Ups and Downs

 May has been a month of highs and lows. The lowest was the morning of the 20th when I went out to feed the horses and found Jessie Anne down, unable to rise, with her back legs on the wrong side of a pillar so when she tried to stand her legs crashed into the pillar. From the abrasions on her legs, she had tried many times and was now exhausted. All I could figure was she had rolled in the soft dirt in the open horse barn and landed in an impossible position. If we had rolled her as one does a cast horse away from the obstacle, we would have just turned her into the wall. Johnny went for ropes and we tried to figure out what to do. We decided if we could get her legs in front of the pillar, she might be able to get up. However that proved difficult. Eventually, between her thrashing when we tried and our rope pulling, we did get both legs in front of the pillar, but she was so tired that she could not stand when she tried. Her daughter was standing nearby. It occurred to me if her daughter went out into the field, Jessie Anne might get motivated to try again. So I opened the gate and Nightingale went out but stayed close to the gate, nibbling grass. That worked! Little by little, Jessie Anne thrashed her way in the direction of her daughter. When she had worked her way to where she was headed downhill, she was able to get her feet under herself and stand at last. She walked very unsteadily toward her daughter. I cleaned up her many abrasions and put healing Balm of Gilead on them. She spent the day standing near her daughter. Her cowbird friends kept her company and kept flies off her back.

Now she is all healed and had a wonderful time yesterday rearing and kicking and acting like a wild thing, happy to have muscles no longer sore.

Not long after that excitement, I went to Bob Straub Park on the coast to do my monthly beached (dead) bird survey for COASST. Happily, I found no dead birds, just this distant, handsome Semi-palmated Plover. 

 

Meanwhile, Johnny has been busy getting the haying equipment ready as it is nearly that time of year. Plus spending many days and hours clearing the ice storm destruction from around 91 year old neighbor Irv's house and clearing and leveling his long driveway.

 I have been doing Black Oystercatcher (BLOY) surveys for Portland Audubon, mainly from the cove at Road's End since the path to get there is so long (see A Long Hike). However it is not as long as the route I took at Cascade Head this week to look for nesting BLOY there. I did not find any and don't think they are nesting, perhaps because of the ever present and constantly hunting Bald Eagles in the area.

On the day of that long Cascade Head hike, Johnny woke me at 4 a.m. to see the total lunar eclipse. I complained, but it was worth getting up for. I tried for photos at every stage but before it was totally covered and totally red, it had dipped low enough to be partly obscured by fog. It was pretty while it lasted...

 

Yesterday, the day after the eclipse and the Cascade Head hike, I had a routine eye appointment that turned out not so routine. One of the lenses that replaced my cataract lens had turned cloudy, which, I have learned, is not uncommon. So the doc put me in their laser room and cleaned it off with his laser. The operation is not painful but I am now putting drops in four times a day... and noticing that the other eye now looks blurrier than the repaired eye. So I suspect it has clouded over, too. I will wait until after the Memorial Day weekend to see how I'm seeing by then and call the clinic if need be. 

Today, however, was a happy day as some seeds are up in the garden! I planted the whole tilled-by-Johnny garden area nearly two weeks ago, putting long onion stalks and leaves down the rows in hopes that gophers, which are having a field day in the garden, hate onions and leave my seeds alone. So far, it seems to be working. The gophers are still making their runs and mounds... but not in the rows with the onions! Meanwhile the seeds in the raised beds, safe from varmints, are doing very well and we have lots of spinach and chard to eat. Johnny made some new screened covers to replace the ones I've been using to keep the cats out. The cats seem to think our raised beds are all kitty litter boxes.

In goat news, we have gone from barely enough milk for customers to too much milk... I've made cheese and ice cream and custard. Then it occurred to me if I did not separate the four kids I've been separating every night except when I need the milk, we would not be swimming in extra milk.

 

So as of now, garden is growing, horses are all upright, haying equipment is ready, goats are giving plenty of milk, and I can see. 

