The clear fluting song of a western meadowlark rang out as I progressed slowly up the trail. It was a cold crisp winter evening and the sky was just beginning to darken as the sun slowly sank toward the horizon. The chill enlivened my cheeks and the heat radiating from my body turned my skin a rosy pink.
However, it wasn’t the call of the meadowlark or the cold winter air that held my attention. Rather, it was the twisted trunks and limbs of the bare white oaks reaching toward the sinking sun that captivated my mind. These perhaps centuries old sentinels dotted the open grasslands and congregated in the woodlands where I walked.
Natural History
Oak growth is often achingly slow, reaching heights of roughly 40 to 90 feet at maturity.
Yet, these hardy hardwoods seem to withstand the test of time, capable of living for centuries in harsh conditions, including through windstorms, drought and fire. In fact, Oregon White Oak are considered a fire dependent species, as they rely on fire to keep competing plants at bay.
Historically, natural wildfire and traditional burning practices of the indigenous Kalapuya maintained oak populations. However, with European colonization, fires were suppressed and the land was developed for other uses, like agriculture, eliminating as much as 99% of oak savanna in the Willamette Valley.
Now, many of the oaks that remain are found nestled between concrete and farmland. Even in the refuge, where I rambled, restored oak habitats sit alongside several large tracts of agriculture, supplying seed and grain to wintering geese.
Habitat
Rounding a bend, I entered denser woodland, the oak’s dry pinnately lobed leaves, long ago fallen, now crunched under feet. The trees grew straighter in the woods–their branches all reaching upwards toward the light. It was here that I noticed a small oak snag with a narrow open hollow. I wondered what occupied the space and drew in for a closer look.
In general, Oregon oak ecosystems are incredibly important wildlife habitat. Oaks themselves provide abundant food. Many birds, like the acorn woodpecker, and native squirrels feed on their acorns. The oak’s minute flowers also provide nectar to many insect pollinators, while their leaves are food for a variety of native caterpillars. The oak genus is known as a keystone host plant for caterpillars.
Then, of course, the cavities that form, especially in large trees that hollow out as they age, provide nesting habitat for birds, like the white breasted nuthatch, and bats. Though no one was home in my snag, it would not be surprising if at one point a northern pygmy owl or western gray squirrel had found refuge here.
Supporting over 200 species, oak habitats are considered biodiversity hotspots. These habitats are home to many rare and unusual species, such as purple Kincaid’s lupine and endangered Fender’s blue butterfly. In spring, oak prairies are decorated with these species among others, like the lemon-yellow golden paintbrush and cat’s ear lily, to name a few.
Sinking
The sun was now much lower on the horizon as I neared the end of my walk. Through the branches of the oak and the dense horizon, the golden colors of sunset began to work their magic as I traveled onward toward fading light. Soon, I left the woods and walked toward the edge of an oak prairie hilltop. Arriving at a viewpoint, a few oaks silhouetted against the sky, I stopped and watched the sunset through the gnarled limbs of these magnificent trees.
Then a few weeks ago, my heart sunk when I saw an article from OPB reporting a new threat to Oregon white oak trees. An invasive pest, the Mediterranean oak borer (MOB), has started wreaking havoc on the Willamette Valley’s Oregon white oak. Immediately, I thought about my experience walking among the oaks. Could the sun be setting on this important species permanently?
The MOB are reddish-brown beetles that are known to entomologists as ambrosia beetles–a type of beetle that bores into trees infecting them with a fungus that it uses as a food source. MOB are, in essence, farmers; however, the fungus being cultivated by the beetles ultimately kills the host tree.
Summer trapping for MOB found that these beetles are present in the northern Willamette valley and that Oregon white oaks are being affected–though the extent of the problem still remains to be seen. Anecdotally, it seems that larger, already stressed trees are being killed by MOB. And so far there are no major die-offs of Oregon white oak reported. Good news for now.
Heading Home
After the sun had dropped below the horizon, I walked down the hill and back to my car. As I descended, a flock of geese squawked a festive goodbye as they flew overhead. However, it was the silent farewell of the oak that I carried with me–a stoic silhouette against the ever darkening sky.
Today, as I contemplate the fate of these ever significant trees, I choose to remain hopeful. Despite mounting threats, Oregon white oak still has a lot going for it as a climate adapted species, with the potential to thrive in our changing climate. Plus there are a lot of folks on their side, working to understand and protect oak. So for now, I will look forward to a new dawn and another winter walk among the oak.
‘Tis the season for fragrant evergreens. Fresh, woody, crisp, sharp or earthy–evergreen trees and boughs bring olfactory bliss to anyone who dares take a sniff. Each conifer has its own unique smell derived from chemical compounds in their needles and bark. Collectively these chemicals are called terpenes (based on 5-carbon units known as isoprenes) and are usually produced as part of the tree’s defense mechanism–warding off potential pests and disease–among a range of other functions. For humans, however, there is mounting evidence that forest scents may also have many potential therapeutic benefits; making a walk in the forest (a.k.a. forest bathing), just that much more appealing
As for me, the health benefits of terpenes is– like the frost on a cold winter morning– a welcome bonus! Thus, this winter I have set out to not only visually observe the many different species of conifer in my local forests, but smell them–crushing needles all the way. Today, I give you my findings thus far:
Douglas-fir
Douglas-fir can be identified by its soft, flat, 1-1.5 inch needles that spiral around each branch with two white bloom lines on the underside. When pinched or crushed, Douglas-fir needles have a mild sweet lemon and woody scent. Look for their distinct cones pointing downward with three-pronged bracts that stick out from beneath each scale or their dark pointed buds to help confirm identification.
Western redcedar
Tiny, flat-scale like leaves, often with a butterfly shaped bloom on the underside, arrange onto droopy sprays of foliage that fall opposite each other on each branch. This moisture-loving conifer’s leaves are delightfully sugary-sweet smelling with perhaps a hint of pineapple or pear. If you are lucky, you may find some of its rose-bud shaped cones hanging in clusters from the branches.
Western hemlock
Short, flat soft needles of variable length (no longer than ¾ an inch), arrange themselves irregularly around each branch, creating what I like to call the “bedhead” effect. This shade-tolerant conifer’s needles smell faintly like grapefruit when crushed. On a nice day, watch the sunrays scatter through the hemlock canopy; look up and find its drooping leader–a telltale hemlock trait.
Ponderosa pine
Very long, fairly stiff needles (5-10 inches) grow from the ponderosa in bundles of three. When crushed these needles smell woody and sharp, like turpentine (unsurprisingly). Notice the thick puzzle-piece shaped bark of the ponderosa pine–a helpful adaptation to low-intensity fire. If you find a mature tree, take a whiff of the bark, as well, as it is known to give off a sweet vanilla or caramel scent, especially when warmed by the sun.
Grand fir
Two-ranked shiny, dark green needles, with two-white stomatal bands below, splay out like the keys of a grand piano. As for the smell, well this one is a favorite–warm and citrusy, like tangerines. Their stiff branches give the grand fir a stately more structural appearance, similar to other firs, with cones that face upwards high in the branches.
So, go on a walk in your local forest and bask in the many sights and smells it offers. Enjoy the complexity that nature offers as you roam. Stop and smell an evergreen.
On a quick hike in McDonald Research Forest, I once again find myself admiring a string of short, scrubby evergreen trees that run along the northside of Section 36 Loop trail. Ah yes: the Pacific yew(Taxus brevifolia). Due to the their unassuming looks and propensity to grow moss, yews are often overlooked by many who visit the forest. However, I am drawn to the humble Pacific yew this day. I must stop and take a closer look.
Getting to know yew
Upon inspection, deep reddish piecemeal bark flakes from beneath a blanket of moss that envelopes much of the trunk and its many spreading branches. The foliage consists of green, flat pointed-needles that splay out from each twig in a V-shaped formation, like geese flying south for the winter. Flipping over a branch, the pale sage underbellies of the needles are revealed confirming my identification.
It is winter and it is wet in the understory where the Pacific yew humbly resides. A thin veneer of rain coats the needles so that they shimmer–a festive display for the season. Forest raindrops fall from the foliage overhead, tapping gently on the hood of my rain jacket, while the moss covering the yew, unabashedly slurp up each drop.
Through the seasons
As I continue down the trail, spotting another yew and then another, my mind wanders back in time to past seasons. My fingers trace the edges of space where the delicate-leaved western meadow-rue bloom in spring, while my eyes glance around for the ghostly remembrances of pink fairy slippers and white trillium. My thoughts eventually careening back again to the Pacific yew. What do yew do come spring?
Yew “bloom” too. In spring, yew trees will adorn their twigs with inconspicuous strobili, or “flowers.” Dioecious plants–male yew will make male strobili and female yew, female strobili, respectively. Later in summer, the female stromboli will mature into bright red, berry-like arils. Though they look tasty–do not partake–yew are poisonous to many, including humans.
Thank a yew
Soon, I am skittering along past Cronemiller Lake, nearing the end of my hike, but my mind is still fixed on this amazing plant. The story of the yew is closely intertwined with humankind. Yew, like many sessile lifeforms, are experts at chemical warfare–producing toxins to ward off whatever may cause them harm. Amongst the yew’s arsenal is a chemical now known as taxol–first discovered and isolated from the bark of the Pacific yew in the 1960s and 70s. Since then, taxol has proved to be an effective cancer fighting drug with the ability to disrupt the process of cell division in cancer cells. Though now taxol is manufactured, yew trees gave us the blueprint for drugs that have undoubtedly saved many human lives.
So thank you, yew. And thank you, too, for listening to me ramble as I pay homage to this underdog of a tree that has done a lot for humanity.
Looking for yew
The Section 36 loop in McDonald Forest is one of my personal favorite places to look for Pacific yew, but you may find them along many trails in mid to low elevation forests in the Pacific Northwest or Rocky Mountains. Look for yew in moist forested areas often scattered among other conifers, like shady ravines or along streams.
The road narrowed and grew shrubby as Andrew, Maddie (a graduate student at OSU) and I pulled up, looking for a place to park. Just behind us was the rest of the team in a second vehicle—Charles, another experienced member of the crew, at the helm.
“This one is very steep,” said Andrew with a grin. “We are going to challenge some of them [crew members].”
We were at Site number 93. The area had been sampled for fire scars on the opposite side of the road already. The plan today was to focus on setting up a plot and gathering forest development data which mainly involves coring trees.
Forest development, Andrew explains, is the history of how a forest changes over time. By gathering plot data and coring trees, he hopes to understand the different development trajectories a forest might undergo in relation to its disturbance history.
Fire Record
The fire record for the site showed fires in 1759, 1836, 1844, and 1883. But you wouldn’t know it from looking at it. The trees at this site were much larger and a good deal older than the forest we had sampled earlier in the day.
The fires, Andrew predicted, must have been low severity with low tree mortality since there are so many older living trees at the site. The oldest of the trees are over 800 years old, established in 1190, possibly following a stand-replacing fire.
