Sea Snail Trail in Sand, Shi Shi Beach, Olympic National Park
A while back I posted some of our photos from a low-tide explore near Gold Beach, Oregon, and that got me interested in the marks and tracks left in the sand. I found this great photo on the flickr account livingwilderness. This photographer has an eye for patterns and forms in nature as well as spectacular scenes, in the American Southwest, Pacific Northwest, and New Zealand. Take a look!
We found this caterpillar on a ground peony in our garden this morning.
It is the larval form of the Douglas Fir Tussock Moth, Orgyia pseudotsugata. They are, like most caterpillars, voracious eaters and can have a devastating effect on Doug fir forests. Spraying, of pesticides or pheromones such as microbial insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis, and insect growth regulators, is often used against tussock moth infestations. Human activities, such as monoculture forest plantations, suppression of forest fires, and elimination of potential predators, have encouraged tussock moth proliferation.
We were able to make a pretty firm identification of the caterpillar thanks to a terrific book, Lepidoptera of the Pacific Northwest: Caterpillars and Adults, by Jeffrey C. Miller and Paul Hammond. [Forest Health Enterprise. H.J. Andrews Publication Number 3739. December 2003. The authors work at Oregon State University in Corvallis.] Each page has a good photo of the caterpillar and adult forms of one species, with descriptions of appearance and ecology, such as what plants they are likely to be found on. Great book! Your tax dollars at work!
You can view or download the book as sections in pdf form. This moth is on page 175 of this pdf section. The book, an oversize paperback, is published by the USDA Forest Service, and was available several years ago (& still may be), free or very cheap, from
Richard C. Reardon rreardon@fs.fed.us
USDA Forest Service
180 Canfield St.
Morgantown WV 26505
Here’s a photo of the cocoon form, woven around dead Doug fir needles. [Photo by William M. Ciesla, Forest Health Management International] Lots more information and photos of Orgyia pseudotsugata here and here.
The Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is an extremely common forest species in the West, a primary source of lumber, and is the state tree of Oregon. Notice the distinctive cone. [Image from Encarta.]
[I’ve made brief corrections to this post regarding aspects of hydraulic mining, after a commenter pointed them out to me. And a more recent post goes into matters at more length, on points where I was wrong, and others on which I disagree with the commenter.]
We took our new English Mastiff Jack for his first off-leash walk in the woods this morning. He is a 3 1/2 year old rescue who has been with us for nearly a month now. He has settled in very well, comes when called at home even if he is barking at the UPS guy, and so we thought he was ready for an off-leash ramble. Our elderly female Rhodesian Ridgeback went too.
The nearby Gin Lin Trail is named for a Chinese mine owner and “traces the remains of a late-nineteenth-century hydraulic gold mining operation in what was known as the Palmer Creek Diggings, now a part of the Rogue River National Forest.” [more info]
Hydraulic mining used huge pressurized streams of water to turn hillsides or mountainsides into slurry that could be run through sluice boxes to trap the gold. The photo below shows a large-scale operation in action, somewhere in this area of the Oregon Siskiyous, in the latter half of the 19th century. For scale, notice the tiny figure of a man wearing a white shirt, tending the left-hand water hose.
The tremendous destruction takes geologic time, not human time, to heal. Huge clefts are made in the land, piles of big rocks and new hills of “processed” dirt are put anyplace convenient, and the subsoil brought up doesn’t support plant life as well as the now-buried topsoil did. All this is easily seen along the Gin Lin Trail.
The picture above shows a steep slope of discarded material a steep-sided ditch, probably hand-dug to accommodate the miners’ equipment—sluice boxes or water pipes. Both the angle of the slope, and the composition of the material itself, are hostile to plant growth. Even on the top where it is closer to level, trees and shrubs are not as numerous or healthy as in undisturbed areas.
Miners blasted away tons of earth trying to follow layers of gold-bearing gravel laid down by ancient rivers. This picture (below) shows a cut made by their work, at the point where they stopped. making ditches like this.
And here’s some of the big river rocks moved as the mining went on.
The gold being sought had been deposited by watercourses running down to the river below, seen in the background of this picture. was in layers of Tertiary-era gravel, laid down in the bottoms of rivers 40 – 100 million years ago. Since then the river bottoms have been pushed up by geological forces, and cut through by new drainage systems. The ancient rivers may have had no connexion to existing rivers, since drainage patterns have changed.
Looking over the fence, from the same spot as the previous picture.
The dogs had a good time, and Jack stayed close and came when called, as we expected.
Because of the mining, it isn’t the best place for wildflowers, but we saw a few. This is Elegant Cat’s Ear (Calochortus elegans); the common name refers, I believe, to the fuzziness and triangular shape of the flower petals. This doesn’t show the plant’s leaves but there’s a good photo on Flickr that does.
Lupines don’t mind disturbed soil as much as many other plants do.
I think this is the Yellowleaf Iris, Iris chrysophylla.
