2B
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2021
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
Camas flowers.
Few-flowered shooting stars at Kingston Prairie. PHOTOS BY BOBBIE SNEAD/SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
Few-flowered shooting stars.
Prairie
munal lifestyle is necessary for survival.
As their name implies, Acorn Wood-
peckers eat acorns. They drill thou-
sands of small holes in a storage tree
called a granary and stuff them with the
nSearch Assets utritious nuts. An ex-
tended family can work together to save
an enormous number of acorns. In the
fall and winter, when there are no in-
sects to eat, the clan lives off the stored
food in their closely guarded larder.
Slowly circling one oak after another,
I search for this family’s granary. Find-
ing nothing, I leave the oak grove and
walk back across the prairie with the
woodpeckers’ noisy chatter fading be-
hind me. Just before getting in the car I
lean against a fencepost, feeling like a
disciple who has just visited a sacred
remnant of the ecological past: the rich
composition of plants and animals in
the Willamette Valley’s nearly vanished
native prairie community.
If you go
Continued from Page 1B
Prior to Euro-American settlement,
the Willamette Valley had experienced
3,000 years of careful management by
humans. The Kalapuya people used fire
to suppress the Douglas-fir and bigleaf
maple trees. They lit low-intensity
blazes each autumn to keep hunting
grounds open and to encourage the
growth of camas plants, an important
food source. Mature Oregon white oaks
resisted the flames and survived. Win-
ter rains doused the annual burns;
spring brought abundant new grass and
herbaceous plants. Thus tended, the
valley’s biologically rich prairie grass-
lands covered over a million acres when
white settlers arrived.
A soft breeze ripples the grass as I
close the entrance gate and step into the
preserve. There is no trail here; this is a
place to wander rather than hike. I start
my amble by heading to a shallow creek
flowing over a rocky streambed. Bright
wildflowers called few-flowered shoot-
ing stars punctuate the water’s edge like
neon-pink exclamation points. Each
rocket-like blossom has five magenta
petals streaming straight back from a
yellow tube with a purplish-black tip.
Favored by bumblebees, each flower’s
downward-facing tip will point up once
these pollinating insects do their job
and the seed capsule begins to form.
Moseying on, I spot sprays of com-
mon camas rising above the grass on
foot-high stems. Bluish-purple blos-
soms present their six petals in star
shapes as a rosette of narrow leaves an-
chors each plant to the prairie floor. Vast
camas swales covered the Willamette
Valley in pre-settlement times, and the
sweet-tasting bulbs were a staple in the
Kalapuya diet.
Picking my way through the prairie
garden, I walk toward a solitary oak tree.
A cascade of liquid notes flows from the
tree in gentle, undulating waves. Lifting
my binoculars to locate the source of
this fluid melody, I find a Western Mead-
owlark on a high branch. I watch as it re-
leases another musical stream from its
gaping beak. The brown, robin-sized
bird has a bright yellow breast with a
black “V”-shaped necklace. Short, stiff
wingbeats carry it away as I approach,
and then it sings again from a small tree
50 yards away.
The meadowlark avoids shrubby
areas and forested edges; it feels safest
in the wide-open space of a prairie,
where predators are always clearly vis-
Directions: From Salem, take Highway
22 east for 12.0 miles to Stayton. Drive
south on First Avenue through Stayton.
Just after crossing the North Santiam
River, turn left on Kingston-Jordan
Drive. Go 1.0 mile and turn left on
Kingston-Lyons Drive and go 1.7 miles
to a pullout on the left marked by a
Kingston Prairie Preserve sign.
Best month: late April – early May,
when wildflowers bloom and the
seasonal creek flows.
Length: 1 mile round trip
Duration: 1.5 hours
Elevation gain: 0 feet
Age range: suitable for kids of all ages
ible. A ground nester, it chooses a de-
pression in the soil, lines it with soft
grass blades and covers it with a hood of
sturdy stems anchored to surrounding
vegetation. The meadowlark requires
open singing perches; isolated trees,
fence posts and large rocks serve as es-
sential habitat elements from which to
advertise for a mate or declare a nesting
territory. Very common in the Willam-
ette Valley until the 1950s, the Western
Meadowlark is now as scarce as the
prairie habitat that it calls home.
I leave the meadowlark to its singing
and study patterns at my feet as I walk
on. A series of neatly trimmed runways
crisscrosses the ground. About the
width of a garden hose, each route leads
to a hole no wider than a golf ball. These
narrow avenues are the work of gray-
tailed voles, mouse-like creatures with
gray fur, a blunt snout and tiny black
eyes. They dash back and forth on their
well-maintained paths looking for food.