“Now when we core the site,” said Andrew, “It will be interesting to see if we find cohorts of hemlock and cedar related to these fires [in the 1800s] because presumably they come in because of gaps or openings.”
Plotting a Plot
After gathering all of the necessary equipment, the crew, Andrew and I headed down through a thicket of young conifers that lined the road. The slope was steep as we navigated our way over and around downed logs and branches. Eventually, we reach the ancient forest and what would be our plot center.
Andrew’s plot design follows the same format as the Forest Inventory Analysis Program of the U.S. Forest Service—with three circular plots that branch out at 120 angles from a central plot (each with a radius of 58.9 feet) and smaller subplots and microplots inside these.
Andrew staked out the center of plot one. He chose the site in hopes of capturing multiple cohorts of trees, including a large old-growth Douglas-fir that sat just downhill of the center.
While he gathered some basic plot data, he set most of his crew to work on coring trees.
Growth Rings
Gathering core samples from all the trees in the plot is both the most time-consuming and important part of the plot data Andrew’s crew collects. Each core is carefully packaged and carried back to the lab for closer analysis.
Cores can tell you a lot of things about trees. The size of the rings tells you about growing conditions, while the number of rings tells you about the age of each tree and when it was established.
Charles and some of the crew stayed nearby coring some of the smaller trees on the uphill slope. Maddy and one other crew member took a stab at the behemoth below.
Coring Efforts
I sat with Charles for a while to try and learn the secret to getting the perfect core. Charles was coring a hemlock tree—a species notorious for being rotten on the inside. The bit screeched as he rotated the handle.
“As a general rule, if a tree is leaning the pith should be away from the lean,” Charles explained. “I chose the side that is kind of oval. I want to core into the shortest side of it… to core the shortest distance.”
Charles originally studied the Classic Period in school before returning to graduate school to study forests—something he had wanted to do for years. He explained enthusiastically how the field of forest ecology has placed a greater emphasis on humans as part of the ecosystems in recent years. A change for the better. The borer clicked as he talked.
Before long, Charles reached the center and stopped coring. He rotated the handle counterclockwise, breaking the connection between the core and tree, and gently removed it on a thin metal spoon. Unfortunately, there were tiny holes in the wood indicating rot.
“I might try a few more turns,” he said.
Persistence
As Charles continued coring his hemlock, I dropped down to check out what progress was being made on the old-growth Douglas-fir at the bottom of the hill. There was likely 800 years or so of rings to get through. I couldn’t imagine the effort it would take.
The team had just extracted a couple of massive pieces of core from the tree and laid them down on a nearby log. They looked pretty good to me, but Maddy wasn’t satisfied. The core was still short of the pith.
They tried a new angle and took turns spinning the bright blue handle. Gloves were a must-have for this line of work. And work it was. Maddy and her partner would spend the remaining part of the day attempting to get a quality sample from the tree.
Old Growth
With the creaking and squeaking of borers in the background, I decided to take a little hike around the forest plot. I wanted to get a different perspective of the forest and see if I could get a view of some of the old growth treetops.
When we first arrived at the site earlier in the day, Andrew was quick to point out that despite their size, most of the trees downhill from us were not old growth. Most of the trees we were able to see from the road still had a tapered top, having not reached full height or had time to flatten out.
In fact, most of the trees were probably about 260 years old—middle-aged for a tree—establishing after the 1759 fire.
“A 500-year-old tree will be really wide at the top,” Andrew explained, “and will have wide branches…”
In short, a flat-topped tree is an old growth tree.
Balancing near a log, I took a picture of a couple gnarly looking old growth trees and their heavily branched tops.
Old Assumptions
Work continued under the tall canopy. There were a lot more trees to core and measure.
As the crew worked, Andrew told me that the data we were collecting that day might also be used to test an old assumption about old growth trees.
“One of the assumptions about old growth forest is that it has no net change in biomass,” Andrew explained. “Whatever is dying is being balanced by what is growing.”
Old growth is sometimes romanticized as a stable, unchanging system. This may be true, but as far as Andrew is concerned there is a lack of evidence to say one way or the other. Based on careful reconstructions of the history of old-forests it seems more likely that they are always changing. Sometimes change is quick, like after fires or other disturbances, and at other times slow, at an imperceptible pace for our relatively short lifetime.
“Coring all these trees, we can quantify basal area increment over time,” said Andrew. Basically, you take the width of the rings and diameter of the tree to determine the volume of wood added each year.
This sort of data could answer a myriad of questions:
Does biomass increase or decrease in these old growth stands? Or, is the answer, it depends? How quickly are the younger cohorts replacing older slower growing trees and trees that have died? Where is the stand headed in terms of what types of trees and their structure?
Only time and an increment borer will tell.
Other Measures
Of course, there is a lot more data to collect than just taking cores. For each tree in the plot, DBH (diameter at breast height), height, species, and condition are recorded. Then, there is also a host of other measurements, like slope and aspect of the plot.
As I returned from my romp through the forest, I caught Andrew taking another measurement—woody debris.
Curious, I asked what he hoped to learn from tracking the downed wood in the plot.
First, he explained that it can relate to disturbance history as you compare what is on the ground with what material is consumed.
“Different development histories produce different woody debris,” he suggested.
“Honestly,” he added, “I don’t know how it will turn out.” However, if some sort of pattern does emerge in the data, by using the same protocols as FIA, it opens up possibilities for access to an even larger data set.
Back Again Tomorrow
It was late afternoon when Andrew’s crew wrapped up for the day. They probably would have stayed out even longer if I didn’t need to get home.
On the drive back to my car we chatted about all sorts of things—family members, hiking and climbing, and of course research.
Andrew and his team are not done. They will be back tomorrow. And probably the day after.
How does a forest grow?
In a million different ways.
Ask Andrew and his crew—they have all sorts of theories to test.
Andrew Merschel is an ORISE postdoctoral fellow working with the USFS PNW Research Station and he leads the tree ring lab at Oregon State University. Andrew uses tree rings to develop a shared understanding of how different forest ecosystems function over time. He is particularly interested in how disturbances (mostly fire) and forest management have shaped and will continue to shape forest ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest. Andrew lives with his family (Vanessa, Aldo, and Sawyer) in Corvallis, Oregon and they enjoy a mixture of fishing, hiking, wildlife ecology, and chainsaw repair in their spare time.
We often think of forests as static collections of trees, along with some shrubs, ferns, fungi, and other “foresty” organisms.
But forests are more than an array of cool critters and plant life. They are dynamic ecosystems that are constantly changing. Sometimes dramatically. As a result, there are times a forest may not look much like a forest at all.
Storms, pests and disease, landslides, and floods are parts of a forest ecosystem—interacting with the organisms that reside there and shaping forest development. Disturbances, such as these, are not only natural, but essential to many forest species—sending forests through complex paths of community change.
In Pacific Northwest forests, fires are an especially important example of these essential forces of disturbance. Forests in the Pacific Northwest evolved with fire and have adapted to the presence of fire on the landscape in a variety of ways.
Andrew Merchel, a dendroecologist from Oregon State University, knows the importance of forest fire to the region all too well. For the past several years, Andrew has been studying Pacific Northwest forests to better understand the patterns in fire frequency and, more recently, how these patterns might ultimately influence forest development.
I was fortunate to get invited along with his crew to a couple of his field sites this summer to see their research in action.
The Long Road to Site 87
It was a warm, sunny morning as I waited for Andrew at our designated pullout. I was parked just off the Santaim Hwy near Longbow Camp. Standing along the road, I passed the time watching the South Santiam River’s ripples catch the light and flash white below me.
Soon, Andrew arrived with his crew of young students, and we headed out to what would be the first of two sites.
As we traveled down the narrow, overgrown forest service roads, Andrew told me a bit about the site.
He explained that the site has had two relatively recent mixed-severity fires—one in 1848 and one in 1868, but before that, the only other fire they found evidence of was in 1535.”
“So, we had a fire a really long time ago, and three hundred or so years without fire,” Andrew emphasized, “and then two fires in the 1800s.”
As we got nearer to “site 87”, Andrew pointed out patches of thinning that had been done around the middle-aged Douglas-fir—an unusually recent occurrence on national forest land for the time—but helpful to us in our fieldwork for the day.
Records in the Rings
And then we were there—site 87. It was time to get to work. Andrew’s field crew made up of college students headed to collect forest development data on one side of the road, while Andrew and I went in search of the perfect stump on the opposite side.
As mentioned earlier, Andrew is a dendroecologist—which basically means he uses tree growth rings to better understand how forest ecosystems have changed over time. As part of that research, Andrew has been using crosscuts from dead trees and stumps to reconstruct fire records for a variety of forests in the West.
The tree rings on each crosscut provide a record of time that can be compared with other crosscut tree records to establish a timeline that goes beyond the lifespan of one tree.
Dendrochronologists can date each annual ring sampled from crosscuts even if a sample is collected from a snag or log that has been dead for centuries.
They date annual rings with a technique called cross-dating, which uses the sensitivity of annual tree rings to climate. Hot, dry years result in thin rings with narrow latewood and moist years result in years with wide rings with thick latewood in the Pacific Northwest.
Each decade has a unique pattern of thin and thick years that can be used like a fingerprint to precisely match a series of tree rings to the exact calendar years when they grew on the tree.
In this way, tree-ring records tell you a lot about the environmental conditions of each forest, including climate, over the recorded years. Most importantly for Andrew’s research, the rings also record fires as scars in the tree rings—providing information about the year, season, frequency, size, and sometimes severity of fires that occurred outside of modern records.
More Frequent
Research at the Forest Service’s PNW Research Station and the tree ring lab at Oregon State University has really shed light on the frequency of fire in Westside forests.
Before, ecologists thought that westside forests experienced fire as a function of lightning; and that fire was historically infrequent in much of the western Cascades and Oregon Coast Range—with forests going 100s of years between fires.
Now, hundreds of fire scars collected from dead trees have shown there are many ways fire exists in westside forests. Fire regimes (patterns of fire) are variable in frequency and in how they shaped forest conditions over time. For example, some westside forests record fire in nearly every decade, while others go centuries without fire. The role of fire historically varied with forest age, Indigenous burning, lightning, topography, and microclimate.
Searching for Scars
Chainsaw in hand, Andrew and I headed down the road and trampled our way uphill through the underbrush to check out some of the thinned areas for stumps to cut into. The goal is to find stumps that show fire scars—a blackened resinous area along a ring.
Andrew and his crew had already sampled the area, but he was hoping to get more samples from older trees. Looking at the age classes of trees in the forest, Andrew suspects there may have been another large fire in the 1820s yet to be discovered.
Not all Stumps are Like the Others
“There are clues about which stumps to cut into,” Andrew explained as we carefully picked our way over the bramble and down woody material. “Trees that scar when they are young, for example, will often scar again with the next fire.”
