I call this one something flower : ) I believe it may be a white wood aster a.divaricatus. The petals unfurled today, totally unexpected on that. I did a side by side pic of the unfurled head with the other head that just has 8 or 10 linear petals.
Exploring the Pacific Coast Highway
Day 2 ~ To the Coast
Day 3 ~ Florence, Oregon
Day 4 ~ Sunset Bay
Day 5 ~ South to Brookings
Day 6 ~ Redwoods
Day 7 ~ Humbolt Redwoods State Park
Day 8 ~ South to Wherever
Day 9 ~ Bodega Bay Beach to Point Reyes
Day 10 ~ Pigeon Point to Monterey
Day 11 ~ Fisherman’s Wharf to Big Sur
Day 12 ~ Onto Santa Monica Day 1 ~ Proxy Falls After a long travel day we finally hit the road and started off on our first real day in Oregon. To sum up Day 1, I would move to Oregon in a heartbeat if it were possible. We spent the day in and outside of Eugene. After a pretty hardy meal at Ihop (I love Ihop) we were off to our first destination, Proxy Falls. Proxy Falls is about an hour drive outside of Eugene following along the McKenzie River. Douglas Fir and Cedars line the road making for a truly beautiful ride. The hike into the falls is under a mile and the scenery is just indescribable. Wildflowers were abundant, trilliums, Round-leaf violets and Calypso Orchids were just a few we stopped to admire.




























Not the title for Day 5 I had planned as it should have said South to Eureka but we didn’t make it that far. I can’t believe were even still in Oregon. Originally we planned to land in Eugene and just drive through Oregon in one day to hit Redwood National Park. That’s what’s great and what’s not great about keeping an itinerary. The good news is that I love everything we’ve done the past several days and I wouldn’t change a thing. The bad news is the planned stop at Yosemite is out of the question. There just won’t be enough time to drive inland to Yosemite and then back to the coast. We have seven days left and at minimum Yosemite would take up three of those days leaving only four to complete the drive up the coast. I’d rather do what we’ve been doing and leave Yosemite for another visit in the future. I’m very bummed about that but it’s all for the best. I can blame the immense beauty of Oregon for screwing that up. We pretty much spent the entire day driving and stopping at every turnout we came to. There were a couple turn outs that had vantage points of the coast that you had to do a short hike to, maybe a half to 3/4’s of a mile to get to. I hiked a couple of these alone as my wife was getting a little sore back from the hiking and camping, were not as young as we used to be.



































A bit of a late start to the day, so we decided to search out a coffee house to get some extra energy. If there is one thing I’ll remember from this trip it will be m discovery of Mocha Lattes. I was never a fan of coffee, loved the smell but hated that bitter taste. Wow! those things are a small fortune. When we finally got back on the road we stopped at Bean Hollow which was a pull off with a scenic overlook.
















The Bird Feeder Coon-undrum
As much as we love feeding the birds last summer we had to put our feeders away, just way too many raccoons raiding them every night and in the early morning hours. Raccoons just don’t eat a little seed and slink away they eat ALL the seed and slink away. Any of you that feed birds know what an expense it is to buy bird seed, it isn’t cheap!! Last fall we fell back, regrouped, whipped up a couple new feeders and formed a plan. We were going to raccoon proof our bird feeders once and for all. I took one of the 4×4’s I had lying around and wrapped it in aluminum figuring the coons and squirrels wouldn’t be able to climb the smooth metal sides. It worked like a charm, all winter long squirrel after squirrel tried the scale the slippery post and gave up after one or two attempts.
Things were looking up. It wasn’t until late, late winter that the coons started to stir and we would see them scavenging the seed that the birds knocked out onto the ground. No big deal there, I certainly didn’t mind them picking at the scraps. Our confidence was indeed high that we had the problem licked. Funny thing about confidence though, it shatters easily. One morning a couple weeks back I was watching with delight as one big coon was cleaning up what little seed was on the ground. He looked at the post, looked up at the feeder and then to my amazement crouched as low as he could and sprang up about 2 foot high, bear hugging the slippery 4×4. He shimmied up a little, slid back a little, shimmied up a little, until he got high enough to get a grasp onto the feeder with one of his dexterous paws. If I had had a text bubble over my head it would have read “you S.O.B.!!”