And below, Iris bracteata, Siskiyou Iris. [caveat: I’m no expert on wildflowers so my identifications are not guaranteed! This USFS page has photos, range maps, and descriptions of the Pacific Coast iris species.] In our experience, this yellow-flowered iris is less common around here than Iris chrysophylla, the Yellowleaf Iris.
Below is my least favorite native plant around here, the glossy-leafed Poison Oak, Toxicodendron diversilobum.
In spring its leaves are usually glossy like this, and may be reddish too. On another plant it would be attractive but to me, the shiny fresh leaves are as ominous as the froth on a bodysnatcher pod.
We found it along most of the trail, flourishing as if it had been thickly planted and then fertilized and tended. If only my plants at home looked so good! Ravines were choked with it, and of course the dogs wanted to go running down into such places. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten poison oak from a dog’s coat, in all these years of living here, but there’s always a first time. I’ve often gotten it from secondary sources like clothing or even the touch of someone else’s hand. (In a post last year I described something that helps lessen the itching and make the blisters go away faster.)
The damned stuff was everywhere. Every plant visible in the photo below is poison oak.
Finally the trail ahead was overgrown with it and we gave up and headed back. The dogs ran ahead, enjoying the downhill rush, and got out of sight as we neared the small parking area, where I heard excited voices. It turned out to be the teenage park maintenance crew and their adult supervisor, cruising the areas to do things like gather up garbage strewn around by animals during the night. They were excited by the sudden appearance of a dog who outweighed most of them, and Jack had been pleased to see them but hadn’t bowled anyone over or been a pest. He’s a sweet affable guy except when defending his home turf, and even then has a good sense of proportion.
We loaded up our tired dogs, filled their water dish in the car, and headed home.
Thirsty dogs drink from the birdbath.
This morning before the day heated up too much we took the more spry of our two old dogs and headed out for a little walk. The border between Oregon and California is only about 15 miles from us by road; after crossing into California the roads are unpaved but not bad, and follow various river branches up in the Siskiyou Mountains.
The place where we parked was just before a bridge over a small river and then we hiked up along that river, crossing to the other side when our way was blocked. In August the water is low, but we saw plenty of winter driftwood lodged nearly ten feet above the current water level.
View upriver, from the bridge
It was mostly shady and cool and the rocks were great: huge outcroppings of basalt that may have continued down and under the river into the very roots of the earth, and smaller boulders of other types. We thought they were great; our dog Brook found them rough going at some points but did fine, finding her own route uphill from us at some points. Crossing a river, even such a small one, was new to her; I think she was a city dog before we got her as a rescue at age 5, and in the 6 years since we have seldom gone hiking with the dogs. Dan goes goldpanning, for fun, and has forded many a river in that pursuit, so he led the way and helped Brook out when she got too close to strong currents. She was nervous, though not too nervous to stop each time in midstream for a drink.
We saw an unusual plant in a flat dry area above the river: the “Ground cone” (Boschniakia species, perhaps hookeri or strobilacea). This is a parasitic plant that forms a tuberous growth upon roots of trees or shrubs, deep underground, then sends up a long flowerstalk with this pine-cone-like flower. Only the flower appears aboveground; there are no leaves.
There was a group of perhaps ten such cones within a circle ten feet in diameter. I looked and photographed from a distance because there was poison oak around and I’m very sensitive to it. But I got one shot that shows the dry flower petals, and the seeds.
According to descriptions I found on the web, the petals are purple, and the plant is a prolific seed-producer–“a single plant may produce more than a third of a million seeds.” [from The Natural History of Puget Sound Country, by Arthur R. Kruckeberg, in Google Books] The ten or so cones we saw may all have been from the same plant. The flowers are said to be hermaphroditic, having both male and female parts, so they can self-fertilize.
Not far away was a very robust Douglas fir with a branch that was almost another trunk, in size. Below, within the reach of idiots with spray paint, “Felix” had immortalized his contempt for nature in bright red letters (hidden by shadow and rough bark, in the photo). If I had surprised him at his little task, could anyone blame me if I tied him to the trunk and carefully spraypainted him?
In open areas there were madrones, which have bark that peels in gorgeous patterns and colors.
Back at the road, we went past the car to take a look each way from the bridge. In one direction, traces of old hydraulic mining could be seen.
In Gold Rush days, and again in the 1930’s, gold miners of all sorts were around here, from humble individual panners to gangs that tore aside mountain-sides with pumps and hoses to sort out gold from the dirt and rock. The damage to this hillside must have been done at least 70 years ago; a few trees have managed to take root but the slopes remain mostly bare and prone to further erosion or landslide. This is public land and I think hydraulic mining is restricted, but with the high price of gold we are seeing more dredgers in the rivers. They use a big suction hose to vacuum up sediment and small rocks for sorting; one person runs the hose while another often works underwater moving big rocks to get at what’s underneath. Dangerous and destructive, a double thrill.
But down below this little river carried on, looking just fine.
It’s hypnotizing to watch the water go over the rocks. But our dog Brook felt she’d scrambled over enough rocks for one morning. As soon as she determined we were just loitering on the bridge, not continuing across it, she waited in the road between the bridge and the car, and we finally gave in and headed home.
nosleepingdogs 