Today I had the truly great joy of encountering Spotted Owls in the wild!

The Northern Spotted Owl is currently listed as threatened in the United States under the Endangered Species Act. According to Fred Swanson, the Andrews Forest was formerly home to perhaps 7 or 8 mating pairs of Spotted Owls, but their numbers are dwindling, despite substantial efforts to conserve their old growth nesting habitat. Currently, there may be 3 or 4 mating pairs within Andrews. As if their difficulties with forest demise weren’t bad enough (old growth replaced by younger forests managed for timber), their territory is now being invaded by an increasing population of Barred Owls. The Barred are larger, more reproductively successful, and more omnivorous. The Spotted Owl eats only a few things; the Barred Owl eats many things.

If you’d like to hear the sound of the Spotted Owl, here is a site that includes a sound file of their call (both hooting and whistling). The recording has it backwards, perhaps:  I heard them doing their ‘location whistling’ for quite a while before there was any ‘hooting.’

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Spotted_Owl/id

There is also a discussion of ethics and the “Spotted Owl controversy” on Santa Clara University’s website, for those who are foggy on some of the details, history, and implications:

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v4n1/homepage.html

I went out this morning with the “owl crew” — researchers who are gathering data on the Northern Spotted Owl in Andrews and the surrounding Willamette National Forest.  After a rutted drive, we hiked a short distance up-slope into rugged old growth terrain to a known site, where we met both a female and male, hanging out near their nest.  Amazing experience!

Delightful owls!! They seem small in my photos, perhaps, but only because they are in such large trees.

The researchers follow a protocol that includes offering a few live mice to owls (this helps bring them in closer for band checks).  Once they have prey in hand, they often reveal the location of the nesting tree. The female owl knew this drill (actually she even knew the sound of the tupperware mouse container opening,  I think).  She was not shy, and hooked her mice in record time. Her partner, however, was reluctant to approach us. The researchers were excited to meet him (“the boyfriend”) and said that it was probably only his second encounter with people. His first encounter was being man-handled during banding, so the boyfriend remained carefully aloof.

An owl researcher just deposited this fresh mouse on the great fallen tree beside my camera. The log was very large — maybe chest-high — and the mouse just sat there for a moment, getting its bearings. Seconds later the owl arrived. One minute the mouse was sitting on the log, wondering which way to go, and the next minute the spotted owl had grabbed it and was back up on the branch. The owl DROPPED silently on the mouse, just a foot in front of me, in one great outspreading of wings, then the snatch, and then a soft ‘whooh, whooh’ wing-sound as she flew back to her perch.

If you look closely you will see the mouse is now in the female’s beak. The spotted owl is wondering whether to “cache” her fresh-caught mouse, eat it, or bring it high up into an adjacent old-growth Douglas fir, where her nest is located. In the end, I believe the decision was made to tuck this juicy mouse away in a hole in the tree, and save it for later….

Later, the male owl DID bring a mouse up to the nest, which required a number of “ladder” steps, flying counter-clockwise in trees surrounding the nest tree, getting a bit higher with each perch. The nest is located at the very top, in the rotted top-notch of a massive Douglas fir; the crown is thick with new tops that have been sent up, and the nest is probably sheltered at the center, hidden between them.

My heart was singing owl-songs all the way down the mountain.  Best of all:  as I was driving, an owl swooped over the road in dense, mossy trees, just ahead of me!  I stopped the truck, turned off the engine, and tried out my new-found owl vocabulary, hooting hopefully (and badly) into the trees, wondering if it was the watchful boyfriend bird, but nothing answered.

LTER: Log Decomposition Site

Originally uploaded by miss_distance

This “Long Term Ecological Reflections” site contains evidence of a variety of high-tech and low-tech techniques used by researchers to collect data from “downed logs” that are rotting on the forest floor. As is evident when you look closely, most of these logs were cut and placed here. Research is intended to span 200 years, which is the decay life of some of these old-growth sized logs.

Today I spent about six hours up at this site in the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest: the Blue River Face, located high up on a forest road, about 4 miles from the headquarters.

This high south-facing slope was partially logged (in multiple parts, using a variety of experimental techniques and harvesting percentages) and then intentionally burned (again, in multiple zones, simulating different fire conditions). Now, the site is being studied for long-term tree mortality, bio-diversity, regrowth rates, etc.

While I was out up at Blue River Face, a group of several vans full of college students (forestry, I assume?) from Quebec pulled up, led by the Andrews site manager Mark, and Thomas Spies, a USFS Research Forest Ecologist, who gave them an outdoor lecture on the history of the Blue River Face experimental harvest, and the “simulated natural fire” techniques that followed.

