It's Mushroom Season.

Posted on October 12, 2003 by Tony Moreno

The arrival of the fall rains means that mushroom season has begun here in the Pacific northwest. With lots of moisture and plenty of decaying wood, our own canyon is a perfect place to find a variety of Oregon ‘shrooms, so keep your eyes open as you wander around. If you spot anything particularly colorful or unusual, please drop me a note so I can get a photo of it for our Canyon Fungi page.

While we’re on the subject, next Sunday is the annual Wild Mushroom Show at the World Forestry Center. You can see an impressive collection of mushrooms gathered from the forests around Portland and there will be a table of experts to identify whatever fungi you bring along.
– posted by Niels

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Garden Hawk II

Posted on October 4, 2003 by Tony Moreno

More people continue to report seeing the juvenile sharp-shinned hawk
in the community garden. Youth is all about discovery, and our bird is
in the process of discovering that even predators have their limits.
Yesterday evening, the ten-inch-long hawk apparently decided that a
nearby hummingbird might make a tasty meal and accordingly launched
into the air for an attack. Witnesses described what followed as “a
dogfight between a 747 and an F-15.”

After the brief, unequal chase, our slightly-older and
slightly-wiser hawk decided to return to the bean trellis and the
peaceful life of catching field mice. The hummingbird returned to
catching insects.
– posted by Niels

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Garden Hawk

Posted on October 1, 2003 by Tony Moreno

Most mornings this fall there’s been a hawk hanging out in the
community garden on the northwest side of the canyon. We’ve had a bad
mouse infestation this year and that makes the garden a good habitat
for predators. The hawk sits on a trellis each morning, waiting for
mice to move around, and then it swoops down to get a warm breakfast.
It never has to wait long.

The bird is a juvenile, which makes it hard to identify, but it has
a light front, a dark back, and a rectangular tail with dark and light
bands. My guess is that it’s a sharp-shinned hawk. Any birdwatchers out
there who can confirm that ID?
– posted by Niels

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Glorybower and Herons

Posted on September 26, 2003 by Tony Moreno

Zac tells me that the tree with the sweet-smelling flowers on the north side of the canyon near the pipe is a glorybower (Clerodendrum
sp.). I don’t know if we’ve got a species ID yet. Some glorybowers are
listed as invasive plants in places like Hawaii and Florida, but it
doesn’t seem to be a problem here.

Also, the solitary great blue heron at the east end of the canyon
has found a companion. The two of them have been spotted roaming and
fishing from the springs down to the land bridge. One heron seems to be
pursuing the other one around, making this a great time to see herons
in flight.
– posted by Niels

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Springwater Festival – Saturday, September 27th

Posted on September 24, 2003 by Tony Moreno

The Johnson Creek Watershed Council will be holding its Springwater Festival this Saturday, September 27th, from noon to 3pm in Gresham Main City Park.

The theme of this year’s festival is “Celebrating Johnson Creek.” The council invites you to come celebrate the many accomplishments of the year, including the release of the Comprehensive Watershed Action Plan (http://www.jcwc.org/actionPlan/TOC.htm), which will guide protection and restoration in the watershed for years to come.

The Johnson Creek watershed stretches 25 miles from its headwaters near the Sandy River to its confluence with the Willamette River. The watershed includes the Reed canyon and Crystal Springs Creek.
– posted by Niels

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Reed Canyon on "Oregon Field Guide": October 9th, 2003

Posted on September 23, 2003 by Tony Moreno

Last spring’s Canyon Day brought out a bluegrass band, a flock of volunteers, and a camera crew from Oregon Public Broadcasting. The crew was here to get the story on the canyon restoration for “Oregon Field Guide,” a tv show that focuses on Oregon’s natural areas. While we planted a few hundred native plants, the OPB team interviewed participants and filmed some of the activities.

Now we get a chance to see the result.

According to the OPB schedule on the web, the Reed canyon segment will be shown on Thursday, October 9th at 8:30pm.
– posted by Niels

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Pacific Northwest's Least Wanted

Posted on September 22, 2003 by Tony Moreno

Here’s a news release from Corvallis that drifted across my desk a few weeks ago:


    A new guide to the Pacific Northwest’s most dominant or potentially invasive weeds has been published by the Oregon State University Extension Service. “Invasive Weed Identification and Management (Pacific Northwest’s Least Wanted List)” is a 44-page guide, written by OSU Extension weed specialist Jed Colquhoun.

