Moth Madness - March 6, 2022

Well, I just realized that I'm actually adding highlights from 2 days here. Yesterday, I was on a longer hike out on Wilderness Peak at Cougar Mountain. I was pleasantly surprised when I heard a Northern Pygmy-Owl tooting on the way down. 

It hadn't sunk in that I hadn't come across one of these little guys since I started this project. Nice!

Today, it was a shorter walk on the same side of Cougar - the Bear Ridge Trail. I'd had plans to go a bit farther than I did, but I got stopped by the sheer number of moths flitting around the early part of the trail. Indian Plum seemed to be the flowers they were after, and sections of the trail that had lots of Indian Plum were pretty thick with these little guys. 

I was not really prepared, just had the phone camera on me, and it's just not easy to get pictures of these tiny moths! Getting close enough before they fly is one challenge, and the other is hoping that the camera focuses properly. This first image came out good enough to get one identification: 

Mesoleuca gratulata - Western White-ribboned Carpet Moth

This is a member of the geometer moth family. Geometer (earth measurer) is a name that makes sense when you've seen their larvae, also known as inchworms! They bunch up their bodies, bringing their hind legs to their forelegs, then reach forward to straighten out again. 

This one... 

I'm still working on. I'm pretty sure it's another geometer moth. It was so similar in size, structure, and activity to the other one. I had several pictures of this one, and the one feature that is a sticking point for me based on those pictures is the almost plain orange in the hindwings. There's a little bit of speckling, but the hindwings really are almost completely orange. The forewings have much more patterning, obviously. In the best lit images, the lighter patches are looking tan, while the darker patches are a mix of black/dark brown/speckled with light spots. It's very rocky road ice cream. Those dark patches are really two bands, as can be seen here - one running along the trailing edge of the forewing, and another right through the middle parallel to the other. There's a little bit of smudginess close to the head as well on the forewing - visible here. 

One more image for perspective. 

Great little hike - I got nearly nowhere, but had fun watching moths and turning over logs. 

Salamanders on Echo Mountain: 1/31/2022

Birding in Douglas County and Klickitat County put me behind a little bit, so there have been no entries for some time! 

But, in the spirit of not giving up on a good project, I thought I'd hike Echo Mountain, and give a few logs a turn, looking for amphibians! This was not the first time I've done this on a hike, but it's the first time I've had success!

My first salamander was a Long-toed Salamander, with a big yellow stripe down the back. This was not too far from the water, which... come on, Tim, why weren't you checking places like this (near lakes) for amphibians more often? Given the reaction when the log was overturned (no reaction at all), I am guessing this little guy may have been hibernating. 

Salamander number two! This is a Northwestern Salamander. The fun thing about these salamanders is that they are extremely toxic. They would kill nearly anything that tried to eat them, except... for local garter snakes! The two species have evolved in response to each other, building up toxicity and resistance to the toxins respectively. Similar to the other salamander, this one was pretty unresponsive, and likely in hibernation.