14
Wednesday, August 16, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Life in the night
If you go to your chil-
dren’s or grandchildren’s
house for a visit and just use
your camera to record the
activities of family, please
enlarge the “family.”
We share our magnifi-
cent old world with so much
other life, and with the cur-
rent photographic tools we
have at our fingertips today,
it seems to me we’re missing
a wonderful opportunity if
we don’t take a moment and
record as much of other fam-
ily life as we can.
Take the porch light,
for example. If you leave it
switched on for about an hour
before you call it a night and
drop into bed, a visit to the
porch and surrounding area
will pay off big time. When
you go out to check, you may
fall over your backyard cot-
tontail, your front porch toad
or have a moth fall into your
esophagus.
The cottontail has come
up on the porch for refuge
from a feral cat or wandering
coyote, and the toad is there
to snatch up all those won-
derful food items that come
to the light, many of whom
are not aware of the results
of getting too close to the
light, and fall to the porch (or
ground) either dead or suffer-
ing from severe heat stroke.
This time of year there
is a marvelous plethora of
animals that are attracted to
the porch light. If you’re so
inclined, you can grab up
your flashlight and take a
careful hike out around your
juniper trees. If you’re lucky
and observant, you may see
an adult ant-lion emerging
from the pit it dug as a larva,
and used to collect all those
insects that helped it grow
into the pupa and then after
going through the marvel-
ous process of metamorpho-
sis, emerge as an adult to fly
about in the dark, looking for
a mate.
Adult ant-lions are pas-
sive when compared to the
ferocious habits of when they
were a larva waiting for an
insect to fall in their trap so
they could munch it up.
As ants and other small
arthropods fall in, they are
unable to crawl out because
of the unstable material on
the inside. Plus, the moment
the ant-lion feels the vibra-
tions of an insect caught in its
lair, it flicks more sand on the
sides to further destabilize
the victim so it slides down
into the clutches of the ant-
lion’s formidable grabbers.
If you take a careful walk
out into your kitchen garden
you’ll probably meet up with
one of the tree frogs that sing
to you each spring in your
pond or your neighbor’s.
That’s the only time they are
in ponds — to mate and lay
eggs.
Believe it or not, those
tiny amphibians are hardy
and capable of withstanding
warm, dry nights out in the
open. They feed on ground
insects and slowly make their
way across country at night
to other locations where
they (hopefully) will find
a pond next spring to breed
and provide more frogs the
opportunity to explore the
countryside.
One of the most remark-
able discoveries I’ve ever
made out on the desert was
a tree frog hidden way down
in the muddy footprint of a
cow on a hot summer day at
the edge of Benjamin Lakes
south of Brothers.
Nighttime is also when
bats are on the wing. If you
watch a streetlight in town
for a while you’ll eventually
spot a bat zipping through
the lighted area as it snatches
Ash canoe seats, bent
beechwood chairs, and
classic antique pressed back
side chairs are all restored
with machine-woven cane.
We’re glad to do custom
work for you, and especially
delighted to teach you how.
Call to schedule work to be
done on family treasures during
your vacation time here.
—
—
Year-round
FIREWOOD
SALES
tiny moths and other insects
out of the air. Those little
moths perch on the big
painted plywood Monarch
butterfly under my porch
light, and are just a couple
species of moths that fly
about at night, mating and
feeding — and also being
snatched out of the air by
bats, frogs and toads.
There’s also a small owl,
the flammulated, who resem-
bles the western screech owl,
but has black eyes instead of
yellow. Unlike the screech,
flams do not eat small
rodents, but concentrate on
the insects of the night to
make a living. They nest in
old woodpecker holes, but
will use a nest box. Wouldn’t
it be something if you put
up a nesting box and a flam
moved in?
Sometimes a juvenile or
baby bat will fall off its mum
as she’s flying about feed-
ing on insects. If the babe
isn’t injured it will make
enough alarm noises to bring
mom back to pick her up,
but if extenuating circum-
stance prevent that from tak-
ing place the helpless babe
may be still there when you
come out to go to work in the
morning.
Should you come upon
PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
Adult ant-lion.
a bat in that predicament,
please, scoop it up carefully
with a soft cloth and place
it in small box, along with a
soft towel. Then call Sisters
wildlife rehabber, Elise Wolf
at Native Bird Care: 541-
728-8208. Yes, bats are not
birds, but Elise has a lot of
rehabbing talent.
If you come upon some-
thing you don’t recognize
in your night travels, please
send an image of it to me at
jimnaturalst@gmail.com.
With all the picture-taking
cell phones around these
days, someone will help you.
You meet the friendliest people
at The Hair Caché!
— Kindling —
SISTERS
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