A Happy Mother's Day

 My Mother's Day request was to drive up Agency Creek Rd. and look for American Dippers at their nest sites. We did and we found them! 

But our first stop was not at a Dipper nest area, but at the old rock quarry where we often find interesting water birds and, once, a Dipper. Johnny spotted a weasel there once, too. This time he found the first ever Belted Kingfisher nest hole that either of us had ever seen. He saw the bird fly straight into it and not come out. We were astounded that it was practically at the top of the cliff. We had no idea Kingfishers would nest that high but I guess it's pretty safe from pretty much everything and the creek for finding food for the nestlings is close. I kept watching and finally the Kingfisher flew out and toward the creek. Of course, too fast for my camera. I have since researched and learned that these amazing birds dig their nest burrows 1-3 feet from the *top* of a bank and the nest tunnel is 3-15 feet deep! If you enlarge the top photo, look for the white splash below the hole that is on right side of the bare section of cliff, just below the greenery... maybe 3 feet from the top of the cliff.

While waiting for the Kingfisher to reappear, I took a photo of rocks reflected in the pond that sits at the foot of that cliff.

But I was impatient to find Dippers so we drove on. Our first Dipper related stop was at The Chutes, which is usually a raging torrent covering a wide shield of rocks this time of year. Only in the driest part of the summer does it become a roiling, narrow chute of water. But now, in this incredibly dry spring, the river is as low as it is normally in August. We found no Dippers there (the nest is a distance downstream but the Dippers often forage at The Chutes.) We did see a lone female Common Merganser in the pond below.

 

 

Next was the first of several bridges where Dippers have nested in the past: the Railroad Bridge (bridge for vehicles but made out of a railroad bridge). A Dipper sat motionless on a rock in the middle of the stream, very close to the bridge. We did not disturb it by hiking down to peer under the bridge. 

Just a half mile upstream is Sharkey's Bridge (I don't know how it came to be called that by the locals). This one appeared to have a lot of older guano spots on rocks near the bridge so I climbed down the bank and peered under the bridge. To my surprise, a Dipper was sitting on the bare underside holding very still. I quickly left.

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 The next site is what I call Singing Rock, because for years I would hear a Dipper singing in that area but could not find it. Finally a couple years ago, Johnny spotted a Dipper flying into a mossy nest in a fern and log shrouded bank. Today, Mother's Day 2021, two parent birds were busily feeding their noisy and demanding children.

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop, Asinine Bridge, so named because it curves the wrong way for the cliff... an engineering error. The mossy nest is quite visible from the road if you know where to look and have a good pair of binoculars as it is well hidden.

 

If you zoom the photo in, you may see the nest in the center of the photo left to right and about one third of the way down from the top.

 

The nest!

 

 

 

 We did not see activity at the nest site but Johnny spotted a Dipper flying upstream.

 

The last nest site is under the last bridge. Paul Sullivan had seen nest building activity here on April 15 and I did find a nest but no birds in view. I did not linger as this pair tends to be the most people-shy. 

A Kingfisher nest hole and Dippers galore. What a great Mother's Day!

A Long Hike

On May 5, Johnny and I hiked a trail I swore I would never hike. It is one that goes to The Thumb, where I have monitored Black Oystercatcher nests on offshore rocks for many years. But the trail I took is now closed to the public. The new, longer version is advertised as a tourist hiking trail, rated "difficult". It began as a trail to The Knoll but now few people take the side trail that goes to The Knoll. The Thumb is more popular.

 Another BLOY (Black Oystercatcher) monitor took over last year but because of Covid and a narrow trail, she only went two times. That wasn't enough to know the outcome of the one nest we both knew was there. So I vowed this year to go via the beach into the cove below The Thumb when tides were low enough. And I have, twice. Last week I was sure the pair of BLOY who were hanging out on that nest rock the first week were nesting last week, but from below I could not find the nest. 

