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Saturday, July 25, 2020
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Photos by Ethan Shaw
There are many types of edges. Above, lingering July snowdrifts in the Wallowas link winter and summer, while at right a talus slope borders a subalpine fi r forest.
Examining the ‘edge effect’
■ Edges, whether the boundaries between rock and forest, or water and land, can be areas rich in ecological diversity
Not long ago I was hiking up
a timbered slope in the Wal-
lowas to a big fi eld of talus I’d
noticed on satellite imagery.
“Ground-truthing,” you might
say, something I often do when
I spot an intriguing feature on
an aerial photo or topo map — or
just want to fi nally see for myself
what an eccentrically named place
looks like.
To get to the talus, entirely en-
circled by forest, I worked my way
up through stands dominated by
grand fi r. I knew roughly where to
go — no need for a bearing — but
kept scanning uphill for the fi rst
sign of the break in the woods to di-
rect me. That sign ultimately came
in the form of a vague brightness,
then a vague motion: the quivering,
as I soon realized, of aspen canopies
up in the rockpile.
Soon I hit a jungly thicket of
maple and bitter cherry — a
gateway marking where the conifer
canopy opened up, torn by the great
tumbledown sweep of blue-gray
boulders and chips. Stirred by a
mounting morning breeze, the scat-
tered talus aspen kept up a steady
rustling.
The margin between the forest
and the talus fi eld was pretty much
knife-sharp, though the wooded
slope I’d climbed was sprinkled
with cobble that preluded the
bouldery domain above. There was
another sort of bridge between the
two realms — one shadowy, one
sun-blasted — at the upper edge
of the talus, where a tall Douglas-
fi r snag along the forest front had
toppled down out into the rocks.
Trekking around the rubble,
I dipped occasionally into the
fringing timber, intrigued by the
microclimate or bedrock to another.
You can broaden the outlook,
They also often refl ect topographic
too, identifying stretches of time
changes — ridgetop to ridgebrow,
marking transitions between eras
say — which may be related to all of in the way ecotones span habitats.
ETHAN SHAW
the above elements.
(For instance, we’re technically
Some stark geologic boundaries still in a so-called interglacial
contrast: the cool shade of grand fi r
are well on display in our ter-
period such as separates those
with lush beds of meadowrue, path-
rain, not least in those multicol-
intervals of extensive glaciation
fi nder, and thimbleberry, then back
ored Wallowas, where rusty-red
we colloquially call “ice ages.”)
out to the sunny talus and its aspen
and chocolate and white and
Then there are the “edge zones”
“whitewood,” bluebells and rasp-
gray peaks snarl up the skyline
between seasons spread across the
berry creeping out into the rocky
tainsides. Trees invade meadows
together.
elevational gradient in mountain-
crevices amid the plentiful debris of and steppes, risking fi re and
These are all spatial divides and ous country such as ours. July
long-fallen aspen skeletons.
drought and browsers to advance
transition zones, but you can trace is a good month to track down
Looking into the fi r forest from
the front lines of the woods.
thresholds into the dimension
spring and even winter on high,
the aspen rocks, and vice versa —
Large-scale transitions between
of time. That’s certainly true of
where heavy subalpine forest can
light to dark, dark to light: part
fl oristic provinces are called “tension ecotones, which shift over decades still shelter big snowbanks and
of the allure of the edge zone, the
zones” suggesting the competition
and centuries and millennia:
meltwater pools while down below
“ecotone,” the boundary between
and confl ict that, at least on some
Forests and grasslands advance
grasses have cured and foothill
two ecosystems.
level, defi ne them.
and retreat, variously invading
gullies gone parched.
Think of the fi rst ponderosa
(“Ecotone” comes from “ecology”
or yielding ground to the other.
Like I said, edges and thresh-
you hit ascending from sagebrush
and “tonos,” Greek for “stress” or
Wildfi res and avalanches establish olds and borders everywhere:
terraces into the foothills. Think
“tension.”)
fresh edge zones that may ulti-
many seams to be traced on the
of how the closed mountain forest
Broad ecological boundaries often mately fade away.
land and across time.
breaks up into parkland as you
feature a greater mix of species than
climb, then to the dwindling copses the more homogenous habitats they
and wind-punished stragglers of
straddle, a diversity called the “edge
timberline.
effect.”