Note: I had to carry a radio today, just in case I ran into problems like a downed tree or a stubborn gate or truck problems or some other calamity. I’ve been told there are mountain lions here, too, but I really don’t think I’d have time to call for back-up by radio if a mountain lion decided to revise my travel plan. As Tim Fox told me yesterday: “I think they’re there watching us… they stalk us all the time.” His sense is that they simply don’t attack in most cases unless they sense illness, weariness, limping, etc. So: note to self! Stand up straight! Walk strong! No foot-soreness here, mister mountain lion, just move along…. I’m not limping, I’m just dragging this heavy bag full of inedible notebooks….

After a long (unpredictable! windy! beautiful!) road trip from Upper Michigan, I arrived at the Andrews Experimental Forest in the Willamette National Forest late Friday afternoon —- just in time to check in, and catch part of a talk by researcher Fred Swanson, who was addressing an inaugural gathering of geomorphologists, who are calling themselves the Bretz Club, in honor of J. Harlen Bretz.

Fred Swanson gave me a whirlwind tour of the Andrews admin building, and we walked out to a “gravel bar” site in Lookout Creek, where geologist Gordon Grant was speaking to the assembled geomorphologists. From there, we drove out into the forest a bit, so he could show me a log decomposition study site, one of the “Reflection Sites” that the writers are asked to respond to.  Since I’m new to this pacific-northwest-cool-wet-old-growth-rainforest environment, every detail of the forest scene is new, and staggering. I’m sure I’m missing 90% of it, looking everywhere at once, unfocused.

Evidence of experiments (flagged markers, white plastic buckets and funnels) are scattered like a bit of seaside flotsam, hardly noticeable amid the grand old trees.  A few plastic buckets jut out of downed logs in various stages of decomposition, everything lichenous and moss-cushioned from ground to canopy.

I was given a topo map of Andrews, and marked directions to several other study sites including a clear-cut plot and the “Blue River face timber sale” (which is another reflection site).  My plan for today (Sunday) will be to explore the Andrews further.

Yesterday (Saturday) was my “establishing context” day:  a crash course in the surrounding GEOMORPHOLOGY.

After a serene night sleeping under great trees, with the sound of Lookout Creek sluicing over rocks below, I joined the Bretz Club gathering on their all-day Field Trip to see various hydrological, geological and vulcanological sites in the surrounding McKenzie River system, just above/outside the Andrews system.   We hiked in to a secretive “lost” spring  (large, cold, pristine) nicknamed “hobbit-land” and then up to the Collier Cone lava flow, hiking onto it and beyond, to see dry stream channels (complete with stream-rounded cobbles amid the broken landscape of the larger flow) and the absolutely stellar “Proxy Falls” — a waterfall which cascades down from a high ridge drainage area, forms a large clear pool, and disappears!  It is like an inverted spring, flowing down *into* the ground, where it escapes under the lava flow.

During our hike we frequently stopped to hear the fluvial geology comments of Gorden Grant, as well as current research findings (with lots of fascinating and as-yet-unanswered questions!) about the lava flows by researchers Natalia Deligne and Sarah Lewis and comments from world-renowned vulcanologist and professor Kathy Cashman. Often the group hiked with (or started by consulting) large LIDAR images, which are revolutionizing landscape research/scientific mapping, or we passed around small xeroxed copies showing the locations of numerous lava flows of various ages.  Some flows are hidden by moss and old growth forest, while other flows are young and easily visible, lying black and broken atop the terrain…  new research is showing, among other things, there are far more flows of distinct ages/events than previously understood.

We stopped at Olallie Creek (high Cascades spring-fed stream) for lunch, then on to see the Carmen Reservoir (and dry channel) of the upper McKenzie River, much of which is siphoned off through a surreal tunnel in the mountain, bypassing the water to an entirely different canyon, allowing Oregon Power to harvest hydrological power from the river, before it rejoins the original McKenzie downstream.

We hiked along the upper McKenzie as it roars in full whitewater form over logs and through rock gorges and over several drop-dead waterfalls, where the geologists debated erosion theories while the poet sketched and eavesdropped.  As a sign at the NFS trailhead put it:  “Centuries of visitors have stood in awe of this place.  You can almost see their spirits lingering still.”

Finally, we visited Clear Lake where we commandeered a fleet of rental row boats and observed downed (and still-standing) trees along the bottom of the lake.  The water is tropically blue-cerulean, ice-cold, and crystal clear.  The lake bottom is marbled white with diatomaceous material, reminding me of snorkeling over the white coral reef floor along Cozumel (minus the tropical-fruit colored fish).  We put ashore on the far side, and hiked around to see the “Great Spring” which is the source, or headwater, of the McKenzie.  Crystalline, teal-sky-blue, the water pours forth with such force that we could not row into the spring’s inlet, which enters the adjacent lake like a whitewater stream.  The Great Spring is surrounded with huge trees (including a great Douglas Fir that has fallen down into it on one side, and older bleached trunks visble, deeper down). As with the other hydrological sites we visited, there was a great rubbly lava flow just uphill from the Great Spring.

