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Nature Notebook

"The quawmash is now in blume ..."

[This column first ran in April 2003] The season of blue camas is upon us. The delectable lily and icon of Northwest prairies is now in flower and our island scape will soon be lush with…

Hummingbirds of Winter

(Originally posted December 2008) Two weeks ago, I watched a hummingbird fly through a snowstorm to get to the bird feeder that was hanging by my back porch. It was a female Anna's hummingbird, barely 4-inches…

Vireo

The rough-hewn path through the forest was strewn with the spent flowers of madrone – tiny, white, urn-shaped orbs that lent lightness to the trail. Near the end of April, the mixed woodland glowed in shades…

Red Columbine

I did not go looking for columbine. I thought the second week in April was too early for its scarlet blooms, but I found myself on the west side of San Juan Island and, scanning a…

KOZ AT 95

“Stick to me like a wet shirt.” With those words, Dr. Eugene Kozloff began the first natural history lecture series for the San Juan Nature Institute 21 years ago. Koz, as he is affectionately known by…

WESTERN BLUEBIRDS - RETURN OF THE NATIVE

What is it about bluebirds that capture our imagination? Henry David Thoreau wrote his iconic journal entry about the dazzling songbirds in April of 1852: "The bluebird carries the sky on its back," he mused. And…

Meeting Mount Grant

The view from the top of Lawson’s Ridge was stunning – or so I had been told. In nearly thirty years of living on San Juan Island I had never ventured to the summit of the…

Searching for Sulphurs

Mid-September. Migration time. While some islanders were watching the southern movement of birds I was standing knee deep in beach grass along the dunes at Cattle Point looking for butterflies.

How the Red-Legged frog got its name

It was drizzling outside - the first moisture San Juan Island had seen for some time. The gray countenance that embraced the dawn was a welcome change from an unusually long stretch of clear, dry days.…

SHOREBIRD STOPOVER

Last week, I watched a Long-billed Dowitcher foraging in the brine of a saltwater lagoon on the island. The appearance of the statuesque shorebird was an indication that mid-summer and fall bird migration had begun.

SOWING SEEDS

The last week of summer I stopped by the San Juan County Land Bank office in Friday Harbor to visit botanist Eliza Habegger. It was Planting Day at their brand new nursery and while I may…

SITTING STILL WITH TWILIGHT OWLS

It was a golden afternoon two days past the Spring Equinox. After a morning of deep chill and stiff wind, the day’s tempo changed. The sun prevailed in a powder blue sky, temperatures nudged into the…

Restoring Wildflowers

Standing at the turnout to the Westside Preserve recently, I counted the varied shades of gray and bedrock blue in Haro Strait and pondered the ashen sky. A pair of pigeon guillemots whistled their vibrant breeding…

CATTLE POINT

This is homage to Cattle Point – a 26-acre parcel of public land at the south end of San Juan Island that is a natural treasure. It has been an important meeting place of islanders and…