Should the shadow of a hunting raptor
darken its runway, a vole will scurry to
the nearest hole.
On hands and knees, I examine the
vegetation that’s been carefully clipped
away in front of a hole. Nothing will im-
pede this vole’s dash to safety. Several
yards away, a twisted rope of vole fur
curls on the ground in a fresh deposit of
coyote scat — evidence that not all voles
escape predators. To survive as a spe-
cies, the vole relies on prolific reproduc-
tion; a female can have up to 13 litters in
a year. Vole populations are cyclic; as
their numbers go, so go the numbers of
their predators. When the vole popula-
tion decreases, Red-tailed Hawks raise
fewer chicks and coyotes have fewer
surviving pups.
Crossing the county road that bisects
the preserve, I explore the other half of
the 152-acre property. A grove of Oregon
white oaks stands near the western
boundary. With their round crowns and
thick trunks, the oaks remind me of gi-
ant bunches of broccoli crowded togeth-
er. As I get closer, I hear the raucous
laughter of an Acorn Woodpecker fam-
ily: waka – waka – waka, drrrittt,
drrrittt. Their calls bounce between the
trees, but I don’t see the birds. A jerky
flutter finally reveals the black-and-
white face, red cap and white eyes of an
adult woodpecker. It’s joined by four
others; they tumble from limb to limb
like clowns falling out of a circus car.
Soon, two more join them.
These comical birds have a complex
social structure of cooperative breeders.
Multiple males and females live togeth-
er, breed and lay eggs in the same nest.
Offspring stay with the family into
adulthood and help raise the newly
hatched young. Males are all related to
each other: father, brothers, sons. They
mate with females who are all related:
mother, sisters, daughters. This com-
Kingston Prairie, a preserve that retains the biological diversity of the
Willamette Valley as it was, before settlers arrived.
Miller
Continued from Page 1B
The plan is to cull information about
current and upcoming opportunities.
Drop me a line if you like it, or loathe
it for that matter.
Let’s get started.
Simple Cremation $795
Simple Direct Burial $995
Church Funeral $2965
SALEM
275 Lancaster Drive SE
Salem, OR 97317
(503) 581-6265
TUALATIN
8970 SW Tualatin Sherwood Rd
Tualatin, OR 97062
(503) 885-7800
PORTLAND
832 NE Broadway
Portland, OR 97232
(503) 783-3393
TIGARD
12995 SW Pacifi c Hwy
Tigard, OR 97223
(503) 783-6869
EASTSIDE
1433 SE 122nd Ave
Portland, OR 97233
(503) 783-6865
MILWAUKIE
16475 SE McLoughlin Blvd
Milwaukie, OR 97267
(503) 653-7076
“Easy Online Arrangements”
OR-GCI0571428-02
www.CrownCremationBurial.com
Bobbie Snead is a local naturalist
and nature educator. She can be reached
at naturalist.column@gmail.com.
This week’s highlights
Item 1: According to the Oregon De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife’s 2021
rainbow trout-stocking schedule, the
following waters close to Salem are
scheduled to be stocked the week of
April 19:
h Foster Reservoir east of Sweet
Home off of Highway 20 with 3,300
keeper-size (8 inches).
h Detroit Lake on Highway 22 east of
Salem with 4,200 keepers.
h Walling Pond, 16th and McGilchrist
streets in Salem with parking off 16th,
400 keepers and 50 larger trout.
Note that trout plants are dependent
on trout and stocking-truck availability,
weather and water conditions. For the
complete statewide schedule online for
the rest of 2021, go to Weekly trout
stocking schedule | Oregon Department
of Fish & Wildlife (myodfw.com)
Item 2: A reminder that the bait ban
comes off for anglers April 22 through
Oct. 31 on the main Santiam River as
well as the North Santiam up to Minto
Dam and the South Santiam up to Foster
Dam.
The bait prohibition requiring artifi-
cial flies and lures that is now a perma-
nent rule in effect from Nov. 1 through
April 21 was approved to avoid deep-
hooking protected native, non-hatchery
winter steelhead. For more information
online about the rule change, go to Arti-
ficial flies and lures only on Santiam
River until April 22 (state.or.us)
Item 3: While opening day is still
about a month away, reservations are
filling for the spring all-depth halibut
season, which opens May 13 through 15
off the central Oregon coast between
Cape Falcon, near Manzanita, south to
Humbug Mountain near Brookings.
For a PDF of season dates and a map
of fishing zones along the Oregon coast,
go
online
to
2021_hbt_map.pdf
(state.or.us)
Thought for the week: Old doesn’t
improve ugly – Henry looking into the
mirror after emerging from the shower.
HenryMillerSJ@gmail.com