Repeatedly, the inter-connection was made between the lava flows and the activity of groundwater, and the interplay between river-courses and obstacles such as the lava flows.  It was fascinating to hear researchers discussing the underlying seismic activity of the area, including past eruptions and inevitable future volcanic events.  How do we plan for catastrophes?  How will these groundwater systems be affected by large change (volcanic) or subtle changes (climate shifts could affect groundwater volumes, seasonal precipitation, etc.)  The McKenzie provides a key drinking water source for cities like Portland Eugene… begging such questions as how will flooding or ashfalls or earthquakes continue to change this critical high Cascades landscape of complex systems?  And how to respond, poetically…

“Ideas without precedent are generally looked upon with disfavor and men are shocked if their conceptions of an orderly world are challenged.”

- J. Harlen Bretz, 1928

Quick post to share a bibliography — what the poet has been reading — from the past month.  Rich grist for the poetry mill!  Some of these books are my own, but most are from the park’s library. I must return them next week; I feel like a traveling monk surrounded by manuscripts in a distant abbey’s library, furiously reading before he must leave. I know I promised to send specific titles to various people (who want to look for them at their local libraries), but here’s the complete list instead. Gusty morning here, but it promises to be another gorgeous day in the Badlands! Putting the books down, and heading outside.

• • Anderson, Bridget. What Fossils Tell Us: The History of Life (World of Science: Come Learn with Me). Hong Kong: Lickle Publishing, 2003.
• • Black Bear, Sr., Ben, and R. D. Theisz. Songs and Dances of the Lakota. 2nd Printing ed. Aberdeen, South Dakota: North Plains Press, 1984.
• • Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2007.
• • Depostional Environments, Lithostratigraphy, and Biostratigraphy of the White River and Arikaree Groups; Late Eocene to Early Miocene, North America. (Special Paper # 325, Geological Society of America). Austin, Texas: Geological Society Of America, 1998.
• • Gries, John Paul. Roadside Geology of South Dakota (Roadside Geology Series) (Roadside Geology Series). 1st Edition ed. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1996.
• • Hauk, Joy Keve. Badlands: Its Life and Landscape. 1969. Reprint, Seattle: Badlands Natural History Association, 2006.
• • Harksen, J. C. Guidebook to the major Cenozoic deposits of southwestern South Dakota (South Dakota Geological Survey Guidebook). Vermillion, South Dakota: Science Center, University Of South Dakota, 1969.
• • Herring, Scott. Lines on the Land: Writers, Art, and the National Parks. Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 2004.
• • Jaffe, Mark. Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War Between E.D. Cope and O.C. Marsh. New York: Crown, 2000.
• • Johnson, Morris D. Black and White Spy: The Magpie. Honolulu, 1988.
• • Meade, Dorothy C. Heart Bags & Hand Shakes: The Story of the Cook Collection. 1st ed. Lake Ann, MI: National Woodlands Publishing Company, 1994.
• • Miller, Lenore Hendler. The Nature Specialist: A Complete Guide to Program and Activities. Martinsville, Indiana: American Camping Association, 1986.
• • Moore, George William. Uranium-bearing Sandstone in the White River Badlands, Pennington County, South Dakota (Geological Survey circular). Denver: U.S. Dept. Of The Interior, Geological Survey, 1955.
• • Neihardt, John G. (Flaming Rainbow). The Twilight of the Sioux: The Song of the Indian Wars, The Song of the Messiah (Volume II of A Cycle of the West). Cambridge, MA: Univ. Of Nebraska Press, 1971.
• • Neihardt, John G. Black Elk Speaks. Toronto, Canada: Bison Books, 1988.
• • Prothero, Donald R. The Eocene-Oligocene Transition. Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1994.
• • Retallack, Gregory J. A Colour Guide to Paleosols. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997.
• • Retallack, Gregory J. Soils of the Past. 2 ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001.
• • Schumm, Stanley Alfred. Evolution of Drainage Systems and Slopes in Badlands at Perth Amboy, New Jersey. New York: Dept. Of Geology, Columbia University, 1954.
• • Serrell, Beverly. Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1996.
• • Sheire, James W. The Badlands: Historical Basic Data Study. New York: Department of the Interior, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation, 1969.
• • Turnbull, David. Maps Are Territories: Science in an Atlas. Westport, CT: Hyperion Books, 1995.
• • Wood, Denis. The Power of Maps. New York: The Guilford Press, 1992.