Oddly shaped stumps that are oblong tend to be good candidates. And of course, the stump needs to be solid without too much decay.
Another factor that affects scarring is that each tree species has its own resistance to scaring and the ability to preserve long records of past fires.
“Many Douglas-fir are not good recorders of historical fires,” Andrew remarked “The initial burn needs to be severe enough to form a first scar on a tree before it develops thick bark that prevents fire damage and the formation of a fire scar.”
Andrew leaned over one large stump and wiped away the smut that had accumulated on top of it with a brush with metal bristles.
“You can see an injury right there,” he said pointing to a white resin-filled gap between a couple of growth rings—a scab around the wound. “That looks like mechanical damage,” and probably not a fire scar, he concluded. Mechanical scars often go across rings, while fire scars form neatly along a single row of cells.
The search continued.
Making the Cut
We moved out of the thinned area and into the denser forest for a bit, looking for promising-looking stumps.
Soon we came across another with sampling potential.
“There is some rock-solid wood right there,” he remarked as he examined the stump—perhaps the product of resin released as the tree scarred.
It was time to make some cuts. Andrew and I put on our earplugs, and he began slicing horizontally through the stump several inches below the original cut. The whorl of the chainsaw and fine woody dust filled the air space.
It was over in just a few minutes.
Andrew removed the top he cut off and began sweeping away at the newly cut surface.
Nothing.
Just a few old branch whorls. No scars.
How to Scar a Tree
The fact of the matter is that trees don’t always scar.
Contrary to what you might think, fire scars form from heat, not flames.
“It is heat transmitting through the bark for a long enough period of time to kill the cambium locally,” explained Andrew. “It is more burn residence time and the ability to transmit heat for long enough that records the fire.”
Perhaps for this reason, if a tree scars when it is young, it will often continue to scar on the same line. They also tend to occur really low on the trunk near the ground where heat is transmitted to the tree bole from surface fuels.
Patterns of Variability
As we searched for another crosscut stump to sample, I asked Andrew to tell me more about his research findings. After all, this was not his first rodeo. Andrew and his team, at the time, had sampled up to 50 sites in Westside forest with 15-20 cross-sections from each one.
Yet, despite all the sampling, it was still difficult for Andrew to identify any environmental patterns.
“We don’t have enough to relate patterns of fire to different environmental settings still,” says Andrew with a sigh, “because there is so much variability.”
Consistently Inconsistent
However, Andrew admits there are some consistencies.
For example, low-elevation sites near major rivers, like the McKenzie and Clackamas, that are hotter and dryer tend to have more frequent fires. These also may be sites where Indigenous People used fire stewardship to produce vital cultural resources.
“Some sites are shocking—the amount of fire they have.”
On the flip side, there are higher elevation sites in the Silver Fir Zone, like Gordon Lakes, where fire is very infrequent. These places will record one high-severity burn, followed by one or two reburns, and then go more than a century without fire. Rinse and repeat.
It is at mid-elevation around 3,000 feet where it gets really challenging to predict.
The hope is to eventually look at the variation in topography, elevation, and other site factors in combination with fire histories to try and understand how forests develop in different ways based on their specific context.
Catface
Andrew and I moved back into the open with fewer trees and shrubby underbrush.
“Come on guys,” he says, leading the charge. “Where are the fire scars?”
As we search, we come across a burnt-out western redcedar with a charred opening in the lower trunk—a catface. A catface forms when the cambium on the tree is killed by fire, and in the next 10 or 15 years the bark falls off, leaving the tree susceptible to future fires.
“The earlier scars are burnt off by the later scars in there,” Andrew explains.
Cedars are interesting trees in fire. They get consumed by fire a lot.
“Cedars really do chimney,” explains Andrew, “Fire gets in there and burns them out on the inside.”
At the same time, “It doesn’t necessarily die,” said Andrew, “or rot” for that matter—instead cedars tend to stand as ghosts of fires past.
Fool Me Again
The stumps were easier to spot in the more open forest and Andrew found a couple more promising candidates. He was really hoping to find an older stump that might provide evidence of a 1759 fire he was fairly certain had occurred.
The chainsaw ablaze, Andrew sliced into another stump and then another, but to no avail.
One of the stumps was massive and took a lot of effort and some careful wedging to remove the cut surface. He cut a couple of cross-sections from the large stump.
“This one is going to frustrate us,” he declared before making this final attempt.
Unfortunately, it ended in sweat and sawdust, but luckily no tears.
Is it Severe?
At this point, we were low on gas and Andrew decided it would be best to start heading back down to the road to meet up with the crew.
As we made our way through the salal, ferns, and other shrubby species—a product of the thinning that occurred here—I asked Andrew about how fire severity fits into his research.
Fire severity is a measure of the magnitude of the immediate impacts of fire on the vegetation and living soil. In forest ecology, it is typically based on tree mortality—about 0-30% tree mortality for low severity, 30-70% mortality for moderate severity, and anything above that is high severity.
“Anything killing the fire-resistant trees is moderate [or high] to me,” Andrew suggested.
When it comes to fire severity, like frequency, Andrew has found that it too is not so easy to predict.
“I would agree that 2020 fires are nothing new,” explained Andrew, “We have always had big blowups, but we are missing fire events outside of these conditions all over the West Cascades that poke holes and do very different types of burning.”
In other words, though large high-severity fires do occur in the West, it would be a mistake to forget that there are many other types of fires that have shaped this forest type historically—fires that vary in both frequency and severity.
These differences in fire severity also occur on a much finer scale, according to Andrew.
“Here is an old-growth tree next to an early seral shrub,” he illustrated, “and they exist right next to each other—and that is normal.”
It is patchy. And that matters because that patchiness increases variety and biodiversity.
Forest Development Implications
Andrew told me about a paper out of Oregon State University by Chris Dunn that looked at the implications of fire severity for forest development in the Willamette and Umpqua National Forests.
In general, Dunn found that the severity of fire results in very different trajectories of forest development.
A low-severity fire may not result in a new cohort of trees, or it will result in shade-tolerant species including western hemlock developing on the site. In a high-severity fire, grasses and shrubs will make up the post-fire community with Douglas-fir the primary cohort of trees able to establish.
Then, there is moderate severity. This is where it gets interesting. It is in moderately burned forests that you can end up with the most biodiversity post-fire—with sites that have up to 17 different tree species established after fire in Southern Oregon. Having both canopy gaps and live trees remaining post-fire allows for greater variability in the forest community as different species find their ecological niche.
“One thing this project is going to do is we are going to core all these hemlocks and true firs and see if they actually link to fire,” explained Andrew, referring to the coring work his field crew is working on. “If they do, then I think we will interpret that low-severity fire was really important to the development of these species in westside forests.”
Forest Management Implications
Andrew spoke strongly about what this means in terms of forest management. If fire is variable, the way we manage the structure of forests should also be variable.
“We can’t just do one thing in plantations where we are trying to restore heterogeneity and biodiversity,” said Andrew. “We should be doing everything from removing 10% of trees to 90% of trees. That is historically probably what happened—creating a lot of variability.”
The result would be real; and probably pretty messy.
“Instead of distinct edges, you would have a constant mosaic,” Andrew described.
What we are doing now in plantation settings is not natural.
“The plantation is completely artificial… cut at 40 years or so and planted uniformly at a high density—this is not one of the development trajectories. It is not mimicking historical disturbance processes or stand development.” Looking ahead, the ecosystem that develops from a plantation will be much different than the ecosystem it replaced.
Making the Cut
We were just about back to the road when Andrew noticed another stump that had been cut the last time he visited. Having not found any stumps with fire scars yet, he led me over to this one—hopeful that I might observe the scarring up close.
After wiping away needles and other debris, we got down to stump level. There we could see two scars—one from the 1868 fire sitting just above the other from 1848. “Which is sort of classic,” remarked Andrew, as far as fire scars go.
The scars showed up as what looked like a break in the annual rings (cambial necrosis) with resin separating the blackened tissue from the wood wound put down during the healing process.
Much of the cut area was also covered with a white rot—the forest ecosystem eager to restart the decay process.
Back on the Road
Soon we were back on the road to meet up with the rest of the field crew. After checking out one last stump on the opposite side of the road, we all piled back in the vehicles for another long twisty ride to field site number two for the day.
Forest ecosystems are dynamic. But they change on timescales that are often outside of human experience. Understanding fire as an agent of change in our forests requires long-range data sets, like what Andrew has tirelessly been collecting—helping fill in our knowledge gaps.
We may not have succeeded in finding a fire-scarred tree that day, but I am grateful to have experienced the forest through Andrew’s eyes—to understand its wonderful complexity and the secrets it retains deep beneath the bark
Andrew Merschel is an ORISE postdoctoral fellow working with the USFS PNW Research Station and he leads the tree ring lab at Oregon State University. Andrew uses tree rings to develop a shared understanding of how different forest ecosystems function over time. He is particularly interested in how disturbances (mostly fire) and forest management have shaped and will continue to shape forest ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest. Andrew lives with his family (Vanessa, Aldo, and Sawyer) in Corvallis, Oregon and they enjoy a mixture of fishing, hiking, wildlife ecology, and chainsaw repair in their spare time.
What do you get when you cross a geologist with a computer scientist? Easy, a Schmitty Tompson. Part rock nerd and part computer programmer, Schmitty is passionate about reconstructing Earth’s climate history one computer model at a time. Lucky for me, Schmitty is also equally passionate about communicating science with the public, and graciously agreed to meet me on the Oregon Coast for a hike and chat.
Walk and Talk
It was overcast and a bit windy when I pulled into the Cape Perpetua Visitor Center Parking lot, Schmitty and I’s agreed upon meeting place. Schmitty was all smiles and pleasantries, and we soon were on the trail and introductions were underway.
Schmitty is a 5-year PhD student at Oregon State University where they have been studying ice ages (a topic we would spend a lot more time on later), but perhaps might be better described as a Jack-of-all-trades.
“I need to know a little about a lot of different things,” explained Schmitty as we headed down the paved path from the visitor center that leads to tide pools and Spouting Horn. “I learned about glaciers and ice sheets. And I study ocean physics and what the interior of the Earth looks like… It is very interdisciplinary.”
As mentioned earlier, Schmitty is also very interested in public outreach.
“I am happy to do my best to talk about anything else about Earth Science!”
A Rocky Start
Schmitty’s love for science was born from an early age, but it wasn’t until an 8th-grade summer camp where they took a canoe trip into the boundary waters of Minnesota that they realized they could make it a career.
“The person leading the trip had just graduated with a degree in geology and she was telling us about the rocks all around us and I was so fascinated,” described Schmitty. “She was blowing my mind!”
It was during that trip that Schmitty decided that they were going to be a geologist and announced it for the entire camp to hear.
Still, in high school Schmitty found themselves leaning toward a career in computer science. It wasn’t until they were in college that they were able to make the connection back to geology.
