Bird's eye views

Many residents need only to go as far as their back yards to find wildlife to watch

By Allen Throop
Venture contributor

A few weeks ago, I was watching a pair of gray squirrels chasing each other up and down the trunk of our large pin oak tree and collecting walnuts for the upcoming winter.

Suddenly, one of the squirrels ran towards the end of a branch. A blur of brown that I had not noticed before rushed from the branch and disappeared into another tree.

After a few days of observation, I identified the blur as a Douglas squirrel, also known as a chickaree.

The new resident's activities are now part of a fascinating interplay of animals visible in our backyard.

My wildlife blind is cleverly disguised as a chair located next to a picnic table. I can spend hours in the chair trying to learn the ways of the animals that share my back yard.

I do not try to tame; I just watch.

For years, I enjoyed the writing of Scott Stouder in the Venture section of the paper. He clearly knows the habits of elk and deer from a lifetime of carefully stalking those animals through the forest.

Perhaps rather late in life, I have realized that I can enjoy a similar experience, learning the habits of the small animals without the horses, trailer, pickup truck and guns that Scott needs when hunting his large game.

For my quarry of squirrels and birds, I need only two eyes and a comfortable chair.

During the 23 years in which my favorite wife and I have lived in our house, the habitat has changed dramatically.

The small birch, English walnut, and other introduced ornamental trees that were 15 years old when we moved in have grown tremendously.

As the crown of the individual trees coalesced into a broad canopy, the opportunities for birds and animals increased so slowly that we hardly noticed the change from year to year.

When the first gray squirrels appeared, perhaps five years ago, I was alarmed and afraid they posed a threat to our large garden. I considered various devices to prevent them from climbing into our trees.

But before undertaking an all-out battle, I came to accept two facts.

First, the squirrels can get into our trees from neighbors' trees. Blocking access to our tree trunks would be a futile exercise.

Second, squirrels eat nuts, not tomatoes or blueberries. The walnuts would be fair game, but the garden, for the most part, was safe.

Since the arrival of the first squirrel, we have had three resident gray squirrels.

Generally good neighbors, they have left the house and garden untouched.

While I don't question their domestic arrangement, I do envy the location of their home. Their leafy nest high in the oak tree must have a great view, especially in winter when the tree is bare.

This spring, one of the squirrels lost most of the hair from its previously beautiful tail.

Although it seemed to run and jump as fast as the others, the lost counterbalance must have affected the animal's ability to jump from branch to branch.

Now only two gray squirrels, both with bushy tails, run up and down the trees in our back yard. I can only guess what happened to the squirrel with the scraggly tail.

The circle of life goes on.

The chickaree has added a new dimension to our watchable wildlife population.

The brown and tan newcomer differs in many ways from its larger cousins. While the gray squirrels like to sit in the walnut tree eating fresh nuts, the chickaree carefully clips a nut from the south side of the tree, grabs the nut with his or her teeth, runs down the nut tree and then across the birch tree to the woodshed to place the nut in a well-hidden cache.

The energetic animal then runs back over the woodshed, across the birch tree, up the walnut tree, and finally out to a branch on another side of the tree and starts again.

While the gray squirrels are quiet, the chickaree, at times, enjoys long conversations with nearby jays.

The gray squirrels occasionally chase the chickaree; once a much larger gray squirrel sent the small animal flying out of the tree.

But gray squirrels also chase each other.

Are they playing? Are they fighting over territory?

Clearly, more observation is needed to answer such questions.

The little squirrel is not the only new animal in my little slice of the world this year. About a month ago, a trio of Steller's jays moved into the neighborhood. They seem to have been accepted reasonably well by the resident scrub jay population.

Individuals of one species will occasionally chase after individuals of the other but, like the squirrels, they also chase individuals of their own kind.

A photograph of one of the Steller's jay disclosed another curiosity.

It has a deformed bill. Is it genetic? Is it environmental? Did it get caught in a trap? Does this affect its behavior?

The discovery is one more puzzle to ponder.

According to reference books, both chickaree and Steller's jays are typically found in Oregon's coniferous forest.

They are certainly not unknown in urban areas, but they are more likely to be found in the Douglas fir forests of the Cascades or the Coast Range than in residential back yards of Corvallis.

The arrival of the new species provides a basis for my mental wandering.

Currently, my hypothesis is that the two new species have moved into our back yard because of the growth in the tree cover.

The scrub jays were comfortable in our urban savanna; both types of squirrel and the Steller's jays prefer the tree canopy of our relatively young urban forest.

The lack of any native tree species in the canopy does not seem to be an issue.

As the leaves start to fall, the view will change. Spotted towhees, varied thrushes, and juncos will be easy to see.

I look forward to the new season, new wildlife sightings, and new unanswered questions to ponder.

Allen Throop is a freelance writer from Corvallis. He can be reached at throopa@peak.org.

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