Back to the drawing board I went. I came up with a quick fix. I drove #16 galvanized nails into the post and with my grinder cut the heads off and sharpened the shanks. I bent the nail downward to make sure they weren’t used as steps. I figured it would be a painful lesson but they certainly wouldn’t be getting in the feeders now. Wrong again, damn these coons are smart!
It looks like I was going to have to spend some money on another design. A quick visit to Home Depot and $40 bucks later I had a new plan. My thinking is that with a narrower pole the coons ability to bear hug and shimmy up it will be greatly reduced. I picked up a 4 foot length of 3/4 inch iron pipe and drove it in the ground about 2 foot down. I then took a 1″ inch piece of threaded pipe and cut it to 6 foot in length and screwed a metal flange on top of that.
That gave me a nice base to attach the feeder to. I slid the larger 1″ inch pipe over the 3/4 one that I drove into the ground and voila’ I was back in business.
So far so good, I may just have my bird feeder coon-undrum licked this time.
Wish me luck I’ll probably need it !!
Bird Feeders for the Photographer
If you just got started in photography eventually your going to want to take some nature pics. You don’t have to go as far as you may think to do a little wildlife photography, in fact you can start right in your own backyard. Birds, they’re everywhere! especially if you have a feeder or two set out to draw them in. I know what your thinking, photographs with birds at a feeder aren’t that natural wildlife image your after. I totally agree and I’m going to show you the way around that, it’s fairly simple.
Obviously the first thing you need is a feeder, you don’t need some fancy expensive feeder, plain and simple is the way to go. Birds don’t care about fancy upscale feeders they just want the food. Make sure you get a feeder that can mount on top of a post. What you want to do is mount the feeder away from other trees, fences, clothes lines etc, anything that the birds can perch on you want to be a good distance away from. Next, collect some tree branches, preferably from a hardwood. Your going to take these branches, you only need one or two and attach them to the sides of your bird feeder.
Either nail or staple them on horizontally or upright. I find that attaching them upright so they stick up above my feeder works best. You don’t need a massive branch, one that is less than half the diameter of your pinkie is more than enough. It’s actually better if you only attach one branch to the feeder. The less places the birds have to perch the less you’ll have to move your camera to capture them. You should place the feeder somewhere convenient for you to photograph, outside a window is preferable, at least 10 feet away. My feeder here is outside my kitchen window. I slide the window up (you don’t want to shot through glass) set my tripod in place, sit back in a chair and wait for a bird to land on a branch, it’s that simple. You end up with a natural looking shot of a bird in what appears to be its natural environment.
If you happen to get a little part of the feeder in the pic you can simply crop that out. I would suggest you set your camera to continuous shooting and get your speed up as well and always try to use tripod. Hopefully you’ll have several species visiting your new setup and if you do get some pics you can always stop by our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/natureguides?ref=hl and share one of your awesome bird feeder photographs with us.
(Black Capped Chickadees are tough ones to photograph)
Boott’s Rattlesnake Root
I love wildflower hunting but for me there’s one drawback, my memory. The older I get the tougher it is to remember all the hundreds upon hundreds of wildflowers I’ve identified and taken images of. However, there are two key features I’ve found that help me remember some individual flowers. Those two features are habitat and common name. I find that the more colorful the common name the better the chances are that it will forever be embedded in my memory. Some wild flowers just have a name that’s just to cool to forget. Take for instance Boott’s Rattlesnake Root, Prenanthes boottii also known as Alpine Rattlesnake Root the name just has that certain pizazz, I couldn’t forget that if I tried. The habitat in which a wildflower grows also is a great tool to aid my memory. Certain plants grow in certain places, swamps, fields, roadsides and mountain tops to name but a few.
Boott’s Rattlesnake Root is one of those species of wildflower that is extremely limited to where it will grow, you’ll only find it on mountain tops. Even more specific than that it’s only found above the treeline on mountains over 4’500 feet. And to be even more specific it’s only found on a select few high peaks in the states of New York, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. I feel truly honored to have had the opportunity to gaze at this beautiful rare wildflower. How rare is this species you ask? Prenanthes boottii is an endangered plant, endangered for those that don’t know the meaning is just a step or two above extinction.
Oddly enough the same people who are getting back to nature hiking the distant peaks are the main threat to this fragile plant. Hikers above the tree line who trample over the plants and erode the fragile soils from the constant barrage of foot traffic threaten this wildflowers existence. Of course we can’t throw blame on people that may not even know about the plight of this flower, the best we can do is educate people on what to look for and the key identifying features of Boott’s Rattlesnake Root so they can avoid walking over it and help protect it’s habitat.
