Wednesday, July 27, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
sisters Country birds
By douglas Beall
Correspondent
The cheerful trill of the
house wren [Troglodytes
aedon] begins before sunup.
Named for its proclivity to
nest around our houses, they
are comical to observe con-
structing their nests as they
bring sticks that are too long
to fit in the nest hole and it
may take numerous attempts
until they place the stick in
the nest.
Grasses and feathers are
used to line the stick nest,
which also contains spi-
der sacks that help control
mites that are harmful to the
nestlings. The males may
build as many as 12 nest-
ing sites to attract females
and are known to destroy
other birds’ eggs and nest-
lings in order to protect their
territory.
The house wren lays 3-10
white to pink-splotched eggs
which take 9-16 days to
incubate and then the fledg-
lings emerge in 14-16 days.
The number of beetles,
spiders, grasshoppers, and
other insects that are gath-
ered to feed these chicks is
staggering. From my short
observation the two adult
house wrens each brought
an insect to the nest every
4-5 minutes or less from
5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. for
an approximate total of
400-500 bugs per day plus
whatever the adults ate
themselves.
Their breeding range
extends from upper Canada
down to the southern tip of
South America. A collection
of wrens is called a “herd”
or a “chime.”
For more house wren
photos visit http://abird
singsbecauseithasasong.
com/recent-journeys.
9
former spokeswoman sues over firing
By Steven dubois
Associated Press
PORTLAND (AP) — A
spokeswoman fired months
before former Gov. John
Kitzhaber’s resignation has
filed a federal civil rights
lawsuit against him and
others, saying she was let
go because she spoke out
regarding a matter of public
concern.
The lawsuit filed Friday
afternoon in Eugene reas-
serts claims Nkenge Harmon
Johnson made after her 2014
firing — that she was dis-
missed because she offended
Kitzhaber’s fiancé, Cylvia
Hayes, at a staff meeting and
complained that the gover-
nor’s office was blurring the
line between state interest
and the re-election campaign.
“(Harmon Johnson) wit-
nessed what she reasonably
believed to be myriad impro-
prieties involving the gover-
nor’s re-election campaign
team and his official staff,
including, but not limited
to, directing or permitting of
political activities by public
employees while on the job,”
the lawsuit states.
Kitzhaber ’s attorney,
Janet Hoffman, did not
immediately return a mes-
sage Sunday. When Harmon
Johnson initially went public
with her concerns, the gover-
nor’s office said she was let
go for performance issues.
Kitzhaber resigned in
February 2015, weeks into
his fourth term, amid sus-
picions that Hayes used her
relationship with him to
land contracts for her green-
energy consulting busi-
ness. The couple has denied
wrongdoing amid an ongoing
investigation that has yet to
result in any charges.
Harmon Johnson, now
president and CEO of the
Urban League of Portland,
seeks an unspecified amount
of money for economic losses
and emotional distress.
Hayes is also named
as a defendant in the law-
suit, and so are Kitzhaber’s
former chief of staff and an
investigator with the Oregon
Department of Justice.
The lawsuit contends the
investigator had Harmon
Johnson’s husband, Erious
Johnson, targeted for a “threat
assessment” in part because
he knew the former spokes-
woman planned to take legal
action against the governor’s
office.
Erious Johnson, the attor-
ney in charge of the Justice
Department’s Civil Rights
Division, expressed support
last year for the Black Lives
Matter movement on his pub-
lic Twitter page. The investi-
gator told his supervisors he
believed the tweets posed a
potential threat to police and
was given permission to com-
pile a written report on his
colleague.
The action led Erious
Johnson to file a civil rights
complaint with the state
labor department. The
Oregon Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission is
handling that investigation.
motorcycle fatalities on pace with deadly 2015
photo by douglaS beall
House wren.
PORTLAND (AP) —
Last year was the deadli-
est in decades for Oregon
motorcyclists, and the death
toll for 2016 is matching that
pace.
The
Oregonian/
OregonLive reports 31
motorcyclists died on Oregon
roads through July 7, putting
the state on pace to match the
60 deaths from last year.
Older riders comprise
a growing share of motor-
cyclists in fatal crashes. In
2004, 18 percent of riders
killed were 55 or older, but
that increased to 39 percent
in 2014.
A spokesman for a motor-
cycle training program based
at Oregon State University
says that’s partly a demo-
graphic shift. Patrick Hahn
says fewer young people are
riding and baby boomers
aren’t giving it up.
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