“I had a really amazing mentor,” said Schmitty.
Basalt Pools
By this time, Schmitty and I had reached the tidepools and the rough, jagged rocks that hold them.
Cape Perpetua’s rocks are part of the Yachats Basalts that erupted some 37 million years ago along the edge of the coastline of North America.
“They [basalts] can form when a hot spot or plume of magma bubbles up from the earth’s crust and creates this really big active volcanic center,” explained Schmitty.
Basalt also comes in a variety of patterns—sometimes blocky, other times craggy, other times smooth.
Much of what we saw in the tidepools was blocky or columnar. We also saw basalt rock with small vesicles—aptly named vesicular basalt—that form from air pockets in the lava as it cools.
Vesicular basalt near the tidepools
Fractionation
Basalts are not the only type of volcanic rock, however.
“There is a scale of what these rocks are made of,” Schmitty explained. “It starts with ultramafic that are really high in magnesium and iron; low in silica.”
Then there is mafic rock—these are your basalts, and what the ocean crust is made of.
Looking out at the vast ocean, I tried to imagine this rock lying somewhere below the weight of the ocean and accumulating sediments.
Basalt is also incredibly common “because if forms in so many situations.” However, not all rock reaches the surface as mafic rock.
“As magma moves up it cools,” explained Schmitty, “the squishy minerals are mixed, but they cool at different temperatures and ‘fall out’ as they cool.”
This is how more “evolved” volcanic rocks are formed. This process of magma evolving as it rises through the mantle is called “fractionation,” and is responsible for the formation of felsic rocks, like rhyolite, that are higher in silica.”
Schmitty described the process of mantle rising and carrying up magma towards the surface as a process like a pot of water boiling—it is the rising, cooling, and falling that keep plate tectonics and associated processes like volcanism going on the Earth.
“There is a whole world underneath us and we will never see it,” Schmitty observed.
Basalt rocks form the tidepools above.
Terraces
After poking around the rocks, a bit longer, we continued on the trail towards spouting horn. Looking back from this vantage point, Schmitty noted a small exposure near the shoreline.
“You can see different layers,” they noted. Cobbles were part of the strata—perhaps an old creek bed, for instance.
Exposures like these are not uncommon along the coast. In fact, as the land has been lifted upwards, there are many places along the Oregon Coast where these exposures exist.
“Sometimes you can get sort of stairsteps,” Schmitty described. “These flat stairsteps are old beaches.”
The overall stair-step landform made up of “old beaches” is called a terrace. Each step was an ancient coastline that was moved “up” by plate tectonics.
A layer of rounded cobble suggests the location of an old riverbed
Standing on the Shoulders
“Terraces are part of my thesis,” Schmitty exclaimed. “I specifically study sea level rise.”
According to Schmitty, there are a lot of terraces along the Oregon Coast that have been documented and provide an important data set for their research. Combined with other data sets, like those from terraces and reefs along the Atlantic Coastal Plain and Caribbean, Schmitty had what they needed for their thesis.
“Terraces and coral reefs form where the land meets the Ocean,” they explained. “We call these sea-level indicators because they are not in contact with the ocean, but we know they formed at sea level.”
“Why I love these local records they capture these patterns really well,” they continued. “You get these crazy patterns in the indicators. You capture the dynamics going on. It’s like getting an action shot.”
Schmitty’s research involved digging through tons of old papers and records from researchers of the past to try and put together a history of our changing oceans.
They asked me, “Have you heard the phrase, ‘standing on the shoulders of giants?’”
I nodded.
“I stand on the shoulders of field scientists,” Schmitty offered the appropriate accolades. “Awesome people who have spent thousands of hours out there.”
Rise and Fall
The trail paralleled the coastline and its rocky shore. We watched the waves crashing into the basalt formations as we walked. Was the sea level today very different than a thousand years ago? What about 100,000? Or even a million?
Sea level indicators tell the story of change, but the question remains—why has sea level changed?
According to Schmitty, there are a lot of contributing factors from changes in the Earth’s position relative to the sun, as well as the amount of water locked up in ice during any given period.
Fortunately, these changes follow predictable cycles.
“Over the last 2.5 million years, Earth has been descending in and out of ice ages—the more technical term is glacial cycle,” Schmitty explained. “It cools down slowly until it reaches really cold conditions, and we have massive ice sheets covering a lot of the planet…It takes 100,000 years to cool down. Then very quickly it warms up, ice sheets will melt, and it will be like that for a couple of 1000 years.”
The Sun and Earth
What triggers these changes? In short, how the Earth is oriented towards the sun.
“The way the Earth orbits the sun is not constant,” Schmitty clarified. “It is not circular, and it changes over time. How much the Earth is tilted also changes.”
The Earth follows predictable cycles—“100,000 years for Earth’s orbit to change shape, 40,000 years for deep tilt, and 20,000 years for which way it is tilting.”
It is the confluence of all of these cycles that help scientists make predictions about sea level.
Interglacial
These predictable cycles are responsible for glacial periods, like the one that occurred about 125,000 years ago—commonly referred to as the Ice Age. However, they are also responsible for the many cooling and warming periods that occur between “ice ages”—a time period known as an interglacial period.
During an interglacial period, as Schmitty described it—“it cools, warms up a bit, cools, and warms up a bit.” And it is “one of these little warm-up-a-bits” that Schmitty studies.
What’s in a Name
“The one I study happened 80,000 years ago,” Schmitty recounted. “If you want to use the fancy word it is Marine Isotope Stage 5a.”
Say what? I asked Schmitty to decode.
First off, the word isotope just refers to the different varieties of atoms of a given element—for example, carbon-14 vs. carbon-16. The isotopes of an element behave a bit differently depending on how stable or radioactive they are and move differently through the atmosphere and oceans because of their differences in weight. For this reason, the ratio of certain isotopes that exist in certain climate proxies, like those found in deep ocean sediment cores, can tell you something about the climate of the past.
“The one that is relevant to me is oxygen,” explained Schmitty. “It tells you how the temperature changes and how much ice there was on the planet. Someone graphed it a long time ago and it is the peaks and valleys that represent the different isotope stages.”
So, essentially the “little warm up” that Schmitty is studying shows up as a little peak on a graph where the oxygen-18 in proxies were lower and the temperatures a little bit warmer some 80,000 years ago.
Variable
We continued toward Spouting Horn, moving down nearer the rocky shelves of basalt rocks. As we walked, I noticed how some of the basalt rock looked different in color and texture than the surrounding rock. This can occur when new rock is formed within existing rocks creating a geological feature known as a dike.
Interestingly, newly formed rocks are often stronger and more resistant to weathering compared to the rocks that surround them. The results are dramatic and beautiful.
Rocks are not the only thing that is variable. Turns out, sea level is also variable, not only throughout time but also geography.
“It is not just ocean rising,” said Schmitty, “part of it is tectonic plates moving up or down.”
They explained how most people imagine the world ocean like a bathtub with water flowing in through the spout and out through a drain, but it is far more complicated than that.
“One of my favorite things to tell people is that when an ice sheet melts, sea level is going to rise more away from the ice sheet than close to the ice sheet,” said Schmitty.
This may seem counterintuitive at first, but Schmitty explains it, “Ice sheets are really big,” so as they melt the loss of mass reduces the ice sheets’ gravitational pull of water allowing the water to move and disperse away from the ice sheet. Additionally, the weight of the ice sheet also lessens, allowing the ground underneath and around the ice sheet to rise as the pressure is reduced on the Earth’s mantle below.
“This is why I love these local records,” Schmitty exclaimed, they capture these patterns really well! You capture the dynamics going on. It is like an action shot.”
Bringing it Together
Schmitty and I finally made it down to Spouting Horn and watched the waves slosh up against the rocks, occasionally taking to the air through the narrow gap at the top of a sea cave. We didn’t stay long at Spouting Horn. The wind and cool, dampness of the day made it hard to hear or stay still too long. So, we about-faced and headed to the other end of the trail.
As we went, Schmitty told me about the other part of their work—the mathematical part—modeling.
All the local records that Schmitty spent hours upon hours researching needed a model to pull it all together.
“There is a limit to what it [the local records] can tell us,” said Schmitty. Yes, you can identify some patterns in the data, but a model brings context to the records.
“There are things that a model can tell me that geological records can’t tell me,” Schmitty continued. The model uses scientific laws and facts about the physical universe, along with observable phenomena to make predictions about the past.
Specifically, in Schmitty’s case, the model they are working with spits out a slideshow of “what all the past ice sheets looked like and spits out maps of what past sea level looked like around the globe.”
Pretty cool, right?
A Dirty Word
Yet, the word “model” is often considered a dirty word in science writing (whoops).
“Never use the word model if you can avoid it,” Schmitty said was the advice they got regarding science communication.
This advice makes sense when you consider how difficult it is to explain modeling, but on the other hand, maybe that is just the reason it needs to be talked about.
“I think the most underutilized tool is other modelers talking about models,” they continued. “I think I would love to see more modelers talking.”
A Model Model
Schmitty and I were heading north along the trail now hoping to reach Thor’s Well but we hit a roadblock. The trail was closed, and we needed to turn around. But before we high-tailed it back to the parking lot, we stopped at a small turnout in the trail.
Here, I asked Schmitty to elaborate further on modeling. Shying away from the word model, what other words might you use to describe what this thing is?
“I have a computer program,” they begin, but that seems a bit complex too. “I have a lot of code on my computer, and it does math. You have these equations to figure this thing out. The equation does the math, and you get new information out…. I use it to do other science.”
Okay, simpler.
“I always think of it like rules,” I chimed in.
Schmitty agreed. “Yes, it is a set of instructions… I give it something to start with and it gives something out.”
That is what a computer model is in a sense—a model for what a model is.
A view of Devils Churn from the trail
The Future
We continued back to the parking lot and decided we would drive over to Devil’s Churn before we parted. We hopped into our vehicles, headed north a short distance, and parked.
Once out of the car, we walked over to a viewing area. Foam from Devil’s Churn floated by.
I asked Schmitty if there was anything I had missed in the interview so far. “What else needs to be said?”
“One question that usually comes up,” admitted Schmitty, “is Why should we care about this?”
A very good question. So, what is the answer?
“I am figuring out one piece of a larger puzzle for understanding global warming,” Schmitty began. “If we can put together a really good picture of how the planet changed in the past… that can help us look into the future.”
Schmitty is studying one little warming-up period. But by understanding how ice sheets and glaciers responded and how sea levels changed during that period, they are adding to the breadth of scientific knowledge about the relationship between temperature and changes in the cryosphere adding to the predictive power of the models that project into the future.
“Our present is the key to the past,” Schmitty clarified, “and the present is the key to the future.”
That is how geology works.
Schmitty Thompson is a PhD student in geology and computer science at Oregon State University where they study and model sea level changes during glacial cycles. They are passionate about science communication and getting people excited about geology, however, they want to engage with it. They hope to encourage budding scientists, especially those who are underrepresented in the scientific community, towards a career in science if that is what they are interested in.
