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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 2016)
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Tales from a Sisters Naturalist by Jim Anderson Counting noses It was the winter 1963 that I decided to go on my first “Official Eagle Count.” National Audubon was start- ing counts to establish trends in populations. Eagles occu- pied my life like never before when I was issued my federal banding permit in 1962. I became more aware of eagles because of banding, finding them shot, trapped, killed by motor vehicles and poisoned by coyote bait stations. Long before that, in the 1930s, I was a kid on the farm, and eagles — espe- cially golden eagles — were nothing more than images I’d seen in Finley & Bohlman’s extraordinary photos. They grabbed me hard. I think I was about 10, which would have been the spring of ’38, when I dis- covered “Birds of America.” That book changed my life! It created a love for books that is as profound today as it was in 1938. It also sent me on a life’s journey that is still alive today: my love of birds. Over these 80-plus years, William L. Finley and Herman T. Bohlman kept feeding me on their love of birds. While I was working with OMSI in the ’60s, I rented a little house on the Finley estate, Riverby, in Milwaukie south of Portland, and had access to Finley’s vault where his photos and per- sonal papers were still stored. As I sat there slowly sharing his personal life and accom- plishments, I half-expected Finley himself to walk in. If you don’t think that was a heavy moment for me, you got another think coming… Sue and I recently con- ducted our annual midwinter raptor count for the Oregon Eagle Foundation. It’s a route that took us from our house at Sun Mountain to Culver and many points in between. We returned to Sisters the “back way,” via Lake Billy Chinook, the old townsite of Grandview and all that won- derful deer winter range that leads one back to Camp Polk Road and into Sisters. Sue took the photo above very near the old Grandview cemetery, right in the middle of the deer winter range. Seeing those two eagles and about 10 ravens hanging around left no question that somewhere close by a deli- cious dead deer was going back to the soil, but hurried along by those who need such energy — badly — in winter. Events like this provide us with another look at bald eagles as they go from egg to adult. As one can see, it isn’t all one change of feath- ers from immature to adult for bald eagles; they go from gray down in the nest to all brown to speckled with gray/ brown plumage, to that juve- nile adult male with flecks of gray and brown mixed with the emerging white feathers of head and tail, then to that dark brown all over with the bright yellow beak and feet, brilliant white head and tail. It’s that varied plumage difference that sometimes throws birders off when it comes to telling the differ- ence between adult golden eagles and immature bald eagles; in certain lighting conditions it’s all too easy to mistake one for the other. But there is no question about different sizes of male and female baldies (and other raptors): Males are smaller 29 We have what you’re looking for! photo by sue anderson Juvenile and immature bald eagles; the big one is a female. than females. We had another occur- rence that day that I think is worth mentioning: The realization of the difference between “soil” and “dirt.” In my opinion, “soil” is that medium in which we grow healthy plants that support a diverse ecosystem. “Dirt” is soil that has been turned into a single use, or so heavily contaminated by Man’s self- ish desires, it no longer sup- ports anything tied to Nature. This was so vivid in so many places we looked for raptors, especially those with long irrigation lines and piv- ots. That soil has been used for so long for a single pur- pose — and so pumped full of chemicals — all it will grow is a “crop.” Nowhere was the dif- ference more obvious than on the north side of Lower Bridge Road out of Terrebonne. That area is used for agriculture, but not abused, there’s still soil there. It was so noticeable as we pulled up and spotted the first red-tailed hawk feeding on a small rodent. When we finally totaled raptors in the first area of about 40 acres, it came to 18 red-tail hawks, two rough- legged hawks (down from the Arctic to dine upon Oregon’s rodents) and a lovely little male harrier sailing by. There is only one reason for that plethora of raptors utilizing that small an area; the agricultural lands had a healthy ecosystem, providing habitat for the diversity of rodents supporting the raptor population. 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