So Johnny agreed to go with me yesterday, May 5, to keep me from getting lost. We read the directions online and studied the map and drove to the designated starting point at the cul de sac at the end of NE Devil's Lake Blvd. It turned out to be a very long, arduous, up and down hike. But we made it. And soon, so did a lot of other people. The Thumb with its spectacular coastline scenery is a popular hiking destination now. 

From up there, it was easy to find the nest... in the same place it has been for several years. And the BLOY kindly did a nest exchange twice, 50 minutes apart as is their usual, and we were able to see three eggs. Hallelujah! 

But I'm not doing that hike again. I hope the new monitor is able to go more often this year. She is several decades younger than us (probably four or five decades younger), but has the disadvantage of working during the week so has to go on tourist-busy weekends when the trail and the top of The Thumb are crowded. Here's our trek in photos... 

 The first photo is the climax of our trip: the BLOY returning to her nest of 3 eggs. Then the photos proceed in order along our hike, showing some of the several huge widow-maker trees leaning over the trail. We finally break out into the meadow on top and then the amazing views. And my much-loved views from the very edge of The Thumb, looking down at the nest rocks and beyond to the distant island, which this day had a mature Bald Eagle on top and a younger one partly down the side. The sign photo was taken on our way out and was apparently erected when this trail was only for The Knoll. 

 

This view of the Oystercatcher returning to her nest of 3 eggs made the trek worthwhile!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our first view of the ocean peeking over the meadow

 

Johnny at the top, looking toward Cascade Head. He carries our small scope in a guitar case on his back

 

Looking south along the Road's End coastline

 

 

looking north toward Cascade Head

 

 

 A cove just north of the Thumb, not accessible by land

 

 

The Thumb in the distance. Just one more treacherous cliffside trail between...

 

Looking down from the trail toward the foraging rocks where we often see BLOY

A closer view

Johnny on his final ascent up The thumb

This is the view from the west most point of The Thumb, where I sit to monitor the nesting birds. The Middle Rock, with the nest, is the white-washed rock in center of photo

The nest is straight down from the highest point of the rock. The two white spots are gulls.

Straight down from the gulls, below the horizontal cleft in the rock, at the bottom of this photo is the nesting BLOY

Here she/he is returning to the nest of 3 eggs

back on the nest

The view of another nest rock, foraging rocks, and Polly Island in the distance

the island, devoid of its usual hordes of cormorants and gulls

On the very top of the rock is the reason for the lack of seabirds

A Bald Eagle!

Down and to the right is an immature eagle

Immature eagle

Johnny on his way out!

Exotic Orchid and More

 In February, I noticed something coming out of the bottom of the big hanging basket orchid I inherited from friends Barb and John Woodhouse when they moved to Minnesota to live with their daughter. They could not take their orchids with them so gave them all to me. Many have bloomed but this big-leaved orchid in a moss basket, hanging from the ceiling of our jungle room, just grew roots out the bottom of the moss but no flowers. I was told the flower stalks begin at the base of a leaf.

At first, I wasn't sure if this was just more roots or what. It took forever to finally start looking like it might have buds. The buds developed slowly and began opening a few days ago. Today they were all three fully open and very fragrant. Stanhopea embreei is a very strange and exotic plant. I am so grateful to have been entrusted with this plant. Barb lived long enough to see many of her orchids blooming in our house (I sent them photos) but she passed away this fall before this mega orchid bloomed. John and his daughter Veronica get my photos now. I think it bloomed for Barb and John many times by the look of all the spent buds hat hung underneath it when we brought it home. So maybe it will bloom again for me!

 

 

 

April 23

 

April 26

 

 

 

April 27, definitely buds!

the orchid cactus want to get in on the show, too

And the babaco papaya!

This little orchid opened its first bud on April 20

On the kitchen window sill, it opened it's second flower finally on May 2nd

But none of those could outshine the Stanhopea when the three buds fully opened, filling the greenhouse with their fragrance, on May 3rd.

No matter how you look at them, they are strange! And worth waiting for.