Think of the sedge glade ringed
We humans are among the species
by thick woods, the brushy draw
that especially key into these natural
folded into bunchgrass uplands,
frontiers. Hunters know the border
the rough line where pine savanna between forest and meadow is a good
butts against tight-ranked mixed-
place to fi nd deer and elk that cycle
conifer depths.
between open feeding grounds and
Lakeshores, riverbanks, grain-
shadowy deep-timber hideaways.
fi elds sliced by shelterbelts: Edges
The shrub thickets that often form
are all around us, at every imagin- along such edges are productive
able scale. (To an ant, a log looming gathering places for us. Being drawn
from forest-fl oor herbs makes a
to the thresholds between one realm
great habitat frontier.)
and another — that’s woven right
Of course, these edges aren’t
into our makeup. It’s practical and
always so clean-cut as the talus/for- opportunistic; I also think there’s
est border. Whitebark pines dribble some inherent mystery to these lim-
down into the subalpine fi r and
inal places, too, that beckons us.
Photo by Ethan Shaw
lodgepole woods below timberline;
Segues between plant communi-
ponderosas may scrabble high up
ties can reveal other natural transi- The interface between a grassy glade and a forest on the edge of the
on south- and west-facing moun-
tions, of course: from one soil type or Hells Canyon Wilderness.
THE LAY
OF THE LAND
“Broad ecological boundaries
often feature a greater mix
of species than the more
homogenous habitats they
straddle, a diversity called
the ‘edge effect.’ ”
Heading to Texas to hunt hefty wild hogs with an air gun
A few weeks ago a good
pretty bad. Ended up
buddy of mine, Bill Olson,
in the hospital in San
BASE CAMP
who’s the publisher of Texas
Antonio.
TOM CLAYCOMB
Outdoors Journal, lined
The next morning
us up an airgun hunt with
we headed to Men-
Adventures Missions Recreation Properties
ard and met our guide, Robert Shipman, and
on one of their ranches in Menard, Texas. I
owner Scott Huggins. We sighted in our guns
was going to use the new Umarex .50-caliber
and then jumped in a blind.
Hammer on axis deer and then switch to the
We were going to hit the axis deer and
Umarex Air Saber and hog hunt. The air saber Aoudad sheep fi rst and then hogs. We set up a
is like an air gun that shoots arrows at 450 feet Slow Glow to get the hogs coming in and were
per second. That’s fast.
going to give it a few days to get hit. But some-
The hunt gelled fast due to the quality of
times schedules get changed up when hunting.
people making it happen. Bill called Wednes-
Robert and I were doing a spot/stalk hunt
day and told me to grab a plane ticket and
for axis deer. If I remember correctly it was
fl y into San Antonio the next Tuesday. D-day
the middle of the day and the sun was up and
soon hit and Air Olson (Bill’s truck) picked me it was warming up. By now the axis would be
up and we were off. We stopped by Uvalde to
bedded down under a mesquite tree or live oak.
meet Bob Zaiglin, whitetail deer extraordi-
We were creeping along stopping ever so often
naire biologist. I hadn’t been to Uvalde since
to glass with our Riton Optics 10x42 binocs. No
years ago when right after the bell rung, I got need for a spotting scope because half the time
thrown under my horse and he stomped me
we couldn’t see 50 yards.
We must have been moving along pretty
quiet because we got within 20 feet of a boar on
his bed. He shot out of the brush like a bullet
and Robert hissed, “hog!” When spotting/stalk-
ing I keep my scope cranked down to 4x so I
can take a fast shot. If something is way out
there you should have time to crank it up.
I threw up my .50-caliber Hammer and hit
him in the rear end. The big 350-grain slug
fl attened him. Impressive. But in a hot second
he jumped up and charged downhill straight at
us. Robert yelled, “he’s charging!”
I jacked in another pellet and leveled out
again. He was coming down the slope at a full
charge. The brush stopped about 10 feet from
me. I didn’t want to shoot at him in the brush
and take a chance of the bullet defl ecting so I
was going to wait until he hit the edge of the
brush.
At 10 to 15 feet he went down. I don’t know
if he stumbled and fell or what but I shot him
again right fast and ran up and shot him
behind the ear with my .44 mag and he was
down for the count. Wow, that was exciting.
Don’t even have to go hog hunting in Texas,
they come hunt you!
We dragged him down to where we could
get the truck to him and took him back to the
lodge and hung him up. We took pics and then
skinned him out right fast. I had a prototype
of the new professional boning knife that
Knives of Alaska is just coming out with. I’ve
been working with them on developing it so
am excited to see it hit the market, probably
by the time this article prints.
I whipped out the new knife and in a few
minutes we had a pile of meat. Upon getting
home I smoked the forequarter and wow, it
was the best smoked ham I’d ever had. Katy
and I made chopped barbecue sandwiches and
the forequarter didn’t last long. Now I can’t
wait to go get another hog. That’s the fi rst big
game animal that I’ve killed with an air gun.
I’m hung.