Grab some binocs the next time you head out for a hike or walk—the birds are on the move. In spring and early summer, thousands of birds hit the skies for their biannual migration.
The Willamette Valley is part of the Pacific Flyway—a superhighway for bird migration. Birds travel from as far south as Patagonia, making their way north toward Alaska. For those that live, work, or play en route, viewing these birds is a delight of the season.
Josée Rousseau—an ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology —takes it a step further by tracking bird migration and the different habitats birds occupy. Ornithologist extraordinaire, I met Josée at Luckiamute Landing State Natural Area for a hike and interview. I figured, if anyone knows where the birds are at, it would be Josée.
Binoculars in hand, Josée and I met at the park entry road to begin our hike. It had been cool, breezy, and overcast and moisture hung in the air—not ideal conditions for looking for birds, but we remained optimistic as we started down the wide path. Besides, I had seen a group of turkey vultures on the road on the way in feeding on an animal carcass—was this a sign of good things to come or some bad juju?
Seeing Birds
However, almost immediately, we started seeing and hearing birds—first, a Song Sparrow trilling in the distance. Then moments later we spotted a bushtit nest hanging in the trees.
“The cool thing about them [bushtit],” Josée smiled, “is they are sort of a cooperative species.”
She explained how juvenile birds from a pair’s first clutch will sometimes “hang around” to help with a second clutch—creating these large family units. You don’t generally see Bushtit alone for this reason. Rather, these stout little gray birds flit about in energetic flocks.
“Another cool thing,” Josée added, “the male and female have different colored eyes. The males and the young have black eyes and the adult females’ eyes are yellowish.”
A Closer Look
We soon reached a junction where the road ended at a parking lot and the trail began. We headed right, following a line of trees and shrubs, including holly-leaved Oregon Grape.
I asked Josée to share a bit about her background, and as if one cue—an American Robin, with its distinct song, made an appearance perched in some nearby trees.
“Robin was the bird that got me into birds,” Josée explained. “I study birds, I love birds, “but I didn’t always like birds.”
She explained how she needed someone to teach her “to see birds” before she could appreciate them. To stop and look at birds—to look at their plumage, shape, and size, for example.
And for Josée, as commonplace as they are, the American Robin was the first bird she took the time to really observe and appreciate.
Robin sent out the occasional twittering song as we talked before it flew back among the trees.
As we continued down the muddy trail, heading toward the Willamette, Josée told me how she started her research studying urban birds in Montreal.
“Birds are amazing creatures with diverse habits and habitats,” said Josée. Even in a city environment, there are resources available that attract birds.
Just then a couple of small birds caught our attention as they danced among the branches of a small broadleaf tree along the forest edge. Josée grabbed her binocs.
At least one was a Yellow-rumped Warbler with black, white, and yellow plumage. A larger bird for a warbler, it reminded me of a chickadee in size. The others flew off before they could be identified.
Big Bird Data
Josée and I flew on down the trail as well, heading into the denser woods.
As we walked, Josée told me about her move to the west coast and Ph.D. work studying large-scale patterns in bird distribution and habitat.
She explained how her research looked at both the distribution of bird species across North America, as well as the habitats that each species selected in different regions and throughout its life cycle.
“I found there were actually differences!” exclaimed Josée—particularly when comparing across regions, but even across the lifecycle Josée found slight differences in habitat use.
Josée’s research relied heavily on large data sets, including banding data, breeding surveys, and ebird—a citizen science program.
“It allowed me to use big data to ask large-scale questions,” she explained. “It involved a lot of computer work,” she laughed.
Bird Banding
However, there is one way that Josée still gets out among the birds. She and her colleague, Joan Hagar, have a bird banding station set up in the park.
Bird banding is the process of temporarily capturing birds, usually with a mist net, so that scientists and volunteers can gather data on the birds.
“When you capture a bird, you can determine their age and sex; you can determine their health…” Josée explained, “You are getting information about survival and reproduction.”
All this information can then be used to better understand changes in bird populations.
Other tools, like ebird or other more general surveys, can tell you some information about abundance, but they can’t tell you why the abundance of a bird changes.
“They are complementary tools,” according to Josée. We need a variety of data sets to answer a variety of questions.
Restoring the Floodplain
As we rounded a bend in the trail, the Willamette River came into view through the trees. A few user trails led closer to its edge for a better view. We stuck to the main trail and entered a dense, shady conifer forest.
“This site is cool because it is along the Willamette River,” Josée said, “It is actually at the confluence of three rivers—the Luckiamute, the Santiam, and the Willamette.”
Luckiamute Landing State Natural Area has one of the largest remaining natural floodplain forests, according to Josée. Though previously cleared for agriculture, much of the site has since been restored to a more natural state through a succession of plantings.
“I think the first planting was around 2013,” said Josée. “They planted the whole west section. The last section, the middle part, was planted just last winter.”
In fact, one of the main purposes of the bird banding project is to see if the restoration is working.
“And is the restoration working?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Josée responded. “We have five years of data to support it.”
Superlative Birds
We continued along the wide path, scrubby conifers surrounding us on both sides and the river hidden to our right, hoping to spot some birds among the trees.
I asked Josée what birds she had seen coming through her bird banding station at Luckiamute. Were there any that are especially common? Any rare or unique birds?
“Fifty-nine species,” Josée responded. That is the minimum number of songbird species that visit Luckiamute at some point during the year—some as migrants or breeders, others as year-round resident species.
“The most common is definitely the Swainson’s Thrush,” Josée continued. “They arrive in May and stay until September.”
Swainson’s Thrush is in the same family as the American Robin and has “amazing vocals,” according to Josée. However, they are not talkative birds after the breeding season and often go unnoticed for that reason.
So how does she know they are here? Mist nets of course! Another benefit of bird banding stations.
There were two birds that Josée said fit under the “whoa!” category.
First, she showed me a picture of a gorgeous, fluffy juvenile Saw-whet Owl. Those big yellow eyes! It was a surprise to catch in the net, as they hadn’t heard one here before.
Second, is the Red-eyed Vireo. A lovely little bird with an olive-colored complexion and red eyes as an adult.
“Not a species that is abundant in Oregon,” Josée explained, “we have caught maybe three to four.”
“They breed here in the gallery forest north,” she went on, “but during post-breeding, they come down into the shrubby area where there are berries, and that is when we catch them.”
Coniferous
We were nearing the end of the shaded coniferous forest. We passed what looked to me like a woodrat’s nest up in a tree and several piles of woody debris.
“They have flooding here,” Josée explained.
Before we exited the habitat, I asked Josée what birds might frequent the area we were walking in. What sort of birds like conifer forests like this?
Josée rattled off a few species—”chickadees, kinglets, Steller’s jay, a few species like that.”
Conifer forests provide shelter for birds but do not have as abundant food resources.
“Very soon we will get into the shrubs,” said Josée. “They have more birds because they have more insects. And they tend to have flowers and berries which attract fruit-eating birds.”
Gallery of the Giants
And she was right, soon we rounded a bend and soon we were face to face with a tall deciduous forest and a trail bordered by shrubs.
A sign offered some details about the forest and restoration process—which indeed started in 2013. We stopped at the sign for a moment and looked out on the gallery of what was mostly large Black Cottonwood with many Bigleaf trees in front of us.
I asked Josée what she thought the benefit of this habitat was to birds.
“Big trees,” she began, “There is more vertical habitat for one thing.”
She also mentioned the formation of snags in older forests which brings in woodpeckers, which create cavities that can be used by a variety of cavity-nesting birds.
“There is a lot of complexity in an older forest that you don’t get in a younger one. By having that vertical structure, these older trees, by having snags and dead wood—this adds a variety of habitats and resources that more species because they all use a different part of it,” explained Josée.”
Water Ways
Of course, different birds need different habitats. Many require old-growth forests, but others need young forests, grasslands, or some other habitat type.
“There is no good or bad habitat,” Josée reminded me. “Even cities aren’t necessarily bad habitats because there are some species that thrive in them.”
I asked Josée if there was any special benefit of being near water.
“We don’t have a lot of rain from June to September and birds rely on fruits and nuts to fatten up in the fall,” explained Josée. “So, these riparian corridors are very important for these birds to find food and be able to survive migration, at least for the west coast.”
Shrubby
We continued following a corridor of planted deciduous trees and shrubs—part of the restoration project.
Among the shrubs were osoberry, common snowberry, and red-flowering currant—all of which can provide food resources for different bird species.
“What is great about Luckiamute is they restored habitat by planting native species of plants, which is amazing to me,” Josée shared, “AND to the birds,” she added with a smile.
To better understand how birds are using these flowering plants as resources, Josée told me how they are providing data to a research project led by Carolyn Coyle, through sampling the beak of warblers they net for pollen. Each sample is tested to identify plant species the warblers visited.
Preliminary pollen testing last year showed promising results.
“Warblers used these flowers,” said Josée, “and other flowers in the park.”
The next phase of the project is to try and understand why.
Early Seral Station
Josée pulled off to the side of the trail toward a tree tied with bright pink flagging.
“See that little flag,” she proclaimed, “We have a bird banding net right here.”
As she headed into the brush, Josée explained the components of a banding station. Here is the gist–each station has about 10 12-meter-long nets that stand 2 meters high. The nets are put up during a collection day and checked frequently. Birds caught in the net are carried to a banding location where a federal Bird Banding Lab tag with a unique number is attached to their leg.
“And we are going to get age, sex, species of course, look at weight, wing length, and other measurements such as breeding condition, and release it,” said Josée.
We were standing at net 10—one of a total of 30 set up around the park. Net 10 is considered an early seral habitat station, though the forest was a lot thicker since last she visited—it had since been thinned.
Reasons
“Surveying these birds is not part of my regular job,” she explained but is done on a volunteer basis for three main reasons.
Besides, helping provide feedback on the restoration efforts (reason number one), the bird banding station offers young biologists training in the safe handling of birds and how to take accurate measurements.
And thirdly, “We are doing some research,” said Josée. “We are studying this area as a migration corridor.”
Migratory Path
“Do most birds fly in riparian corridors during migration?” I asked.
“We suspect that they do and that is what we are trying to find out,” Josée replied.
Joan Hagar, Josee’s colleague, did some surveys in 2014 and found some evidence to suggest birds were following the Willamette during migration. Essentially, she found the same birds visiting another banding station along the route, suggesting they were sticking to the water.
“So, another tool we are starting to take advantage of is MOTUS,” said Josée.
MOTUS is an international collaboration network that uses radio telemetry to track the movement of a variety of species including birds. Each bird is outfitted with a radio transmitter. Josée described it as looking like “a little backpack.” Then when a bird flies by a MOTUS station, the bird’s signal is picked up and recorded with a time stamp.
