Pikes/Pines | What your feathered friends need on a below freezing Capitol Hill

A Spotted Towhee looking out from food and shelter on a frozen day. (Image: Brendan McGarry)

We might not be able to translate Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs directly to our fellow creatures – afterall we don’t know how much things like belonging matter to a Northern Flicker. But it goes without saying that our feathered neighbors on the Hill all need food, water, and shelter above all else.

With some of the lowest temperatures in decades upon us, it’s a good time to remember what it takes for birds on the Hill to survive. Wild and free they may be and the list might seem simple, but boy, it’s real out there.

For birds, freshwater can be the hardest thing for birds to find when the temperature dips. What collects in a small indentation on a sidewalk or light morning dew can provide enough for a bird like a Song Sparrow, but freezing weather frequently takes this access away. If you want to help birds and other animals during periods of cold weather – give them access to water and find a way to keep it from freezing. Continue reading

Pikes/Pines | Oh, by gosh, by golly, around the Pacific Northwest it is time for… Dwarf Mistletoe and holly

Arceuthobium (Image: Stan Shebs via Wikipedia)

I don’t know about you, but I have never been to a holiday party with mistletoe. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, or maybe it’s a generational thing, but I have zero recollection of a leafy plant with white berries hanging above me during a party. Or am I just admitting I wasn’t very popular growing up?

There’s actually a fairly good biogeographical reason.

While we do have several types of mistletoe in this part of the world, none are the species of lore Viscum album. Often just called Common Mistletoe, this parasitic plant is native to much of Europe and Asia. (Interestingly this species was introduced – and has become invasive – in California by that scoundrel Luther Burbank for holiday harvesting. You might recall he introduced Himalayan blackberries to our region.) These leafy evergreen globes perch in tree and shrub crowns and are quite obvious in the winter months, which might have something to do with prominence in multiple cultural beliefs across the plant’s range.

Mistletoe are a funny species to revere and to associate with things like fertility considering how they make a living. Though mistletoes can photosynthesize, the word of the day is “hemiparasitic” — These quasi-epiphytes have adapted to tap into the vascular systems of trees or shrubs that they grow on. Burrowing under live bark, mistletoes bury their haustorium, a root-like structure that allows them to siphon liquids and nutrients from their host plant. Common Mistletoe can parasitize over 200 tree and shrub species. So, maybe this success is really where an appreciation comes from.

The Pacific Northwest does have a leafy mistletoe that bears resemblance to the old world species. The well named Oak Mistletoe, Phoradendron villosum, enjoys the Oregon White Oaks of the Willamette Valley, doing a lot of obviously plant-like things such as having unmistakeable leaves, flowers, and fruit. However, you won’t encounter that species anywhere near Capitol Hill. What does grow in our area is less obviously a plant and only parasitises coniferous trees. Growing in evergreens, they aren’t easy to spot unless you know what you are looking for, which is part the reason you might have never heard of the Dwarf Mistletoes in genus Arceuthobium. Continue reading

Pikes/Pines | Birds on the Hill to be renamed (not after dead white guys)

A Steller’s Jay sleeping well knowing it’s not going the way of the Steller’s Sea Cow any time soon. (Image: Brendan McGarry)

I can finally breathe easily. Soon I’ll never have to get annoyed with people who spell Steller’s Jay, “Stellar.” Indeed they are stellar birds, but the moniker wasn’t bestowed from a need to emphasize their astronomical awesomeness. This common backyard jay, one we enjoy on the Hill, is named after Georg Steller, the German naturalist and physician aboard the Bering Expedition.  Ole Georg is long dead and holds the dubious honor of having multiple endangered or extinct animals named after him. My real reason for feeling a bit of relief is that this bird and dozens of others are slated to be renamed.

Who gets to name a bird? Well, it’s certainly not the birds themselves. At least where we live, the American Ornithological Society is the group of individuals in charge of naming and renaming birds. Don’t get me wrong – you can call a bird whatever name you like – but when we start to try to communicate about a specific species and we have wildly different names for them, it can be a little less than efficient.

