naturalist’s calendar
Knot to
be missed
What
ails the
whales?
The Oregon Chapter of the American
Cetacean Society will welcome
Colleen Weiler of Whale & Dolphin
Conservation as its guest speaker this
Saturday, Sept. 21.
Weiler is the Whale & Dolphin
Conservation Fellow at the Rekos
Fellowship for Orca Conservation and
also serves on Washington Governor
Jay Inslee’s Orca Recovery Task Force.
She will be discussing the status of the
Southern Resident Killer Whales as well
as the progress of the Governor’s Task
Force and implementation plan. Year two
of the task force ends in October and its
final report is due in November. There is
still time for public comment on its final
recommendations.
The presentation, which is free and
open to all, will run from 10 am to noon
at Newport Public Library, 35 NW Nye
Street.
Upcoming speaker series events
include “Tracking Humpback Whales in
Oregon and Washington” on Saturday,
Oct. 19; and “Ocean Acidification and
Hypoxia” on Saturday, Nov. 16.
For more information, contact
Joy Primrose, ACS Oregon Chapter
President at marine_lover4ever@yahoo.
com or 541-517-8754.
Wander in wonder,
every Wednesday
Manzanita’s Hoffman Center for the
Arts is opening up its grounds for a series of
Wonder Garden Walk & Talk Wednesdays
led by plant curator Ketzel Levine.
Running from 11 am to noon every
Wednesday, the class is a chance for all
manner of gardeners to discover unusual
and underused plants that thrive on the
North Coast. Each class will highlight
different plants in the Wonder Garden.
While class size will be limited, participants
can sign up for as many classes as they like.
The Wonder Garden is the jewel
in the crown of the Hoffman Center’s
Horticultural Arts program, launched in
the fall of 2018. The young botanic garden
is a living laboratory of plants from places
as diverse as South Africa, Turkey, Chile
and, of course, Oregon and the Pacific
Northwest.
Levine studied at the George
22 • oregoncoastTODAY.com • facebook.com/oregoncoasttoday • September 20, 2019
Washington University School of
Landscape Design. She began her own
business, Hortus Landscaping, in 1991,
then later began a career writing about
horticulture, botanizing and lecturing
for garden clubs, botanic gardens and
arboretums. After moving to Portland
in 1996, she became the northwest
regional correspondent for Horticulture
Magazine and a contributing editor for
The Oregonian. Her newspaper plant
profiles were published in the 2000 book,
“Plant This!” Levine’s own garden has been
featured in several magazines, including
Portland Monthly. A profile of Levine and
her garden was published in the February
2011 issue of Sunset Magazine.
Registration for Wonder Garden Walk
& Talk Wednesdays is $10 per person.
For details, go to hoffmanarts.org/events/
wonder-garden-walk-talk-wednesdays.
Newport’s Pacific Maritime Heritage
Center will welcome artist Janet Essley
to the coast this Sunday, Sept. 22, for
a presentation on one of the furthest
migrating species in the world, the red
knot sandpiper.
The presentation, “Tidal Flats
and Dark Chocolate: A shorebird’s
Perspective,” is organized in
conjunction with The Wetlands
Conservancy’s ongoing Ode to the
Tides art exhibit.
Essley will take listeners on a
journey around the world to the tidal
flats that red knots visit during their
annual migrations. Through cultural
cartography, Essley uses artwork
to guide viewers through efforts to
preserve the habitat upon which this
impressive shorebird depends.
Essley is a painter, muralist and
teaching artist with more than 20
years’ experience creating collaborative
murals with kids and adults. Her
personal work is often focused on
environmental issues, with “The
Cultural Cartography of Red Knots”
being her most recent project. Before
settling into a career in art, she worked
in reforestation in Pacific Northwest
forests for 15 years. She has had the
opportunity to volunteer on a variety
of wildlife studies that included Brant
Geese and California Gray whales in
Baja, California and Orcas in British
Columbia. It was in the marine
estuaries of Baja that her interest in
birds began. She and her husband now
live in White Salmon, Washington.
Sunday’s reception will run from 2 to
4 pm at 333 SE Bay Blvd, featuring an
artists’ talk from 2:30 to 3:30 pm.