    The pernicious plant invaders covered in the guide include species rampant on both sides of the Cascades, including: Scotch broom, English ivy, false brome, kudzu, purple loosestrife, yellow starthistle, toadflax, Canada thistle, knapweed and more than 30 others.

    The guide provides color photos of each species, lists identifying characteristics, origin, habitat, ecology and gives several choices for control strategies, including physical removal, biological control, burning and herbicides.

    “Invasive Weed Identification and Management,” EC 1563, is available by mail for $5 per copy plus $3 shipping and handling. Send your request and check or money order payable to OSU to: Publication Orders, Extension and Station Communications, 422 Kerr Administration, OSU, Corvallis, OR 97331-2119.

    To preview this publication and more than 100 others published by the OSU Extension Service on invasive weeds in the Pacific Northwest, visit OSU Extension and Experiment Station Communications website at: http://eesc.oregonstate.edu. Click on “Publications and Videos,” then “Agriculture” and then “Weeds.”

I got my copy of the guide in the mail last week and found info on several familiar faces from the canyon, including English ivy, Himalayan blackberry, Japanese knotweed, and a range of thistles. Biggest surprise: Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), which blankets the lower canyon, made the list of top invaders. Second biggest surprise: Field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis), which is spreading in the community gardens, didn’t make the list of top invaders.

I’d trade a patch of bindweed for a patch of garlic mustard any day.
– posted by Niels

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Back to School: Canyon Tours and Tree Tours!

Posted on September 20, 2003 by Tony Moreno

New to the canyon? Curious about what’s going on down there? As part of
new student orientation, Zac Perry will be leading a tour of the canyon
on Wednesday, August 27th. The one-hour walk will start at the fish
ladder at 1:30 p.m. and highlight some of the restoration work taking
place around the lake. The tour is really meant for incoming students
and their parents, but other people can probably join in if there’s
room. Check with Zac to be sure (Zachariah.Perry@reed.edu).

At the same time Zac is hiking the canyon, I’ll be introducing new
students and parents to some of the larger and older trees in the
landscaped areas of the Reed campus. The tree tour will start at 1:30
p.m. in the front doorway of Eliot Hall and wind around the buildings
on the eastern end of the campus.

Having trouble deciding? Both tours repeat at the same times and places on Thursday August 28th.

Correction: The tours start at 11am on Thursday. My mistake.
– posted by Niels

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Seen any spraints?

Posted on September 18, 2003 by Tony Moreno

Another interesting bit about river otters, taken from Cascade-Olympic Natural History by Daniel Mathews:

    Fishermen here see otters regularly. Look on riverbanks and
    lakeshores for otters’ easily recognized slides, tracks or “spraints.”
    The latter are fecal scent-markers placed just out of the water on
    rocks, mud banks or floating logs, and usually showing fish bones,
    scales, or crayfish shell bits under a greenish, slimy (when fresh)
    coating which smells distinctive but not unpleasant.

I went looking for spraints and slides around the fishladder this
evening. I found several places where the grass was beaten down in
paths and where something had been sliding down into the lake. And
right on the edge of the land bridge I found a compacted, dried pile of
crayfish bits. But there wasn’t anything fresh and I didn’t see the
otter. We’ll keep looking.
– posted by Niels

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River Otter in the Canyon!

Posted on September 17, 2003 by Tony Moreno

For all you readers bored with notes about chicory, here’s canyon news
of a livelier sort: We may have a river otter in the lake! Zac Perry
tells me he saw a river otter near the fishladder entrance the other
day. Apparently, our otter may be living in a burrow on the edge of the
lake near the amphitheater.

I’ve never actually seen a river otter (as far as I know) so I
turned to my handy Peterson Field Guide for the following description:

    RIVER OTTERLutra canadensis A large weasel-like
    mammal, rich brown above, with a silvery sheen below, and with small
    ears and a broad snout; feet webbed, tail thick at base, tapering
    toward tip.

    A sociable animal, usually 2 or more travel together. Eats fish,
    frogs, crayfish, and other aquatic invertebrates. Dens in banks, with
    entrance below water, or other suitable places.

This isn’t the first time river otters have been seen here. Bob
Salinger mentioned them a few years ago when he described the canyon in
Wild in the City, a guidebook to Portland’s natural areas. But
this is still a fairly unusual visitor for most of us. If other people
see the otter, please drop me a note and I’ll post it here. A photo
would win you amazingly big bonus points…
– posted by Niels

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