As I’ve grown up, the formal human holidays became less and less important every year. There’s so many things about Christmas we can’t control: prices, family politics, the weather. Instead, I look forward to those spontaneously perfect days when nature’s stars align — the winter’s most beautiful snowstorm, the day I saw a bobcat carry a limp, spotted ground squirrel past me in its mouth; and the month I’ll forever remember as “coyote summer” — the wild holidays come without warning, and leave a larger mark.
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THE GORGE — On Christmas Eve, President Biden signed a bill officially designating the bald eagle as the U.S.’s national bird. Already considered the national symbol, the species had never received this official designation.
I can’t remember the first time I understood the high clear “SQUEAK!” which means “FLYING PREDATOR!” in ground squirrel language, but I will never forget the day it alerted me to two Bald Eagles flapping and quarreling over a piece of meat, low in the cloudy sky over my home in White Oak forest.
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MOSIER — A few years ago, Mosier naturalist Brian Barrett looked up from his hammock and spotted a flock of slender, dark-brown, four-inch-long birds zooming overhead — all in the same direction. Intrigued, he climbed out for a better look.
When I was small, we went to the beach. Sand-blinded by wind, we staggered around beside the vast gray ocean, picking up bits of shell embedded in the sand. The biggest disappointment of my first meeting with the sea was a sad lack of sandpipers.
DALLESPORT — On July 6, a bald eaglet took flight at Horsethief Lake in Dallesport, Washington. Shortly after taking flight, the eaglet got caught upside down in a tree, hanging by one talon.
I have never surprised an owl. It’s a life-long goal of mine — one I’m unlikely to achieve, since owls have more acute senses than I and always see me coming.
HOOD RIVER — The History Museum of Hood River County hosts Morgan Olson, raptor educator from the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum, …
