Since late summer it has been a rare week without a coyote sighting in the garden. There is plenty of evidence that they are preying on rabbits and squirrels; their abundant scat is full of fur and bones. Tufts of fur, viscera, bones and even feathers are scattered about the garden and adjacent green spaces if you look carefully. Feathers are nothing new. Cooper’s hawks (Accipiter cooperii) catch and kill birds in the garden and leave feathers scattered about. But based on the size of the sternum and the feathers, intestines etc., it seems likely a coyote got a goose (probably on Rainier Vista) and partially consumed it on the lawn west of Benson Hall. Good for the coyote. Geese have it too easy in Seattle… or used to.
While talking to garden visitors by the herb garden shed on Okanogan Lane…a coyote (Canis latrans) strolled past…
then appeared a little later near the garden shed.
Inspecting an area frequented by our resident eastern cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) on another morning. Good coyote! I took this photo from ten feet away. Just as squirrels and rabbits and birds go about their business all around us, so too the coyotes.
If you live out on the range and raise livestock, your attitude about coyotes might be less positive. In fact it’s probably pretty negative. They cut into the profit margin. With that in mind, here’s an interesting article from Scientific American about why, in the long run, nonlethal methods of deterrence can possibly work better than lethal. Even so, the ranch rifle will probably always be a tool in the ranch toolkit.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-killing-coyotes-doesn-rsquo-t-make-livestock-safer/
Pardon the horrible phone zoom shot but behold another faunal breakthrough. We can only dream of what it was like to encounter an ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) in the deep woods, swooping along from tree to tree, for they are now extinct (and we are north of their historic range). But seeing the similar pileated woodpeckers on campus was a thrill and a first for me. They are magnificent birds…so big. I see them at Seward Park regularly but campus woods are a bit of a checkerboard and probably just flyover territory most of the time.
Two pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus) spent a few days in the woods adjacent to the garden. This one flew from one round of a log to the next, looking for a snack. My phone’s camera is handy but the zoom image quality is lacking.
As it flitted through the manzanitas (Arctostaphylos sp.) along Okanogan Lane (just a few feet away from the last coyote photo spot) I finally got a clear profile shot of what I take to be a hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus). It spends time there as well as the woods around Cascara Circle.
Eyes out for any stealthy long-tailed weasels (Neogale frenata/Mustela frenata) but no luck yet. If you see one on campus, let me know when and where. They have been reported near the HUB, outside the Biology Greenhouse (with photographic proof) and near the lower Rainier Vista.
In a couple of days it will officially be winter with snow predicted soon. Here are some fall floral shots. October was so warm that it took forever for fall colors to appear but a cold snap in November set things off.
Looking up from below at the sourwood tree (Oxydendrum arboreum). Its leaves, bark and sap are medicinal. Young leaves are also edible, flowers are fragrant and sourwood honey is considered one of the world’s greatest honeys. It generally comes from the southern Appalachians. Sourwood is in the heath family, the Ericaceae.
Water in the Cascara Circle stream froze on November 18. It hasn’t frozen since but it will surely freeze again before spring arrives.
A few years ago a garden visitor suggested I should thin the western sweetshrub (Calycanthus occidentalis) in Cascara Circle. It had completely enveloped the brick cistern that surrounds it and it was hard to sit by the water. I resisted but the seed of doubt had been planted and one day I removed the thickest, oldest stems from the ground up. It is so much better now. Look at that dazzling autumn light on those golden leaves. Gardens never stop giving.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of Szechuan peppercorns (Zanthoxylum simulans) are ripening in this photo (near Okanogan Lane). When they fall and it rains, the air is fragrant with their indescribable aroma. By the way, they are not related to the pepper in your pepper grinder. They are in the citrus family, the Rutaceae and their flavor is spicy, not hot, more like citrus-pine umami. Black pepper (Piper nigrum) grows on a vine and is a member of the Piperaceae. It is native to southern India and Sri Lanka. You would need a heated greenhouse to grow it around here.
Opuntias in the faint, low autumn sun.
Greek mullein (Verbascum olympicum) was cut back in October to keep the seeds from spreading far and wide. Here it is flowering again on December 1.
This picture of a dang shen (Codonopsis pilosula) flower was taken on October 25. Why flowering so late? Because I started these plants from seeds in spring. They’re perennials so I wasn’t expecting them to flower this year, but our extended warm spell kept them growing.
Sometimes it can be hard to get a mental picture of the garden when you’re looking at a computer screen in a remote location. Here are some pictures of the sections with formal garden beds, so excluding Cascara Circle and all of the border areas which are hard to photograph. Starting from section A at the west of the garden to section F at the northeast of the garden:
Section A looking east.
Section B looking southeast.
Section C looking south.
Section D looking east
Section E looking east.
Section F looking southeast.
Late autumn sun gets so low in the sky around here that shadows grow long and tall on rare sunny days.
At the west end of the garden, not far from the paw paws and the jack pine, I planted some hardy bananas that I started from seeds this past winter. The larger plant in the foreground is Musa mannii and the smaller is Musa velutina. Hopefully they survive this first winter. They can do well in Seattle in the right place. When the plants get tall, some people around here will wrap them in plastic to protect them in winter.
Pipevine (Aristolochia macrophylla)
tripod trellis took a fall in the winds of November. The bottom of one of the bamboo posts broke so I had to cut the vines back hard to replace the trellis.
Last year I had to remove some of the drooping lower branches of this crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) on the western edge of section D. That pruning job as well as the drastic cutting back of the leggy silk tassel (Garrya elliptica) and the removal of the hulking common rhododendron (Rhododendron ponticum) opened up a lot of air space in that corner, what I refer to as a feng shui smackdown. The energy now flows much more smoothly through that bottleneck edge of the garden.
The raptors and the coyotes are keeping the smaller mammals and birds on their toes. This is one of many tufts of fur spread out around the garden. You can probably guess what happened here. That might be part of a cottontail. If so, the rest of the rabbit will likely show up in coyote scat.
Or maybe it was an owl. Barred owls are here and they’re eating something. It’s hard to believe they wouldn’t be feeding on rabbits.
Barred owl (Strix varia) and crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) on the western edge of the garden a couple of weeks ago. If you see an owl all by itself in the city, be patient and enjoy the quiet; the noisy crows will arrive soon enough.
It’s almost winter solstice, far and away the best holiday of the year. Fingers crossed for many flower buds on the paw paws.
last leaves falling down
kicked up by the winter birds
foraging for food
See you in the garden.