Before we talk about birds, we need to express our sincere gratitude to PORK, the PRINEVILLE OREGON RUNNERS CLUB. Don’t you love that name? They donated the proceeds from their annual Wetlands Waddle – June 8 this year – to the Wetlanders during a short ceremony on June 25. We are very appreciative as this $700 will help us to fund many of our daily and future needs.
OK. Let’s do BIRDS, as always courtesy of Chuck Gates.
The word “doldrums” is often used to describe bird activity in mid-summer. Compared to the frenetic activity of the other seasons, summer is rivaled only by mid-winter as a time of year when birding slows down. A day of summer birding offers little opportunity for new or different birds from the day before or the day after. “Static” is a word that comes to mind when looking to describe the state of birding in July and early August.
After that bleak assessment, one might think of hanging up the binoculars and taking up knitting until fall. One word will be enough to kick start those binos and get you back outside. That word is “babies.” Baby birds are everywhere. A trip into any habitat will produce views of chicks begging for food and parents feeding their chicks. A short birding trip might produce baby grebes at the Wetlands, baby Sagebrush Sparrows at the far southern end of Hwy 27, baby Yellow-breasted Chat where the Crooked River meets Prineville Reservoir, or baby American Bitterns in Powell Butte. Far from “bleak,” the first half of the cycle of life is all around us in all its glory during these summer “doldrums.”
It’s been my policy to not highlight specific volunteers at the Wetlands. None of us are in it for the glory, although there is lots of glory in being a Wetlander (ha ha). We’re all just happy to serve where needed, use our gifts and enjoy each other’s company.
The other day, though, I took special notice of how attractive the Wetlands’ BEE GARDEN was and decided to highlight it in Tule Talk. This, of course, necessitates some background from our own bee gardener extraordinaire, Jan McDaniel, who only talked about her project under duress. For those new to the Wetlands, this garden is just north of the new gazebo and Monarch garden.
McDaniel’s infatuation with bees is an outgrowth of her Master Gardener involvement.
“The gal I worked with at Master Gardeners found a bee one day,” she explained, “and she was so excited and said, ‘I need to get this for the Bee Atlas (an OSU program designed to better document bees of the Pacific Northwest).’ And then that was all I could think about.”
While McDaniel was taking classes to become a “Master Melittologist” – someone trained to contribute to the Bee Atlas – the existing Eagle Scout Bee Garden needed a new caretaker. McDaniel didn’t have to think twice. And now she’s putting her own personal stamp on the project.
Originally, there were five repurposed metal stock tanks filled with soil and showy plants that would attract pollinators. Each included a post with a “bee hotel,” the insect equivalent of a bird house, attached at the top. The hotels were filled with numerous small tubes to provide bee nesting habitat.
Since then, McDaniel has added another stock tank to the mix, carefully maintained and managed the flowers and irrigation and changed out the bee hotels with others more technically suitable. She’s also expanded into a “ground garden” with early-season native shrubs to complement the later-season flowers in the tanks. Although the majority of her plants are native, some are not, and she emphasized that a plant doesn’t have to be native to bring in native bees.
Of particular interest to me were the bee hotels, especially their brightly colored glass roofs, designed by McDaniel herself, but that’s just cosmetic. More importantly is the variety of nesting materials available to the bees. Now, there are tubes of various sizes as well as hollow sticks and other materials. McDaniel explained that the Mason bees lay eggs and separate them, along with their nutritious pollen balls, in the tubes using mud collected nearby, much as a concrete mason would plug a hole. One completely occupied structure confirms that their nesting is mostly finished by June 1. Now their maturing cocoons can overwinter.
By July, the hotels will be used by Leaf Cutter bees, if they can find vacancies. You know how it is in Prineville. Instead of mud, these bees cut out little circles from flowers and leaves and use them in the tubes to separate the eggs. Later, Carpenter bees will actually excavate their nesting quarters in the hotels.
Mixed within the tubes are two or three various-colored wooden dowels. McDaniel explained that the bees need reference points or landmarks to relocate their personal tubes and the dowels serve as such. Think of a flag helping you to find your car in a large parking lot.
And don’t forget the ground-nesting bees, which obviously use the flowers but not the hotels. These bees, making up 80% of all bees, she explained, spend all but one month of the year in the ground. There, they deposit an egg and pollen ball and then secrete a cellophane-like material around it to protect it from water damage. Who knew that only 20% of all bees are above ground year-round?
Noticeably absent from the Bee Garden is the Honeybee, an introduced species McDaniel said she’s never seen here. Of course, Honeybees are communal (hive) as opposed to the others that are more-or-less solitary. Solitary bees are excellent pollinators, she said, and can be bought to use in specific areas such as orchards.
McDaniel’s passion is to develop educational materials about the different bees so people can better appreciate them, especially the “little, tiny Sweat bees that are so gorgeous.” She also intends to do more collecting for the Bee Atlas and to involve other melittologists in the effort.
Fascinating! See you on the ponds.
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