P. boottii flowers from July through August and grows to a height of around 12 inches. The individual flowers of P. boottii are white to whitish cream in color and nodding. There are usually 10 to 20 flowers in a narrow raceme along the top of the stem. Each showy flower has up to 20 rays (what most people refer to as petals) with notched tips, you’ll also notice several long stamens protruding from each flower head. Each individual flower is from 3/4 of an inch to one inch wide.
The leaves of the Boott’s Rattlesnake Root have long leaf stalks, the leaves may be oval, elongated or triangular in shape and may also have have small pointed lobes present on the lower stem leaves. The basal leaves are usually arrow shaped. The leaves may be up to 2 inches long with each having a smooth margin.
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Of the few alpine peaks that Boott’s Rattlesnake Root is found in the Northeast most are accessible only via a long hard hike on foot. There is however one peak in New York that has of all things an elevator to the top. Whiteface Mountain which is 4,865 feet in height is easily reached by car up the paved road. The road brings you nearly to the top where you can either climb up the built in steps or take the elevator up from the parking lot. On any given day in the summer there are literally hundreds if not several hundred visitors to the top of this peak each day. I certainly don’t think that’s a bad thing, it gives people who can’t physically climb a mountain a chance to have that experience. What I do find very unfortunate is there is no mention of this fragile plant anywhere to be seen. There simply is no education of the public on where to step, what to look out for, what not to pick or even that this peak is home to a endangered species of wildflower. Hopefully those who are in charge of the facilities there will realize that a little education goes along way and they will at least place a kiosk that explains what a fragile ecosystem they’ve entered.
It’s my hope that Boott’s Rattlesnake Root doesn’t only become a memory in my mind but thrives in these alpine areas for eternity.
Enjoy the Outdoors
Snowshoe Hare Tracks
It’s that time of year again, a nice covering of snow on the ground and Snowshoe Hare tracks are everywhere. Of coarse you have to have the right habitat to find Snowshoe tracks. Snowshoes, Lepus americanus prefer areas with dense cover such as softwood forests, densely covered wetlands and thickets.
If you happen to be hiking in these types of areas you’ll probably come across a set of hare tracks. Snowshoe hare tracks show four toes on the fore and hind foot when they register in the snow.
You won’t always see the toes in each track when the snow is loose and powdery.
Whether you can see the toes or not the tracks are still unmistakable. Their tracks will show a series of four to five impressions. Usually the hind feet register ahead of the fore feet. The fifth impression which doesn’t always show, would be the tail. You can see an example of that in the image on the right.
The hind feet leave a large rectangular to triangular shaped imprint in the snow. They measure up to 6″ long and each foot with the toes spread may be as wide as 4 inches at the widest point.
The fore feet register as more of a circle or oval and are from 1. 5 to 2 inches wide. You will find the hind tracks in front of the two fore feet when you find Snowshoe Hare tracks. Most times the two fore feet register behind each others and not side by side.
One of the best places to find Snowshoe tracks is in a young Balsam forest. If you find tracks you may also find some Hare scat.
Snowshoe Hare scat is just like that of any rabbit, round in shape. Some people may tend to confuse their scat with that of deer but they really aren’t that much alike.
Hare scat tends to be round about 3/8 to 1/2 inch in diameter. Deer scat on the other hand are more oblong and each pellet tends to have a dimple on the end. This dimple is lacking on Snowshoe Hare scat.
Other evidence of Snowshoe hare presence may be their urine. Due to their diet their urine may be a yellowish orange to orangish red color. The color is from the pigments that are found in needles of spruce, fir and pine needles.
Other evidence of Snowshoe Hares being in the area are cuttings on branches, twigs and tree trunks. When Hares feed on plants their bite leaves a clean cut, at about a 45 degree angle. On tree trunks you would also be able to see the distinct marks left by their teeth with each chew. You can distinguish between whether a hare, rabbit or deer fed on a plant by the chewed or clipped end.
Rodents such as hares nip off the tip of a twig with a clean angled cut, whereas deer chew and rip of the end of twigs and leave a jagged or fibrous tip.
Snowshoe Hares are one of the few animals that change the color of their fur to match their surroundings. They are perfectly camouflaged in the winter, of course that depends on the their being snowfall. This changing of color is brought on by the length of day and not snowfall. Years where there is a definite lack of snow or late snowfall you can easily find a Snowshoe as they stick out like a sore thumb against the drab brown fall colors.
While snow certainly makes it harder to spot a perfectly concealed Hare it does make it easier to find Snowshoe tracks and scat.
Enjoy your time in the woods and enjoy Nature!!
A Promise

When I see a bud, thats what I see
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