location, which happened to be the tip top of the tallest Douglas Fir it could find, a fluffy mound of feathers caught my eye…OWL!  Well, needless to say the Great Horned owl was both closer and easier to see so we oohed and awed over it for quite some time.  Once everyone had their turn with the binoculars, I realized that the little Hairy Woodpecker we had called was still at the top of that conifer calling its heart out and we had totally left it hanging.  Poor little guy!  We gave him one last goodbye and thanked him for giving us the incentive to stop and take a closer look around.

I didn’t have my camera during the hike but I ran into Seth and Doug Arnold a few hours later and our owl was still perched in the same tree, when they captured this shot.  Thanks guys!

Taking an afternoon snooze....

Last weekend a visitor by the name of Phil Lavine stopped by the Nature Center and asked the question, “What does pileated mean”?  Well, if I had a nickle for all the of the times I’ve said the name Pileated Woodpecker, I’d be rich.  But, I had no clue what the word pileated meant, so we agreed to go to good ole’ Google.  We found that the name for this gorgeous woodpecker that calls Tryon Creek its home, comes from its flashy pileum.  The Merrium-Webster site told us that the pileum is the the top of the head of a bird from the bill to the nape.  Phil’s photograph of our version of “Woody The Woodpecker” is the perfect example of the Pileated Woodpecker’s red pileum.

At a recent Story & Stroll focused on spiders and their webs, a group of pre-schoolers and I counted 38 spider webs along our short Trillum trail, aware that we must have missed many more. By far the stars of the show were the intricate webs of the orb weavers, a group of spiders in the Araneidae family. These are the large spiraling webs of concentric circles made famous in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, and like Charlotte it is the female orb weaver who spins the big showy webs. In fact, the diminutive male is rarely seen except when he spins a smaller scale orb web into an edge of the female’s.
Orb webs contain non-sticky radiating support lines- like the spokes of a bicycle wheel- that attach the web between two trees or other surfaces, and sticky circling lines between them. These lines are often so perfectly parallel that it seems the spiders must have built in rulers. Yet as large and complex as these webs may be, they are usually rebuilt daily. Once built, some orb weavers hang motionless upside down in the center of the web like a bulls-eye, while others will lay in wait on the edge of the web. When finished with their webs for the day, these conscientious spiders may consume their used webs to conserve nutrients. Reusing and recycling at its best!
The next time you take a woodland stroll you too can look for these master architects, especially visible on drier, sun-dappled days. Fall is the best time to see these insect eaters, as you may have noticed if you too find yourself walking into spider silk regularly these days. Despite what it may seem, there aren’t more spiders around this time of year, but spring’s tiny spiderlings have been eating and growing and are finally at their largest, needing wider spaces for their larger webs. Unfortunately for those arachnophobs out there, those wider spaces often turn out to be human pathways. However if you are lucky enough to have an orb weaver who has made her home in a more spider-appropriate location such as outside a window, take some time to watch your pest-eating neighbor. You too might come to appreciate the fascinating world of the orb weaver.