The American Ornithological Society (AOS) announced on November 1st, 2023 that it will endeavor to change the English names of birds named after people, as well as those deemed otherwise offensive. (Flesh-footed Shearwater is a good example of offensive – it has pink feet.) For me, this was a welcome announcement and as a Scorpio, I considered it a personal birthday gift, and a signal that those in charge of an area of study I love are taking steps to right wrongs. For others it was the result of long conversations and hard work (I have written about the work of folks in the group Bird Names for Birds previously on Pikes/Pines). For some, it was at best a waste of time, and at worst just another step down the road towards woke-town where white people are being “discriminated against.”

Thankfully, the AOS did not bow and scrape to the latter of these opinions. Birding and ornithology has all types, but has historically been mostly a white male thing and still largely is. Thankfully that trend is changing, and the commitment to future name changes demonstrates that the AOS knows things need to be better. And that we don’t need birds named after Confederate Generals and slave owners, particularly for the argument of “history.”

This is also an exciting opportunity to name birds for their field marks, behavior, and natural history. Why do we need to celebrate some dead white guy who has next to nothing to do with the birds named after him? From the perspective of folks at the AOS the answer is: we don’t. Continue reading

Pikes/Pines | A few things to chew on about Seattle’s magic mushrooms 🍄

UPDATE: We got a lot of feedback over the weekend about the original headline for this story — Seattle’s magic mushrooms ruined my life. Some people said it didn’t accurately portray what the Pikes/Pines nature post was about. Others were concerned readers would only see the headline and a negative portrayal of magic mushrooms. We settled on the original headline after agreeing it fit given the personal story of starting a natural history exploration of psilocybe mushrooms. But we agree that the headline can cause confusion and is getting in the way of a good episode of Pikes/Pines. We have updated the headline. Thanks and apologies for any frustrations.

A map of Psilocybe mushroom observations around Seattle illustrates their urban tendencies (Source: iNaturalist)

A wavy cap, indeed (Image: CHS)

It was a Friday, a weekend away from my 16th birthday, and I had permission to wander off after school with my friends. On this dry October evening, I sat astride monkey bars in a playground in Northeast Seattle while we waited to catch a bus. For some reason that is still a mystery to me, I decided to jump off my perch, but neglected to notice the length of metal tubing below. My face impacted steel before my feet touched the ground and the majority of my two main incisors disintegrated.

When I landed on the ground, I felt obvious pain, but I hadn’t really clocked the ramifications. That was until I looked up at my friends, who appeared to be imitating The Scream. Tentatively probing my jagged maw and realizing what I’d done, I uttered an extremely dramatic phrase for someone under their parent’s insurance and with access to modern dental care.

“I just ruined my life.”

Now, you’ve already jumped to conclusions based on the title of this article and assumed I was high. You’re wrong. I was stupid, had made a bad mistake, but I wasn’t high. But my friends were. They’d eaten mushrooms earlier that afternoon and had just watched what they described as “tracers” fly out of my mouth, and then heard me utter a phrase that haunted them for the rest of the weekend (and long into the future). While it’s reasonable to ponder if my imbibing would’ve helped me through this trauma (doubtful), I know being sober made calling my parents on my Nokia brick less terrifying. My friends caught the bus and ditched me and I didn’t blame them. We’re all still friends and are all reasonably well functioning adults, drugs aside.

For years after breaking my teeth, I was deeply suspicious of psychedelics despite using cannabinoids, alcohol, caffeine, and very rarely nicotine. In fact, I didn’t try mushrooms until fairly recently, when I had a lovely time sitting on a river bank watching birds, making willow branch wreaths, and taking photographs. Despite my reticence and an enjoyable first experience, I never once did I stop to consider the natural history of these mushrooms — many of which grow right here in Seattle. Continue reading

Pikes/Pines | Now you know your A, Bee, Cs… next time won’t you count bees on Capitol Hill with me?

