News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
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If you haven’t spent time with bats, you’ve missed out on knowing some very lovely and helpful animals that share this beautiful old earth with us — our home away from home. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Central Oregon’s bats way back in the early 1950s when I met up with one of our wonderful epidemiologists, scientists who keep an eye on diseases transmitted to humans through wildlife. The Bend paper had run a story on the front page about closing Broth... Full story
Elise Wolf, a bird rehabber in Sisters, my wife Sue, and I have fed birds year-round because of the pleasure it brings us seeing winged creatures up close, and knowing with our help they — and we — can make it through some pretty tough times when birds are part of our lives. So here are a few tips to ensure safe feeding practices: To have the reserves to survive winter’s frigid temperatures, birds need to eat foods that are easiest to eat and digest, and that pack... Full story
My dad was a truck-driver all his life. During the Great Depression he had a tough time making a living, and I can remember him saying to my mom, “Mother, I cannot make a living working for the WPA. I’m going to have to leave and look for better employment. You take the children to the farm while I’m gone.” And she did. From the time I was 10-years old in 1938 until the beginning of World War II, my dad was gone — I knew not where — but he sent home money to let... Full story
Several years ago, while conducting some fence lizard business at the Deschutes Land Trust’s Metolius Preserve, I ran into Amanda Egertson, the Land Trust’s stewardship director. She was conducting a restoration project on the preserve with a vigor I found remarkable, planting grass over and over and over, day after day. The Metoilus Preserve was once a picnic ground for the old Brooks-Scanlon Lumber firm in Bend. In that capacity the land was trampled and most of the native g... Full story
When an Eagle Scout candidate gets it into his head that he wants to do a community project, get out of his way — or be prepared to give him a hand. Austen Heuberger, a Sisters High School junior member of Boy Scout Troop 188 was hiking around on the common area of Junipine Acres where he lives when he thought, “Gee whiz, there’s no information about the boundaries of the property, places for wildlife viewing, seasonal closures or historical notes around here. I won... Full story
If you look for it, in time you’ll discover a mystery that will keep you awake nights as you try to unravel what you have stumbled across. That’s where Mary Webster is at this moment. Mary will take off on a trip at the drop of a hat to satisfy that overwhelming curiosity. Thankfully, when she goes off she keeps several of her friends in the loop and we receive photographs of her adventures. Many of her photos will be of birds and other subjects that have poked her cur... Full story
First it was rumors, “The barred owls are coming, the barred owls are coming…” Next, it was the dire warnings that the barred owls were going to either chase all the northern spotted owls out of the Northwest, or breed with them and bring forth a whole new sub-species called “sparred owls.” Then the warning was the feathered invader would compete with the spotted owls for prey and eat them out of house and home — which seems to be the case. In any event, the las... Full story
In all the years Owl and I knocked ’em dead at school assemblies around the Northwest, I think, in some owlish way, Owl knew he was good looking. When we’d walk into a school, him perched on the shoulder of my pinstriped sports coat, the teachers and school secretaries would exclaim, “Oh, look, isn’t he handsome! Look at those eyes, aren’t they something to behold,” and other swell compliments. All the time I thought they were talking about me, but when I looked at Owl he s... Full story
It is said that millions of years ago the buckeye on Bela Chladek’s nose was a moth. Bela’s not cross-eyed today, and the buckeyes are also still with us. I’ve created this story for students who are looking forward to college and taking the time to look at this Earth in more detail. I’ve met a lot of them in Central Oregon and I hope many of these bright kids are already into higher education. But just in case… This story started in a scientific journal and begins with... Full story
I found a sweet old 1946 wooden-main-spar Cub for sale at the Oregon City airport back in 1966. I was working for OMSI as the staff naturalist at the time and really needed the Cub to continue the golden eagle surveys I had started about a year after I rolled into Bend on my Harley in ’51. My two older boys, Dean and Ross, were introduced to the sense of flying, and taking control in that Cub, which may have led to their becoming F-16 instructor pilots. It also made it possibl... Full story
A brand-new wildlife rehabilitation facility, Think Wild, has opened east of Bend. A lot of people from Bend, Tumalo, La Pine, Sisters, and Redmond came out to check out what Think Wild was all about. The facility once housed another wildlife rehab facility that went out of business. Think Wild is an entirely new organization. It has a board of directors made up of local people who have diverse professional backgrounds and experiences. With Michelle van Hilten as the... Full story
Keeping up with bats is not an easy job. People who study bats don’t sleep during the normal times of most human beings. All our bats are nocturnal — local residents as well as visitors — so bat people are up all night long. Tom Rodhouse of Bend, a regional wildlife ecologist for the National Park Service, is one of those people — and he needs your help. Tom started studying our bats back in the 2000s, beginning at OMSI’s Camp Hancock, then on to South Ice... Full story
By golly, this is a strange time for Pandora moths to pop out of the woodwork… er… soil. They were here in grand numbers back in 2017, and it’s usually five to 10 years before they appear again. Must be climate change; something is taking place in and around us that is favorable to this species. And another species is on the rampage. Over on Green Ridge, near Sisters, white satin moths are defoliating the aspen trees and the adults make it appear as though it is... Full story