Amazing science news of the day:  this amazing organism — Syringammina fragilissima — has been determined to be a gargantuan relative of the foraminiferans.  It is a single celled organism, encased in a fragile ball of sand-tubes!

There are still many mysteries inherent in how a single-celled form of life can demonstrate such creative, self-organizing properties.  As the article from New Scientist explains, we know almost nothing about it yet.  We don’t know how it eats, how it excretes waste, or how it reproduces.  The Syringammina appears to go through periods of building and resting and — like foraminifera — it secretes a form of glue, and gathers sediments to itself, to create the container-shelter.   Forams actually build structures with distinct/predictable shapes using different component grains, depending on their species!  I find the parallels strikingly similar (only on a much larger scale) with the foraminifera research of Dr. Sam Bowser, whose under-ice diving, foram-gathering and field-research camp I was privileged to observe first-hand at New Harbor, Antarctica.  Note:  Bowser’s extensive research on forams, including underwater footage shot at the New Harbor field camp, was featured in Werner Herzog’s recent movie Encounters at the End of the World (for anyone who wants to learn more about the odd world of forams).

I predict it’s just a matter of time until they figure out how to write poetry…

Zoologger: ‘Living beach ball’ is giant single cell – life – 03 February 2010 – New Scientist.

I’m exited to report that I’ve been awarded an Andrews Forest Writer’s Residency for Spring 2010! My residency will take place in early May, at the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, a research station located within the Willamette National Forest (Cascade Range, Oregon).  And yes, they really do have a 200-year plan!

H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest

Andrews Forest residencies are administered by Oregon State University’s Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word, which seeks to “bring together the practical wisdom of the environmental sciences, the clarity of philosophical analysis, and the creative, expressive power of the written word, to find new ways to understand and re-imagine our relation to the natural world.” Andrews Forest Residencies are awarded to writers “whose work in any genre reflects a keen awareness of the natural world and an appreciation for both scientific and literary ways of knowing.” Previous residents at Andrews Forest have included authors Alison Hawthorne Deming, Scott Russell Sanders, and Pattiann Rogers.

The National Science Foundation has designated the Andrews Experimental Forest a Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site — one of 26 LTER sites administered by the US, including research sites in the Arctic and on Antarctica, where scientists conduct research projects designed to span human generations, gathering data and insights for hundreds of years. Like the NSF’s Long-Term Ecological Research program on which it is modeled, the Long-Term Ecological Reflections project will gather a long-term record of changing creative responses to an ever-changing landscape.

For two hundred years, 2003-2203, writers-in-residence will be encouraged to visit key LTER sites in the forest, to create an ongoing log of their reflections. These writings will be gathered in permanent archives at Oregon State University. The mission of the Long-Term Ecological Reflections program is to bring together writers, humanists and scientists to create a living, growing record of how we understand the forest and the relation of people to the forest, as that understanding and that forest both change over time.

“Darkness is as essential to our biological welfare, to our internal clockwork, as light itself.” -Verlyn Klinkenborg, “Our Vanishing Night,” National Geographic magazine, November 2008

While doing some research, I learned that there’s an Observatory located just north of the Badlands — a terrific reminder that our National Parks protect many invaluable natural resources, and one of those endangered resources is a DARK NIGHT SKY.  Much of our country has become so polluted by lights that our view of the night sky is limited to just a few of the very brightest objects. Because I grew up on a farm in the country, I am keenly aware of how the night skies have been “washed out” during course of my lifetime. Here’s an image of the “Night Sky” showing how overly illuminated our country has become (from the International Dark-Sky Association’s website):

Badlands Observatory website: http://sdspacegrant.sdsmt.edu/bo.htm

Or watch a program about the Badlands Observatory, “Badlands, Good Skies” — as featured on SD Public TV’s “Dakota Life” series in January, 2002:

A town of less than a hundred people may seem like a place where nothing big ever happens, but when the sun goes down in the modest community of Quinn, population 73, there are happenings of astronomical proportions. Visit the Badlands Observatory, its Director Ron Dyvig, and learn how the vision for the observatory came about, the process of building the facility and the work that is done there. Meet some of the members of the Black Hills Astronomical Society and learn about their interest in the facility and astronomy in general.

View:  (RealMedia) movie: “Badlands, Good Skies”

River (water sample A) with Dunn photo

During the past month I gathered “water samples” in both scientific sampling bags and plain old fashioned mason jars. I felt like a little kid again, over-brimming with curiosity!

Threehorn Wartyback (Obliquaria reflexa)

This species can be easily identified because of the “pustules” on the exterior:  they alternate from side to side, so they are not the same on both halves, or wings of the shell.  In this photo:  the first nob is on the left wing of the shell, the second nob is on the right wing, etc.