Whether or not we appreciate it, humans interact with many other species daily, from the bacteria in our guts to the squirrels visiting our bird feeders. Some, like a graceful Great Blue Heron, are easily enjoyed. Others, like a passing insect, might be brushed off as an annoyance or even feared. However, we are increasingly appreciating the importance of insects in our world.

Pollinating insects and bees in particular are poster children for insect conservation efforts because they directly benefit people. I’ve written about bees on CHS before and stated that there are over 600 species of bees native to Washington. This should give you pause. How many species of bees might you unknowingly share your days with? Continue reading

Pikes/Pines | The pronking, nibbling, Volunteer Park-chilling deer of Capitol Hill

These deer appeared in Volunteer Park in July (Image: Volunteer Park Trust)

When my parents moved out of Seattle and to a small city North of Seattle in 2017, they took with them plans for a new garden. They didn’t realize that Anacortes is filthy with deer, nor what it meant for that garden. Deer rubbing their antlers on their precious new Japanese maples. Deer uprooting fresh plantings of flowers. Deer relaxing on lawns and chewing cud.

What does Anacortes have to do with Capitol Hill? Nothing really, but if you are anything like me, you didn’t grow up having many first-hand experiences with deer. They were animals you saw in the country, common but still kinda fun to see. Believe it or not, there are deer in Seattle and a couple of Capitol Hill’s green spaces host them. But that makes the deer that have been hanging out in Volunteer Park no less exciting.

The “deer” in question are Black-tailed Deer, Odocoileus hemionus columbianus. They are a subspecies of Mule Deer, which range all across Western North America. Go east of the Cascades and you’ll find a different subspecies, the Rocky Mountain Mule Deer. Colloquially often called just “Muleys,” they are well named, for their seemingly oversized mule-like ears. Washington is also home to White-tailed Deer, including a threatened population now restricted to Southwestern Washington. Continue reading

Pikes/Pines | A new and reduced Clean Water Act also trickles onto Capitol Hill

In an effort to create more wetland environments here, there is a plan to install floating man-made wetlands in Green Lake (Image: Friends of Green Lake)

(Image: City of Seattle)

I don’t know about you, but I like a good wetland. A real low-lying mucky kinda place that you know would pull your boots right off if you tried to walk across it. The kinda place that, according to a recent ruling by the Supreme Court, no longer deserves protection under the Clean Water Act.

On May 25th, 2023 the Court issued its decision in the case of Sackett vs. the EPA, siding with Idaho couple Michael and Chantell Sackett. The case itself has been moving through the court systems since 2008, when the Sacketts were first told to halt filling a lot they were developing near Priest Lake, Idaho. The EPA said they could tell the Sacketts to do this because of the Clean Water Act, and when the couple sued, the local court agreed with the EPA. But finally, court by court, the Sackett’s got what they wanted from the final say in our judicial system.

You would be justified in thinking that this doesn’t sound like something related to natural history on Capitol Hill.  And really, despite my soap box opinions about how we all relate to the more than human world, I don’t delve into environmental policy on Pikes/Pines because it’s not my area of expertise. But this one hurts. And it upends 50 years of protections that are vital to human and environmental health.

The entire case hinged on a definition of “Waters of the US,” and the semantics of what is water and what isn’t as well as that sloppy middle ground — wetlands. Continue reading

Pikes/Pines | Cover your ash: Keep an eye out for the EAB

An adult emerald ash borer. (Image: Washington Invasive Species Council)

An adult emerald ash borer. (Image: Washington Invasive Species Council)

It feels as if there are always threats to forests, including our urban canopy on the Hill.

Impacts span from widespread disease to wildfires to inadequate regulation that allows for poor management. Introduced species like insects are often high on the list of worrisome threats. Writing here, I regularly come up against the reality that many of the introduced species on the Hill aren’t going anywhere, but that doesn’t mean we should open the door to more.

So, what happens when we can see a devastating insect fast approaching?

On June 30, 2022, the first report of emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) was confirmed in Forest Grove, Oregon, a town west of Portland. Invasive species experts, foresters, and land managers had all been poised for this moment, or at least were ready for what seemed inevitable somewhere on the west coast. Every year the beetles were moving closer, it wasn’t if, it was when. This tiny jewel of a beetle arrived only two decades after it was first found in Michigan.