Are cats cuddly companions or fine-tuned killing machines? They’re both, and owners know that. Cats that live in the wild (or our indoor pets allowed to roam outdoors) kill from 1.4 billion to as many as 3.7 billion birds in the continental U.S. each year. Their owners respond with a shrug of their shoulders — “Oh, well, that’s nature.” Yes, it is natural for cats to kill things; that’s what cats are designed by nature to do. But it is not “natural” for domestic cats to kill indigenous wildlife just because it is... Full story
The Peg Bermel, Friends of the Sisters Library Scholarship started in 2007 and Audrey Tehan, of the well-known Sisters Seed-to-Table Garden, was the first recipient. The award amount is $1,000 for their first year of college and $1,000 for their second year. Nancy Montecinos is this year’s winner. The criteria for the scholarship was that the student must have demonstrated motivation, commitment and involvement in the community through school, volunteer work or in the work f... Full story
Back in 1958, I was looking for something to really sink my teeth into. I tried out being a buckaroo, a logger and a powder monkey. I was living with Dean and Lily Hollinshead on George A. Jones Road, in the house George A. Jones occupied when he had the grand idea of making that property into a model Central Oregon fruit farm…which failed because of freezing frost that hit him every spring in that micro-weather zone. To keep the Hollinsheads from tossing me out among... Full story
The only golden eagle cam operating in the U.S., located just north of Sisters, has been transmitting some pretty exciting footage over the last few weeks. Viewers have been witnessing what appears to be a very cruel event in the life and times of golden eagles: the starvation of one of the young. Last Thursday, May 30, the younger and weaker of the two eaglets fell out of its cliff nest to the banks of Whychus Creek below. The “good news” for those who have been worried abo... Full story
Something new came soaring into the Central Oregon skies last week and it would be wonderful if you’d watch for it: an adult turkey vulture (TV) wearing a patagial (wing/auxiliary) tag. Bird research scientists use patagial wing tags as a tool to check on the movements of large birds. The best known example are those scientists working with the recovery of the California condor. Anyone attending the condor lecture at the Grand Canyon has seen condors soaring by, waiting to b... Full story
The students of Sisters are on a quest to learn more about our local waters with the help of Kolleen Miller, education director of the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, and her fellow educators. Water development projects are the backbone of agriculture in Sisters Country, and it’s vital that students understand the mechanics and biology of water in our lives. Within the high school’s tool box of learning there is a host of educational resources that every one of the stu... Full story
Several local residents have reported sightings of cougar or cougar sign in Sisters Country, from the outskirts of Tollgate to a trail cam capture near a house in Camp Sherman. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) “Living With Wildlife webpage (https://www.dfw.state.or.us) notes that, “Oregon is home to more than 6,000 cougars, or mountain lions. While cougar sightings and encounters are rare, it is wise to educate yourself about the big cats.” Cougars can be fo... Full story
Last week hosted another exciting — and positive — event in the saga of the Cyrus’s Aspen Lakes trumpeter swan community. When the Cyrus family decided to create a housing community out of their ranch and farming land, in order to make it look good and be attractive to buyers they built a water feature and named it Aspen Lake, using their allotted irrigation water. Then, to enhance the beauty of the lake even more, they purchased two pairs of trumpeter swans and t... Full story
On April 1 registration will be open for The East Cascades Audubon Society’s (ECAS) premier birding event, which will be held in Sisters: the Dean Hale Woodpecker Festival. The event itself will be running from May 30 to June 2. People from all over the world take in this event because they’ll have the choice of 20 guided tours in four days. They’ll have the opportunity to see all 11 species of woodpeckers in the Sisters and Central Oregon region, and also potentially to ob... Full story
Despite our recent heavy snowfall, Connie Gunterman, director of the Sisters High Desert Chorale, has her eye and ear turned toward spring. "Well," she announced, "the sun is out and the birds are singing, so it's time for our Chorale to start practicing for our spring concerts...." The Sisters High Desert Chorale Spring Performance is tentatively planned for the weekend after Mother's Day (May 17 evening and May 19 afternoon concerts). The Chorale will be again joined by the... Full story
There are some people in Sisters Country who are pretty unhappy about this magnificent snow that lies upon our sagebrush and sand at the moment; they think "enough is enough." There are also some Sisters in-town mule deer that feel the same way, and probably a host of wild birds that don't have gracious neighbors putting out food for them that feel the same way, too. Sure 31 inches of snow creates a lot of problems for people and wildlife. But... Let me tell you, Good People,... Full story
Mustelids can be pretty stinky. In addition to the American badger (which I wrote about recently), there are several of its cousins that have the same ability: American marten; ermine aka short-tailed weasel; fisher; long-tailed weasel; mink; northern river otter; striped skunk; Western spotted skunk and wolverine. When I was a kid on the farm back in the 1940s, my dad said to me, "Jimmy, if you ruin this brand-new pair of shoes I got for you like you have all your others,... Full story