“Ankeny [Wildlife Refuge] just got a MOTUS station,” said Josée. Both Joan and she are hoping to see more come online along the Willamette.
Return to Sender
“Do you capture some of the same birds?” I questioned.
“We have caught the same Swanson’s thrush 3-4 years in a row in the same net!” was Josée’s enthusiastic response.
She explained how Swanson’s thrush migrate as far south as Bolivia and Argentina, only to return to the exact same spot they began—so exactly that they end up caught in the same mist net.
“They have migrated thousands of miles,” she was bubbling over with energy. “Image you were flying to Argentina every year!”
I’m impressed.
Indicators
By now the trail opened with a field to the left. We were almost back to our loop and the sky was starting to darken. I asked Joséee about her current research as we walked the final leg back to the loop junction.
“I’m a postdoc for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology,” said Josée. “And my project, which I think is really cool, is to see if we can use birds as an indicator of pollinators.”
As Josée explained, pollinators are declining at alarming rates, and at the same time, we have limited data on pollinators, so the extent of the problem is hard to nail down.
Josée’s project is designed to take advantage of the extensive data we have on birds to see if it correlates with the presence of native bee species.
“I am using eBird,” said Josée, “and publicly available bee data sets. I am using locations with both bird and bee data. There are only a few locations, maybe up to 4,000 in the eastern half of the U.S.”
The research is based on the premise that bees and some bird species use similar habitats and environments and are affected by similar land management practices.
“So, we can see if whenever some bird species are abundant, we have more bee species,” she explained.
Ultimately, Josée hopes that by using birds as indicators of bee richness, they can guide land management practices to improve bee conservation.
Spring Showers
Then, (almost suddenly) the leaves rustled, and the grey ominous clouds shifted in the sky, letting out a soft but thorough downpour.
Despite the change in weather, Josée heard a call out in the field next to us—a white-crowned sparrow. I could see it shifting in the grasses, a dark silhouette against an equally dreary backdrop.
Josée handed me her binoculars to see if I could get a better look, but the rain had dampened the eyepieces. It was like looking through a rain-soaked windshield with no wipers.
Grassland species
“What species would like this area?” I asked, as we moved swiftly back to the junction and road we walked up at the start of the hike.
As usual, Josée had an answer—“White-crowned Sparrow, Common Yellowthroat, Robins…”All of these birds use these open habitats.
However, the area was already in the process of change. If you looked more closely, small saplings were planted among the grasses that dominated the field.
“They planted last winter,” she said. “And as these little trees are growing, we are hoping to add nets here and monitor their impact on bird communities.”
Energy
We hurried our way back to the cars. The rain, only letting up a little. Not an ideal situation for looking for birds. They too were probably seeking shelter.
Back at the cars, I thanked Josée for meeting with me, but I couldn’t help but comment on her relentless energy. She was not shy about acknowledging that she is a go-getter.
It was fun talking to Josée. Like the birds she studies, she had figured out a way to successfully navigate through a career in science—and with gusto!
I have no doubt she could make the thousands of miles-long journey her birds take if she needed to.
Josée is a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology where she is studying the potential role of birds as indicators of pollinators.
Rushing water. A shushing breeze. Rustling leaves. Chattering wildlife. These are the sounds of a forest in the foothills of the Willamette Valley. Soft, tranquil, quiet. Or at least in winter.
The forest awakens in spring. As flowers stretch out their petals and leaves unfurl to catch the sunlight, the tranquil chatter of the forest turns into an all-out symphony of sounds. Like the string section in the orchestra, it is the birds that draw the most attention.
I have always enjoyed bird song but have not yet mastered their melodious rhythms. This spring I am determined to take a closer listen.
Fortunately, Joan Hagar, a research wildlife biologist with USGS, agreed to meet with me to talk birds in a local forest.
The Hike
Trailhead: 720 Gate at the end of Sulpher Springs Road
Distance: approximately 2 miles
Details: Limited parking at the end of a well-maintained gravel road. No fee for parking. No restrooms. Park at gate 720 gate and head up Road 720. Look for a right turn-off on a user trail that takes you back to the gate. Map of area available on OSU College of Forestry website.
Introductions
I met Joan on a cool spring afternoon. It was overcast, but not raining. Would the birds be out?
We didn’t take but a moment before heading up the trail which rose along a riparian corridor next to a rushing creek.
I asked Joan to tell me more about herself and her career.
“The focus of my career has been to help forest managers incorporate wildlife habitat into their management plans,” she explained as we walked. “Remind them that they can accommodate wildlife at the same time as they are meeting their other goals.”
More specifically, she is all about the birds. Joan has spent her career studying birds and other wildlife in the Pacific Northwest.
As Joan explained it, she was born with it.
“My dad was a wildlife biologist and taught me the birds,” she explained, “and being able to hear them and know what species you are hearing it is like understanding a foreign language.”
A skill she would prove multiple times on our walk, but at least for the moment, the forest was rather quiet.
Indicators
As we continued our gradual climb up the forested hillside, I asked Joan “Why birds?”
“Birds, it turns out, are really great indicators for management and environmental change,” explained Joan.
Many species are only suited for a particular habitat or forest type. If the environment changes, so does the bird community. As a master’s student, Joan explained, she was able to see this firsthand.
Joan studied the impact of forest thinning on bird communities.
“I am going to show that harvesting is bad for wildlife,” Joan’s early scientist idealistic self-had thought, but she was mistaken.
“I found out that when the canopy of these dense conifer stands opened up and allowed the understory to develop… that meant more productivity—more flowers, fruits, seeds, and insects,” said Joan.
In essence, thinning increases resources birds relied on and as a result bird diversity also increased as birds that were attracted to the more open habitat arrived.
“Disturbances aren’t a bad thing,” Joan concluded.
Of course, “that is a bird perspective,” said Joan. “Amphibians might feel differently.”
Why birds?
In addition to birds’ ability to respond so quickly and clearly to environmental change, there are many other reasons birds are useful biological indicators.
“Birds are everywhere,” said Joan. “And they are fun to watch.”
Joan tried studying amphibians early in her career but found it more difficult.
“You have to turn over a lot of logs to find them,” Joan explained, “and in doing so you have to destroy their habitat.”
(Turns out, Kermit is right—It ain’t easy being green.)
Birds, on the other hand, can be counted by sight and/or sound.
For more detailed demographic data, mist nests may be used to capture the birds temporarily to study them. By using a method called “mark-recapture,” even the abundance of birds may be calculated.
Riparian Resident Birds
Deciduous trees, like bigleaf maple and red alder, having still not leafed out, offered views down towards the water as we walked.
“So, what kinds of birds would you find here?” I asked.
“Usually there are a lot of birds here,” Joan responded and pointed out the chattering call of the Pacific Wren.
“They [Pacific Wrens] start nesting this time of year,” she continued; “they like a lot of dead wood—stumps, logs—and they love the riparian area because of all the trees that fall in and it is damp and moist.”
Pacific wren is a resident species in Oregon’s western forests, along with Spotted Towhee, Song Sparrows, Canada Jays, and Steller’s Jay.
Barred owls and Pygmy owls are also common residents found nesting in snags.
“I have long suspected a Pygmy Owl nesting near here,” said Joan.
Riparian Breeding Birds
“In a normal year we would be hearing warblers,” Joan continued as we rose above the creek.
Orange-crowned Warblers usually arrive in April, with Hermit Warblers arriving a few weeks later.
“They [Hermit Warblers] are really cool because they only breed along the west coast here—from the coast to the Cascade Mountains,” said Joan excitedly.
Hermit warblers are what Joan called “endemic breeders.” Traveling to Central America during the non-breeding period and returning to their narrow breeding range in Pacific Northwest forests.
“Pacific-slope Flycatcher,” Joan recalled is another riparian migrant. “I am usually starting to hear those this time of year.”
Pacific-slope Flycatchers are especially fond of forests and woodlands near waterways where the canopy is dominated by deciduous foliage—often nesting on the slopes of forested canyons.
“They love these riparian trees, like maples and ash,” Joan remarked. Here the flycatchers catch insects below the canopy.
Woodpeckers
Early spring is also a great time to see woodpeckers in Oregon’s Willamette Valley forests.
“Hairy woodpecker, Downy woodpecker, red-bellied sapsucker…” Joan rattled off some examples.
It is nesting season and woodpeckers are out scouring the woods for the perfect tree to build a nest in.
“Woodpeckers are primary cavity nesters,” Joan accounted.
Primary means that they excavate their own cavity, as opposed to secondary cavity-nesters, like chickadees, bluebirds, and wrens, that depend on woodpeckers to provide cavities.
“They do the excavation of the cavities because they have strong bills,” Joan explained.
“Woodpeckers are funny because they do a lot of excavating before they settle,” she continued. “The male goes around and makes a cavity, then the female checks it out and goes ‘eh’ and so he makes another cavity.”
This process continues for a while until the female is satisfied. Fortunately, the result is several new unoccupied cavities produced each nesting season. This is great news for secondary cavity nesters, like chickadees and nuthatches, who are soft-billed and reliant on finding a home in already existing cavities.
“They [woodpeckers] are considered ecosystem engineers because they make habitat for so many other species,” explained Joan.
“So, if I see some sort of hole, it is likely something lives in there?” I asked.
“It’s likely,” Joan responded.
Preferences
Eventually, the trail bent and moved away from the creek, heading out on a slowly rising wooded ridge dominated by Douglas-fir.
Standing out in the mix of trees was the statuesque Pacific madrone, with its red shredded bark and green leathery broadleaves leaning out along the trail’s edge.
“In the fall, the madrones have a lot of berries and the band-tailed pigeons were feasting,” Joan reminisced. “They were covering the trees!”
Joan also noted how madrones tend to have cavities in live trees, unlike conifers that need to be dead or dying.
I asked Joan if certain species prefer certain trees.
In general, primary cavity nesters prefer hard snags. However, there also seem to be some preferences in terms of tree species.
“Pileated Woodpeckers like grand fir,” Joan offered as an example, speculating that perhaps it had to do with the decay process. And “Red-breasted Sapsuckers like maple trees,” frequently excavating a nest in a dead branch of a live maple.
Apparently, there is an entire branch of ecology that studies the relationship between primary and secondary cavity nesters and the trees they occupy. Joan mentioned “cavity-nest webs” as a way researchers aim to delineate and describe the complexity of these relationships.
In any event, there is one consistency—“good snags are scarce” and hard to come by.
Harvest Unit
Speaking of good snags, soon Joan and I crested the hill, we broke out of the forest into a clear-cut harvest unit littered with snags and potential snags.
“It is really nice to have something out here,” said Joan referring to all the trees that were left behind.
Joan has consulted on previous harvest projects and recommended that forest managers leave more snags and live trees than might be typical in a clear-cut.
Joan pointed to a large snag with twisted branches that had been left behind.
“That snag they left isn’t worth anything because it is gnarly,” said Joan referring to the potential timber value, “but for wildlife, it is worth a lot.”
