Scenes from the Spring Season

I've been outside a lot lately.  That's one of the best things about my job at the Methow Conservancy - that and spending quality time with interesting people who share my same passion for the natural world.  On top of "monitoring" many of our conservation easements, I organize and attend all of our educational field classes and programs.  These activities have left me little time to write lately, but they've given me ample opportunity to see flowers, birds, insects and amphibians, and whatever I see I take a photo of.  Photos are a joy to have and share, use in our work and document things, but as someone who aspires to be a good naturalist, photos help me learn.  I can zoom in and look at little details that I might miss in the field.  I can send them to people or websites that know far more than me when I need help identifying a creature, such as a butterfly or other insect.  One photograph can lead to an hour or more of research online (and I do get sucked in - everything is so interesting!).  Eventually, I label the photo and move on, but I'm so grateful for the knowledge that photo brought and I know that little by little, that knowledge soaks in so that the next time I'm in the field, I'm just a little bit more aware, a little bit more observant, a little bit more prepared for what I might see and hear, and a little bit more connected with the world that most of us have forgotten we are a part of.  

Here's a sampling of what I've seen this spring and early summer in the field.  What have you seen and learned??  :-) 
Mary Kiesau
Educational Programs Director
(All photos © Mary Kiesau.  Please do not take or use them without permission)

We were holding an Intro to Birding class, walking around a pond that had forest on one side and shrub-steppe on the other, and the flowers were just as interesting as the birds.  Then I spotted this little "Blue" butterfly on a Buckwheat flower. This is either a Pacific Dotted or a Square Dotted Blue (Euphilotes ssp.) on a Wyeth's Buckwheat (Eriogonum heracleoides).  These butterflies are very hard to tell apart even by experts.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

I was monitoring a conservation easement with one of our summer interns, Hannah Hogness, pointing out that pretty Oxeye daisies are actually invasive weeds when I noticed this beetle that was so covered in yellow pollen that it at first looked like a bee.  Then, we saw these beetles everywhere, on numerous different flowers.  They must have just "hatched."  After some research back at the office, I learned that this is a Flower Scarab beetle (Trochiotinus affinis).  Photo by Mary Kiesau

Our Spring Naturalist Retreat, a 3-day indoor and outdoor learning experience, is new and different every year.  Each year, there seems to be one plant or bird that stands out for each person and makes the whole trip special for them.  This year, for me, this singing male Lazuli Bunting, filled my heart with joy.  (Yes, there were the saw-whet owlets, the mtn bluebirds, and the brilliant tanagers - see below for those- but this guy was my fave)  I hope he found a worthy mate after all that singing!  Photo by Mary Kiesau

There are some flowers that elude us, like cougars, lynx and wolverine.  They are uncommon, often in hard to reach places and don't hang around long.  Tweedy's Lewisia (Lewisia tweedyi) is one of them.  I'm embarrassed to admit that I'd never seen this flower until this spring.  But, I finally did and wow was it in abundance!  This flower is closely related to Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva), and when you see it you'll know it's something special.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

I really know almost nothing about butterflies, I admit it.  I just haven't yet made them my naturalist subject of focus (baby steps, people).  But, when they actually sit still for me, I definitely make an effort to look at them, take a photo and then identify it.  This beauty is a Lorquin's Admiral (Limenitis lorquini), a pretty common flutterby around here, but a wonder all the same.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

Last year, I showed six photos of flowers with "bugs" in a Confluence Gallery show.  I choose to identify and research each of the insects, so as to give good information with each image.  Overnight, I became fascinated with insects (how many of the images in this blog post are about bugs??  Six!), and I began to see them everywhere (even tho' some are so small you can barely see them).  I'm still a nerd when it comes to bugs, looking up each one I see.  Here is a Green Blister beetle (Lytta cyanipennis) on lupine.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

This was just a rare treat - it's not a great photo - but I had to share it.  Here's a male Williamson's sapsucker in my own yard!  I've only seen a Williamson's two other times in my 7+ years in the Methow.  Sapsuckers are a group of woodpeckers that drill tiny holes in trees (usually in a rectangle pattern either vertically or horizontally around) in order to drink the sap that comes out.  They build cavities in trees just like other woodpeckers.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

Who knew that Columbia Spotted Frogs had red (or salmon as the books say) underpants?  To be honest, I never looked before!  Show and tell by Dana Visalli.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