Riding out a pandemic, it shouldn’t surprise any of us that a tiny beetle, typically a half an inch long, could be devastating to large trees. The problem lies in the fact that emerald ash borers (EAB) are not from the US, but native to NE Asia; nearly 99% of the native and ornamental ashes here have no resistance to EAB and there are no substantial biological controls yet known. These buprestid beetles (a group also known as jewel beetles), likely arrived in unseasoned wooden packing material as larvae that later hatched and went off to find a place to lay their eggs (ash is a common tree used for crates and pallets because it is easily split and is very durable). The result has been the death of hundreds of millions of trees across much of eastern North America. Continue reading

Pikes/Pines | Earth and Citizen Science Month collide on Capitol Hill — 7 ways to help count nature’s health around Seattle

Do the people that declare “official” days or months all confer? Is there a shared calendar somewhere that they all use? How do they figure out scheduling conflicts? Surely they couldn’t have made April 1 both National Greeting Card Day, National Sourdough Day, National Love Our Children Day, and well, April Fools Day?

Despite the rather farcical nature of these various days, I still think the symbolic nature of honorific days or months is important. These are opportunities to reflect and consider different facets of cultural heritage that can be quite compelling and draw real connections and action. For example, I love Earth Day, even if it does provide torrential greenwashing from corporations actively depriving us of a healthy planet. (A Bloomberg ad I saw recently was particularly infuriating, consisting of strung together movie clips that encouraged optimism about the environment, which felt like someone standing on high ground, watching a group of people drowning in a river saying “Just come up here, it’s fine. Swim harder, you’ll make it.”

Ramble aside, my point is that these various days and months are what we make of them. As it happens, April is both Earth Month and Citizen Science Month, two things that are actually the focus of this month’s article (not my bad jokes and ranting). Thankfully in this case, these things complement one another.

As a result, I have some opportunities to share to help celebrate. Continue reading

Pikes/Pines | Capitol Hill through the eyes of a cat — and a pigeon, and a fly, and a slug, and…

This is what AI says the CHS crow’s eye looks like

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Try telling that to your dog or a fly. See what exactly? That hummingbird visiting flowers sees things quite differently than you or I, even if between individual humans our vision can be quite varied. Understandably, we tend to get a bit caught up in ourselves, because despite good science we still only really know definitively what the world looks like to us (and by that I mean down to each of us individually).

What does the world look like to some of the animals that we share the Hill with?

First, a bit about “eyes.”

Any eye, no matter the structure, detects light and processes it into neurons that help the organism with said eyes “see.” Enough said. But without getting too metaphysical about it, what exactly is seeing? For some organisms, it means merely detecting light and dark. For others it means seeing colors, shapes, and movement. There are simple eyes which consist of a lens or multiple lenses within a single structure (like our eyes or an eagle’s) and compound eyes are arrays of many lenses (think of fly eyes). The arrangement of these lenses and the photoreceptor cells are quite diverse and complex (even in the case of “simple” eyes) and although Darwin famously said that “the eye to this day gives me a cold shudder,” it’s fairly apparent why this is the case: organisms have deeply different needs from their eyes.

To attempt to briefly explain the evolutionary development of eyes, or even try to explain all the details of the different eye structures of even the few creatures below is laughable. So I’ll settle down into my childhood comfort zone and regurgitate some animal facts. I do this for your sake, because while eye evo-devo is a vast and fascinating subject, the real joy is knowing that slugs have no focus, and that birds can see an entire spectrum of light invisible to us.

A cat’s irises are little slits during daylight hours. (Image: Brendan McGarry)

Cats — Cats are obviously good at seeing at night. If you’ve ever caught your cat’s eyes in a flashlight, you also know their eyes are not like ours. Cats have a reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum, allowing them to see with much less light than us (around 1/6th the amount we’d need to see well). This is also why they have irises that can go from narrow slits to wide moons; they are extremely sensitive and need to protect themselves as they move between day and night. Continue reading