Disturbance
Joan was also quick to point out that the clear-cut itself offered some benefits to wildlife.
“There are actually a lot of species that evolved with disturbance,” Joan remarked. “Disturbance is not a bad thing.”
Species like swallows, wrens, pigeons, Purple Martin, and a whole host of raptors benefit from the opening in the canopy.
“This is a phase of forest succession—early seral,” she continued. “When it is natural it is a very diverse stage.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news in the clear-cut, as many of the shrubs that come up during the early seral stage were sprayed with herbicide to give the next generation of conifers a competitive edge.
I was also struck by the small size of the clear-cut and asked Joan about it.
“Is it good to have smaller clear-cuts?”
“There is no one good size,” said Joan.
She explained that for a forest species having a small clear-cut makes the forests more permeable—a species that wants cover can go between trees. However, the larger the clear-cut, the more valuable the area is for a species that needs open areas.
“There is always a trade-off,” said Joan. Her advice for land managers—“be as variable as possible, and work with what is there.”
Ghost Forest
As we walked past the clear-cut with the intact forest on our right, it was easy to assume that the intact forest was in some way “natural” or “right.” But, as Joan reminded me, the conifer forest only exists on this hillside as a product of colonialism.
“Before the European settlers came,” explained Joan. “Native Americans burned this area—it was a bald with scattered oak and scattered Douglas-fir. It was very open.”
With colonialism came fire suppression and the conversion of oak woodlands and prairies into forests.
“If you look in this forest now, you can find old oak trees,” said Joan. “You can tell they are open grow with lateral limbs, but they are dead and decaying…”—overshadowed by Douglas-fir.
We looked deep into the thicket of forest for one of these “ghost oaks,” and found what looked like a mossy, dead limped giant of an oak tree.
“There used to be a bird species that used those,” remarked Joan. “Lewis’s woodpecker—iridescent green with a red breast—they valued the oak and ponderosa pine.”
She sighed, “Now, they don’t nest here. There is not the habitat for them.”
Purple Martin
Then we passed it—a white sci-fi-looking apparatus on the hillside to the left.
“Here is my Purple Martin gourd rack,” laughed Joan. “It is ugly as sin!”
However, what it lacks in aesthetics, it makes up for in function.
Joan explained that the rack is put up to provide a temporary nesting opportunity for Purple Martin—a threatened species here in the west. As insectivores, Purple Martin hunt insects on the wing, so in addition to needing natural cavities for nesting, they also need open space for hunting—a difficult combination to achieve these days.
“The public land has all the big snags but is too dense, and the private land has open areas but not the snags,” explained Joan.
The rack is meant to provide temporary housing until the woodpeckers can create the cavities in snags Purple Martin needs.
However, she cautions people from putting up their own gourd racks. The eastern population of Purple Martin are entirely dependent on people for nesting for this reason. She wants to avoid this in the West.
“Purple martins are the poster child for snags,” she proclaimed.
Across the clearing, I saw a small cavity in a Pacific Madrone. I asked Joan if that might work for the Purple Martin or some other species.
“It looks good for a pygmy owl,” she replied, “but I am not sure they would want to be out in the open. A flicker would love it,” she laughed.
What about Yew?
We were nearing our turn off into the woods when we happened past a shaggy-looking Pacific Yew.
“They always make me think of old forests,” Joan smiled.
“Does it do anything for wildlife?” I asked.
“I don’t know anything in particular,” Joan replied. “They are good for cover,” she offered.
What about Joan? We knew what the Yew was up to (being a really cool tree!), but what about Yew? I questioned Joan, pun intended.
“Right now, I am working on Purple Martin stuff,” she said—tracking them with GPS in collaboration with Klamath Bird Observatory and trying to figure out where they go in winter. So far, she has found that they spend some time in Baja—sounds pretty good to me.
“That is one thing,” she said. “I am trying to finish a bunch of projects,” Joan confessed in preparation for retirement before the end of the year—that also sounds pretty good to me. Maybe she will have to visit Baja?
“Another project is not birds,” she continued, but a carnivore survey using camera traps in the Klamath Network of National Parks.
“We are looking for Marten, Fisher, and Sierra Nevada Red Fox,” said Joan.
She explained that there is a lot of interest in carnivores. They are not only sensitive to environmental change and have been facing declining population rates, but they are also an important part of the food web.
Dense Woods
We were on the steep downhill return trail when I spotted a large patch of Oregon Grape out of the corner of my eye.
“Do they help birds?” I wondered out loud.
“I don’t know,” Joan responded thoughtfully. “The hummingbirds love the flowers.”
Soon we were considering the Oregon Grape fruits and species that might benefit from them as a food source as well.
In the distance, Joan heard the call of a Kinglet deep in the woods. Kinglets, she told me, were birds that responded negatively to thinning in her graduate research.
“They are beautiful little birds,” she described. “A bright gold crest with a scarlet, orange stripe down the middle.”
She heard the call again—“high and thin.” Whatever she was hearing, I didn’t register.
Learning Birds
“Is it hard to tell birds apart?” I asked.
“Not for me,” she laughed. “But yes.”
So how does one learn? Joan had a few tips.
First, “Come during the off-season,” she suggested. Learn the birds that are common year-round and learn them one at a time.
Second, she recommended using an app, like the Merlin App to help, as it identified with sound, and you can get the results often right away.
Finally, get a feeder. Feeders are an excellent way to meet several of the birds that are around all the time.
Some starter birds include song sparrows, dark-eyed junco, chickadees, nuthatches, and towhees.
It also doesn’t hurt to have a bird with a favorite song. Sometimes that is enough to draw one in.
“My favorite is the hermit thrush,” said Joan—a high-elevation bird with a song. “It sounds flute-like and ethereal.”
I recalled hearing the bird myself while hiking in the Jefferson Wilderness—singing its heart out well into the evening. Afterward, I had to find out what I was hearing!
Help the Birds
The trail continued down through the dense forest before dropping us back on the wide gravel road we had come up on—back in the riparian forest.
As we made our way back down to our cars, I asked Joan if she had any tips for helping birds.
“The biggest problems are hitting windows, lights during migration, and cats,” she continued.
So, to help with that, she suggests putting bird strike prevention on any windows that might fool birds, turning out the lights during migration, and keeping pet cats indoors.
Now, with advancements in bird tracking, you can find out when birds migrate through your area, so you know when dark skies are most important.
Pesticides are another concern she brought up.
“Anything that affects insects affects birds.”
Brown Creeper
“Well, we didn’t see very many birds,” Joan remarked when were just about at our cars.
Then, she spotted something up in the trees—a small brown bird hopping up the trunk. It was a Brown Creeper.
“They go way up and then they fly down to the base of the tree or their nest,” Joan noted.
I watched the Brown Creeper hop its way up a large Douglas-fir trunk before taking flight and landing on another tree nearby.
It was probably feeding on spiders hidden in the bark or collecting web for its nest—a common practice according to Joan.
The light was dimming as we stood and looked up at this small brown bird doing what it does best before we lost track of it.
Trills and Thrills
“That was fun!” proclaimed Joan.
And I too felt satisfied.
We have only heard or seen a few birds, but I was walking away with more bird knowledge than I could have imagined.
High-pitched trills spilled through the trees, like a tumbling stream, as we walked the last few feet to our cars.
And I knew it was the Pacific Wren singing us off.
Joan Hagar is a Research Wildlife Biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. She has been studying birds and other wildlife professionally for the last 30 years.
The Douglas-fir forests of Oregon’s Willamette Valley are a year-round delight. Mossy, forested hillsides with every shade of green imaginable—what’s not to love?
However, spring is my favorite season to visit the forest. Days are longer, it is warmer and sunnier (well, on occasion)—all good stuff.
But, then there are the flowers.
Like little gifts from mother nature, the forest breathes new life into the damp, dark woods with a symphony of blooms starting in March. To me, it feels like magic. Or possibility.
Though not typically as vibrant and profuse as some of the prairie or meadow flower displays, there is something special about finding a scattering of trillium shifting in the breeze, or spotting a pink fairy slipper out of the corner of your eye. Perhaps it is their often unassuming nature that is so charming.
So here it is! A list of some of my favorite early-blooming wildflowers of the Douglas-fir forests of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. I hope you enjoy!
Osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis)
Delicate white flowers dangle like teardrops from the tips of each twig—Osoberry is one of the earliest flowering shrubs in the Pacific Northwest. A true sign of spring, I can’t help but smile when I see clusters of these 5-petaled somewhat bell-shaped flowers and their equally droopy thin lance-shaped leaves in late February to mid-March. Spring has sprung!
Fun Facts:
The flowers of osoberry often bloom even before the leaves emerge.
Osoberry fruits are edible drupes, though on the bitter side, and resemble small plums.
Snow Queen (Veronica regina-nivalis)
Another early favorite is this small forest-dwelling herb that emerges before the mountain snow begins to melt. A short raceme (cluster) of purple to lavender bell-shaped flowers bloom in March or early April. The interior of the flower is hairy with stripes on the petals. The overall plant generally doesn’t exceed 15 cm in height with a hairy stem. Wide heart-shaped leaves are shallowly lobed and hairy, growing as a rosette from stalks.
Fun facts:
The stamens of the snow queen (the male part of the flower) are epipetalous, meaning “attached to the petal.”
There are two stamens in each flower with large anthers that stick outside the petals’ outer edge, along with the extra-long style—giving the overall flower cluster a spiky look.
Snow queen is a member of the Plantain family.
Nuttall’s Toothwort (Cardamine nuttallii)
Simple and sweet are words that best describe this early-blooming native of western North America. Flowers cluster at the end of a thin, dark unbranching stem—each with four pale pink, purple, or white petals less than ½ an inch (8-55 cm). Stem leaves sit just below the simple bloom and are smooth and divided into a few thin-pointed leaflets, sometimes with angular lobes. Basal leaves are round to heart-shaped and sometimes shallowly lobed. Find the early blooming Nuttall’s toothwort growing in late March in the damp reaches of the forest.
Fun Facts:
Early blooming flowers like Nuttall’s toothwort provide an important source of nectar to early emerging pollinators like bumblebees.
Nuttall’s toothwort is a member of the Mustard family.
Giant White Fawn-Lily (Erythronium oregonum)
Like the spots on a young fawn, the giant white fawn-lily has a dark mottled pattern on its otherwise bright green rabbit-ear-shaped leaves. The nodding flower arises from a narrow stalk with six long white tepals (petals and sepals undifferentiated) that narrow and swoop upwards at the ends. Six long stamens hang downward from the yellow center of the petals. Usually flowering in late March or early April, look for Giant White Fawn-Lily in the open woodland and forests of the Willamette Valley, as well as meadows and rocky outcrops.
Fun Facts:
Giant white fawn lilies are considered an ephemeral species because they emerge, bloom, and then go into dormancy relatively quickly. Blink and you just miss them!