Here's the Columbia Spotted Frog right side up (and probably much more comfortable and happy).  Photo by Mary Kiesau

Nothing says Spring in the Methow quite like yellow Arrowleaf Balsamroot and blue, blue, blue Mountain Bluebirds (in this case, a male on an old mullen stalk).  If only I had a bigger telephoto lens!  Photo by Mary Kiesau

Here's another something blue, and now is the time to start looking for lots of species in the Odonata order because dragon and damselflies like it hot and sunny.  This is a male Marsh Bluet (Enallagma ebrium), best as I can tell.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

Every year, right around the end of May and the beginning of June, I go on my annual hunt for Mountain Lady Slippers (Cypripedium montanum).  You see them in scattered bunches on the edge between dry, ponderosa pine forests and wetter riparian forests, often near rivers, creeks or ponds.  This clump is so big and tightly put together that it looks like a bush - it is on the Big Valley trail in plain site - look for it next June 1st!  Photo by Mary Kiesau

Who doesn't love a good lizard??  They are just so... prehistoric looking.  This Northern Alligator lizard hung out for quite a while letting me take his/her picture.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

Talk about prehistoric looking!  "What is that?!," was my first reaction to this large bug on a thimble berry leaf.  It's easy to google "iridescent green beetle with orange legs" to discover this is Bumelia Borer (Plinthocoelium suaveolens).  It's a type of Longhorn beetle (obviously) and makes quite a flash of color when it flies.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

There are several steps to the advancing of spring in the Methow (the first Say's Phoebe, the first sagebrush buttercup, the first Harlequin Duck...) and the arrival of the Osprey is a big obvious one that all of us notice.  We are fortunate to get to watch osprey (and eagles and ducks) "fish for fish" from our office.  Here's a lucky bird with fresh lunch.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

A naturalist photo essay would not be complete without at least one photo of fungi (and an edible one to boot!).  This huge patch of Oyster mushrooms would have made quite a meal for our Naturalist Retreat group... if only we could have reached it.  It was about 40 feet up a cottonwood tree.  Better luck next time.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

There are so many wonderful flowers to enjoy in the Methow - it was hard to just pick a few for this post.  Lately, I've seen an abundance of super showy pink wintergreen (Pyrola asarifolia) in the boggy, swampy areas around side channels, pools and wetlands.  There are several Pyrola species in the Methow, but this one is surely the prettiest.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

Most of our woodpeckers are here year-around, but spring is the season of sapsuckers (see Williamson's above).  The Red-naped sapsucker is a common site in our mixed forests.  The nape is the area on the back of the neck, even tho' this species has red on the front of his neck too.  Listen for their fading downward squeak (like a dog's toy getting stepped on) in the woods and look for drilled sap wells in willows, fir and pine. Photo by Mary Kiesau

Quite possibly the cutest photo of the bunch... a pair of Northern Saw Whet owlets was found in Dana Visalli's wood duck boxes at the back of Aspen Lake.  This pair looked at our group of budding naturalists and us at them for a long time, and we assumed they were just curious and un-bothered, but apparently their defense upon discovery is to sit still.  Photo by Mary Kiesau  

There is something about red in flowers that is very hard to capture in a photograph.  Have you ever noticed that?  I have taken dozens upon dozens of photos of Scarlet Gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata) and have never been quite able to pick up the little bits of spots and variation of color in the petals, until now.  Behold, my best photo ever of scarlet gilia, taken this spring!  Here's a unique flower of dry, rocky, sunny spots.  Look closely next time you see one and you'll see magic inside!  Photo by Mary Kiesau

And last but certainly not least is our ubiquitous but surprisingly inconspicuous male Western tanager.  Kent Woodruff says this is the most common bird of the spring and summer in the Methow.  Hmm?  This guy spends his winters in Central America, eating fruit and bugs, and then flies here to mate and bred (and eat fruit and bugs).  The red on his head is rhodoxanthin, a pigment rare in birds. It is acquired through his diet, presumably from insects that themselves acquire the pigment from plants, and that's why the amount of red can really vary from male to male.  Photo by Mary Kiesau

 I hope you've enjoyed this naturalist photo essay from our spring and early summer outings and easements.  If you can tell us something about a species here, or something else you've seen in the Methow, please do!  Sharing what we learn and love is what makes and keeps the Methow so unique and special.  

~ Mary Kiesau