Biodiversions: Western Larch

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on November 20, 2009

It was hard to leave our yurt in northeastern Oregon with Western larch (Larix occidentalis) at peak color.  But when the flanks of the mountains there blaze with what looks like a procession of candles, it’s time to get ready for a harsh winter or move to lower elevations.

Biodiversions: Quaking Aspen

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on October 27, 2009

This time of year, I’m one of many throughout the West enthralled by – and worried about - one of our most striking fall color trees: Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides ). Utah and Colorado have acres and acres of aspens.  In northeast Oregon, we have smaller groves dotting the more prevalent bunchgrass slopes and ponderosa pine forests.

Biodiversions: Great Horned Owl

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on August 26, 2009

I first heard the strange noises in late June: whistling squawks that sounded like sea gulls five hundred miles off course.  The calls began at sundown every evening and continued throughout the night.  I couldn’t imagine what besides an owl would make so much noise after dark.  But owls hoot.  Right?  Couldn’t possibly be owls, I thought.

Great Horned Owl Near Burns, Oregon (2006).  Photo: Jerry Gaffke

Funny how assumptions muddle perceptions.

Biodiversions: Northern Pacific Rattlesnake

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on August 11, 2009

I had originally planned to post on another species this week.  In fact, I have a backlog of species that have been inspiring and distracting me.  But rattlesnakes have a way of making themselves heard above the din of all else.  So this week goes to them (I also continue to face the challenge of working mostly from my remote office with a very slow dial-up connection and have more off-line information on rattlesnakes than the other critters).

The Northern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus oreganus) ranges from south-central British Columbia into the Sierra Nevadas, where it roams as high as 11,000 feet.  In cold winter areas like ours, the snakes overwinter in dens and become active above ground during warm months.

Northern Pacific Rattlesnake heading up garden path

I anticipated running into rattlesnakes earlier this summer, but I didn’t see my first until August 5, and then I saw three.  Several days later, I saw a huge one slither out from under the tomatoes in my garden.

Biodiversions: Sagebrush

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on July 22, 2009

One of the things I like about writing regular posts on various species is that it challenges my own tendency to overlook or take for granted species that are common, mundane, or unpopular.

Sagebrush near Sisters, Oregon

Last week, I had the good fortune to take a brief vacation in the high desert country of Central Oregon.  I decided it was time to learn more about a plant I see everywhere throughout the Great Basin but know little about: Artemesia tridentata, or sagebrush.

Biodiversions: Chipping Sparrow

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on July 8, 2009

A number of small, brown songbirds have enlivened my spring and early summer on a daily basis.  One is the chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina).  It’s a fairly common bird throughout North America.  A pair nested in a ponderosa pine by my garden gate.  I passed them several times a day and grew used to their routines of nest-building, brooding, and feeding.  Now the young have fledged, and I miss them.

Chipping sparrow on deer fence.  Flora, Oregon

Biodiversions: Common Indian Toad

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on June 17, 2009

The garden is in now, so it’s time to get back to working on my ethnographic memoir on living as a family member and anthropologist in Nepal.  I’m currently revising the chapter where I describe an encounter with an enormous hibernating toad.  My six-year old son and his Nepali uncle and cousin almost hoed it in half as they weeded around a lemon tree.  My son called me from my academic writing to see it.  I picked the sluggish toad out of its burrow and prodded it to hop off to a safer spot.  Then I decided to pitch in to help prepare a vegetable garden and discovered a passion for growing food (and a lack of passion for academia) that continues to this day.

Common Indian Toad.  Credit: Toadily Toads (available from Wikimedia Commons)

Biodiversions: Bluebunch Wheatgrass

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on May 26, 2009

I hate lawns.  I dug up most of mine on a city lot in Portland, Oregon and replaced it with fruit trees, berries, vegetables, and flowers.  In the parking strips, I planted drought tolerant species.  Now on our property in Northeastern Oregon, I’m battling a much larger swath of smooth brome and other introduced pasture grasses to establish an orchard and kitchen garden.

Bluebunch wheatgrass grows in dispersed tufts.  Other bunchgrasses, such as Idaho fescue, and many herbaceous plants grow in-between.  It’s a wonderful example of how diverse native grasslands can be.

Biodiversions: Pygmy Nuthatch

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on May 19, 2009

I’ve been planting fruit trees, digging up sod, preparing vegetable beds, and planting seeds on our property in northeastern Oregon.  But especially on hot days, it’s tempting to wile away the hours in the shade of some old apple trees downhill from our yurt and watch the birds - yellow-bellied sapsuckers, bluebirds, sparrows, wrens.  Each of the ten or so trees has at least one cavity that contains an active nest.  I’m especially intrigued by the pygmy nuthatches (Sitta pygmaea).

Pygmy nuthatch in old apple tree near Flora, Oregon

Biodiversions: Ponderosa Pine

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on May 12, 2009

Ponderosa pine needles and cone

Growing up in Seattle on the west side of the Cascade Mountains, I always thought of ponderosa pines (Pinus ponderosa, also sometimes called western yellow pine) as exotic trees.  They belonged to what we called “the other side of the mountains.”  Whenever we drove over Stevens Pass or Snoqualmie Pass, the first glimpse of ponderosa pines thrilled me.  I knew we had left behind the rain and dense undergrowth of douglas fir forests (which I also loved) to more open stands where I could wander miles without a trail.

Biodiversions: White-Rumped Vulture

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on May 5, 2009

This is first of an ongoing series: Biodiversions.

About a month ago, I wrote a post on California condors, birds that had been haunting my imagination for some time. While browsing information for that post, I learned about the plight of carrion-eaters once common in the plains of Nepal, Pakistan, and India.

Biodiversions Coming Soon

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on May 5, 2009

Thanks to all who left comments on my earlier post to help me decide on a new name for my species of the week postings on The Clade.  I liked so many of the suggestions that I had to toss them back and forth for a few days.  I finally settled on Rachel Shaw’s idea: Biodiversions.

Help Name a New Column on Biodiversity

By Elizabeth Enslin | Posted on May 2, 2009

Starting next week, I will be crossposting my weekly column, “Species of the Week,” from Yips and Howls on Clade.  But I need a new name for it.