These lilies have unique below-ground structures consisting of a single bulb and a segmented corm (a swollen underground plant stem).
Pacific Trillium (Trillium ovatum)
This showy flower cannot be missed! A true showstopper, the Pacific trillium has three wide-lance-shaped leaves that whorl about the stem, with tips dipping toward the ground. The flower sits just a short distance above the leaves—three white (sometimes pink) triangular petals, with three green sepals below, open to the sky with a yellow staminate center and a pistil with three stigmas. Growing in droves (or drifts, if you ask the internet) in forest and riparian habitats, they are well-liked by many.
Fun Facts:
Trillium petals turn purple as they age.
Trilliums have a wide range in west-side forests and can be found blooming as late as July. I tend to see them in Willamette Valley forests in late March and April.
Also known as an “ant plant,” trillium seeds have an oil appendage that attracts ants. The ants feed the oil-rich food to their larvae, while “disposing” of the seed in a refuse pile—i.e., dispersing it.
Fairy Slipper (Calypso bulbosa)
I spy with my little eye, something small and bright pink. Despite its vibrant colors, I have seen many casual hikers walk right past a fairy slipper orchid on the trail. Borne on a single six-inch stem, with one oval leaf, the fairy slipper flower looks just as it sounds, like the ballet slipper of a small woodland nymph. The pink flowers flare out at the top with a mottled, fuzzy lip dipping below. A locally common favorite forest flower—look for it blooming in April.
Fun Facts:
Do not pick! A very sensitive species it is threatened or endangered in several U.S. states. Dependent on a mycorrhizal relationship with a fungus, it does not transplant well.
Fairy slippers are deceptive little orchids. They attract pollinators (like bumblebees) but do not reward them with any nectar. Known as pollination by deception, it is not surprising that visiting insects learn to avoid the flower over time.
Tall Oregon Grape (Berberis nervosa)
Tall Oregon-grape is an evergreen shrub that enjoys the sunny parts of the forest—preferring open woodlands or shrublands. A 3 ft to 5 ft tall shrub with holly-like leaves that alternate from the stem. The leaves are pinnately compound, with spiny leaflets that sit opposite each other from the central vein. But this blog is about flowers! Bright yellow, dense clusters (raceme) of flowers bloom in April and are a favorite among pollinators.
Fun Facts:
Tall Oregon grape was designated our state flower in 1899.
The fruits of the Oregon grape are edible but bitter. I do not recommend them for a trailside snack.
Looking over a wall of salal along the trail heading to Shore Acres.
Tall conifer trees are a trademark of Oregon’s coastal forests. Large, long-lived, and stately, it is no wonder that we wonder about the trees. Still, there is a lot more to the forest than the canopy overhead. Shorter and multi-stemmed, shrubs offer another layer of fascination (literally) to our coastal forests—the understory. Shrubs have a lot to offer—between the many berries they produce to the cover they provide small birds and mammals shrubs have got it going on.
This short guide will tell you all you need to know about the shrubs that inhabit Oregon’s Coast Range Ecoregion. Learn some fun and interesting facts about each species, as well as key identification characteristics that will help you to tell them apart.
Salal (Gaultheria shallon)
It would be impossible to write a guide on coastal shrubs without including the ubiquitous salal shrub. Glossy, oval-shaped leaves with sharp tips alternate at angles along stiff branches. Salal is evergreen—meaning it retains its leathery leaves year round—making it a friendly sight even in winter. Rhizomatous, salal typically grows in dense thickets—sometimes to heights above the head. It also loves a dead stump for a home.
In the early spring, pinkish urn-shaped flowers emerge in rows, like hanging lanterns, from the ends of the branches. Not particularly showy, they offer a sign of good things to come. By summer, deep purple-blue berries replace the delicate flowers, offering a (though mealy) tasty trailside snack. The fact that there are so many of them, makes it easy to indulge—there is always plenty for the wildlife.
Salal leavesHike through a tunnel of salal at Cape Lookout.
Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis)
A prickly trail companion, salmonberry shrubs are abundant along Oregon’s coastal trails, especially in drainages and near bodies of water. Thickets of salmonberry often cover small streams making them indistinguishable if it weren’t for the sound of their rushing waters. Salmonberry stems are armed with small thorns and curve and branch as they reach toward the sky—ranging in height from a couple of feet to 15. Leaves are set in triplicate—with doubly serrated leaflets; the central leaflet ending in a point, while the two lateral leaves are lobed. When observed together the leaves look a bit like a butterfly spreading its wings.
Bring pink/magenta flowers give way to a paler pink “raspberry” like fruit in early summer. Large ripe berries can be quite tasty and sweet but are pretty inconsistent. It is easy to miss these berries on taller shrubs as they can grow high above your head—just look up!
Salmonberry leaves and flowersThorny stems of salmonberry
Evergreen Huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum)
A late bloomer, the evergreen huckleberry shrub keeps its tiny, finely toothed leaves year-round, and its berries late into fall and winter. This tall shrubby plant with sturdy branches and can grow up to 15 feet tall. Small, dark purple, and sweet berries grow in dense clusters originating from delicate, white to pink bell-shaped blooms. The evergreen huckleberry isn’t afraid of the dark growing in densely shaded forests and sunny open canopy alike.
Evergreen huckbleberry leaves and flowersEvergreen hucklberry growing in the shade along Gwen Creek trail
Red Huckleberry (Vaccinium parviflorum)
A deciduous shrub, the red huckleberry loses its thin leaves in the fall, exposing the distinctly angled bright green branches of the shrub. Like the evergreen huckleberry, red huckleberry has small, simple oval-shaped pointed leaves, but without a sharp tip or teeth on the margin. Small bell-shaped flowers grow singly, ripening into bright red berries that are edible—their sour flavor often overpowering any sweetness. Red huckleberry grows in a variety of moist sites and is a common inhabitant of nurse logs or stumps.
Red huckberry leaves and berries
Pacific Rhododendron (Rhododendron macrophyllum)
Crooked branches grow upwards, sometimes reaching about 12 feet in height; leathery elongated leaves 3-6 inches in length with tapered ends circle near the tips of each stem where large pink bugle-shaped flowers grow in clusters. Pacific Rhododendron is a showstopper when it blooms in late spring or early summer.
Leaves of the Pacific Rhododendron on a wet winter dayPacific Rhododendron’s showy flower clusters
Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus)
Fuzzy, hand-shaped leaves, like that of a maple, face the sun near the top of this delicate shrub. Crinkly white 5-petals bloom in spring in few-flowered clusters, later ripening into a soft bright red compound berry that stains your fingers and lips. A personal favorite to taste, there is nothing like finding a patch of these “thimble-shaped berries” along the trail—sweet with a bit of a sour kick—YUM!
Thimbleberry leavesThimbleberry leaves and flower to the right; salmonberry to the left and below
Black twinberry (Lonicera involucrata)
A thick-stemmed shrub reaching heights of about 10 feet with green simple elliptical leaves that grow opposite each other. The name twinberry is appropriate not just for the paired leaves, but the yellow tube-shaped flowers also come in pairs with two leafy bracts behind. Early summer blossoms give way to twin black-colored berries in late summer. Perhaps most striking, the green bracts also change from green to a deep red with ripening. Unlike other coastal shrubs, twinberry fruit is not recommended for eating. They are considered unpleasant, bitter, and contain toxins. Found mostly in more open environments, like along meadows and streams, this coastal shrub prefers at least partial sun.
Blacktwinberry’s distinct fruit with deep red bracts
Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)
A low-growing, sprawling shrub—kinnikinnick grows in a variety of habitats, including sand, rocky, and dry meadows, as well as coniferous forests. Thick, shiny evergreen oval-shaped leaves alternate in quick succession from the red-brown branches forming a mat of green along the ground. Bright pink bell-shaped flowers grow in tight clusters from the branch tips. The fruits stick around through winter—bright red and glossy, the berries, though edible, must be fried or stewed before consuming.
Kinnickinnick leaves and berriesKinnickinnick is growing in a dense mat on the sandy ground
Coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis)
A coastal species commonly associated with scrub communities of California, coyote brush is found growing on bluffs, dunes, and open woodlands environments in Oregon. Bushy with many small alternating wedge-shaped leaves, though may be mat forming in sandy environments. The blue-green leaves are evergreen and sometimes sticky with widely spaced teeth along their margins. Individual plants may be male or female. Male plants produce tiny yellow flowers, while females produce white. Fruits are very small and dry (called achenes); tufts of hair-like projections carry mature seeds on the wind.
Coyote brush growing on Cascade HeadCoyote brush leaves in winter
Waxyleaf Silktassel (Garrya elliptica)
Another Oregon and California coast endemic—this evergreen shrub grows in a variety of coastal habitats including woodlands, dunes, bluffs, and chaparral. Waxy, thick oval-shaped leaves with wavy margins are opposite each other along the stem; the undersides of the leaves are velvety and soft. The flowers are catkins—slender, hanging structures. Striking foot-long male catkins are yellow turning gray, while female catkins are only a few inches and silvery. Fruits are clusters of dry blue to black berries.
Waxyleaf silktassel leaves and catkins
Western Azalea (Rhododendron occidentale)
Sweet-smelling blooms coupled with colorful blooms—the western azalea brightens up any hike with its presence. Elongated, shiny, 2–4-inch leaves, tapering at the ends, run alternate each other on this loosely branched shrub. Near the tips of the branches, leaves create a sunburst pattern behind dense clusters of fragrant white to pink trumpet-shaped flowers. A southern Oregon and northern California native, it prefers moist sites, but not too wet, and is known to grow on the nutrient-poor serpentine soils of the Klamath region.
Sweet smelling western azalea flowers
Pacific Bayberry or Pacific Wax Myrtle (Myrica californica)
A bushy-looking shrub with narrow, toothed leaves that seems to spiral as they alternate along the branches. An evergreen shrub, the leaves are dark green and leathery on top with a lighter underside. Look for white or black speckles on the paler bottom of the leaves. Crush the leaves and take a whiff—bayberry leaves give off a fresh spicy scent. The dark purple small round fruits of the bayberry are also fragrant and covered in wax—find them clustered near the shrub’s branches.
Pacific wax myrtle leavesPacific wax myrtle growing on Bayocean spit
Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemose)
Large compound leaves and bright red fruits best describe this lanky plant with swooping branches that reach above your head. Red elderberry is a delight to behold! Each leaf is made up of 5 to 7 narrow leaflets with serrated edges arranged opposite of each other from a central vein—all combined, just one leaf may be up to a foot long. Leaves are arranged opposite each other on sturdy branches with tiny, raised bumps, called lenticels, that allow for gas exchange. Pyramidal clusters of creamy white flowers blossom from the tips of branches, later ripening into tiny, shiny “berry-like” fruits, only about 1/8th inch in diameter. Do not eat these berries raw.
Young red elderberry leaves and flowersElderberry stem with lenticles
