The local Vaux’s Swifts are tiny, soot-colored birds that live mostly in the air. They nest in trees and chimneys, sticking three-inch nests of twigs together with saliva. They don’t bother with territories and may build multiple nests in the same tree.
Free news: This story was produced by Columbia Insight (columbiainsight.org), a nonprofit based in Hood River that reports on environmental issues in the Pacific Northwest, with a focus on the Columbia River Basin.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife media release
Free news: Last week in a Corvallis neighborhood, residents worked together to ensure a newborn fawn spotted on a grass strip between a sidewalk and road was left alone. By early evening, its mother returned for her fawn.
Epic arguments between a house wren and a big gopher snake once woke me up at dawn, when the reptile tried to snitch eggs from the little wooden nestbox outside my childhood bedroom window.
Public Information Officer Amie Ell, City of The Dalles
Updated
Free news: The City of The Dalles has partnered with DocuPet to offer residents a modern licensing system designed to protect pets and bring them home safely if they go missing.
Last week’s image, according to reader Courtney Kaiser, showed a contest held for the World Champion fastest earthworm March 1986, in Petersburg School. This contest, the only one of its kind he knows of, happened every year for the six years Kaiser taught there.
