**This outing has been filled** How do biologists study wildlife from afar yet get so up-close? Get a unique hands-on look into how we “capture” wildlife using remote trail cameras. Go for a guided walk, put cameras along the trail, see what critters we film, and take a photo home with you. Join Greenbelt Land Trust and Greenbelt Volunteer Naturalist and OSU biologist, Jonny Armstrong, for this free, kid-friendly event at the Bald Hill Farm conservation area. Light snacks provided. Space is limited, so RSVP today!
*This event is brought to you by Greenbelt Land Trust and Hike it Baby.
Registration
For more information or to RSVP, email Jessica or call the GLT office at 541.752.9609. Location and additional details will be provided upon registering.
*Thank you for your interest! This volunteer day is currently full.
Let’s celebrate National Trails Day! GLT is hosting 2 days of volunteer opportunities to give back to our local trails. The beloved trails at Bald Hill Farm need some TLC, or Trail Loving Care. GLT is looking for some hardy volunteers with a big heart to help repair trails for the entire community.
Activity:
Join us to patch damaged sections of trail and to clear vegetation from trail edges so hikers don’t get poison oak and weed seeds don’t spread. We’ll be shoveling gravel and moving it up to 1 mile in motorized toters. Hand tools will be used to apply gravel to trails and to control trailside vegetation.
Participation:
Recommended for ages 16+. Minors must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian.
If you have any questions, please email rebecca@greenbeltlandtrust.org.
*Thank you for your interest! This volunteer day is currently full.
The journey continues along the trail! The beloved trails at Bald Hill Farm need some TLC, or Trail Loving Care! GLT is looking for some hardy volunteers with a big heart to help repair trails for the entire community. Let’s celebrate National Trails Day by giving back to our local trails!
Activity:
Join us to patch damaged sections of trail and to clear vegetation from trail edges so hikers don’t get poison oak and weed seeds don’t spread. We’ll be shoveling gravel and moving it up to 1 mile in motorized toters. Hand tools will be used to apply gravel to trails and to control trailside vegetation.
Participation:
Recommended for ages 16+. Minors must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian.
If you have any questions, please email rebecca@greenbeltlandtrust.org.
Kids are naturally drawn to wildlife through stories, the imagination, and personal experience. By connecting with wildlife, kids learn more about nature and themselves. Join Greenbelt Land Trust, Hike it Baby, and a wildlife biologist for a special outing where we’ll explore wildlife signs and tracks at Bald Hill Farm. We’ll enjoy a group story about Oregon’s wildlife (written by a local author), take a walk along the forested Mulkey Ridge trail in search of wildlife signs, and make a wildlife-themed craft you can take home!
This event is free and family-friendly. Although kids of all ages are welcome, this event is ideal for ages 4 to 10. Light snacks provided.
Space is limited. For more information or to RSVP, please email Rebecca.
Michael Pope
One early Sunday morning in late September, I was hiking the newly constructed Mulkey Ridge Trail between Bald Hill Farm and Fitton Green Natural Area. I woke a sleeping coyote nestled in a thicket of grass beside the trail. It bounded up and raced across the pathway heading down slope but not before pausing to look quickly into my eyes.
Most of us have encountered coyotes. A map of their current distribution shows that they roam over most of North American and Mexico, and parts of Central America. Their range has expanded and continues to do so with a likelihood that someday coyotes may be loping through the vast grasslands of the Argentine pampas and trotting along the shores of the Amazon. They are native to North America, and evolved from a fox-like canid, Hemphillian Eucyon davisi, during the Miocene. Pleistocene coyotes were more robust than modern coyotes perhaps because they sought larger prey and competed with bigger carnivores such as dire wolves and short-faced bears. Pleistocene coyotes likely sniffed around the fire encampments of the earliest humans immigrants to North America after the small groups of hunter-gathers crossed the Bering Land Bridge 13,000 years ago. Coyotes are very smart and seem, despite a one-sided (human) animosity, to like areas occupied by people. Culturally, humans have depicted coyotes as untrustworthy and often tricky, and we have gone to great lengths to eradicate the species because of their dubious reputation for eating sheep, goats, cattle, deer, and small pets. Apparently the federal government shoots, traps, or poisons over 90,000 coyotes annually to protect livestock yet they continue to thrive. In more natural systems, the presence of wolves seems to suppress coyote populations. As wolf populations increased in Yellowstone National Park there was a decline in the numbers of elk, bison and moose, and a steep drop in the number of coyotes.
Verts and Carraway in their “Land Mammals of Oregon” say that coyotes are ubiquitous in Oregon; ranging from grasslands, shrub-steppe, boreal forests, and remote wilderness to highly urbanized areas. For some reason, they were rare or not abundant in the northwestern part of the state until the early 1900s. A number of food habit studies in Oregon point to a varied diet for coyotes depending on geography. They consume brush rabbits, squirrels, mountain beaver, numerous species of rodents, quite often deer, snakes, birds, and berries (most any kind). Average litter size is six pups. However, the mortality of young is high, particularly during the 3rd-10th weeks of life. Coyotes are generally nocturnal, but I have frequently observed them hunting mice in farm fields or dashing across roadways during daylight hours. They are mostly seen as solitary animals or in pairs, but may aggregate in packs if abundant food is available. The yip and howl calls of coyotes are one of their most recognizable characteristics and have been categorized into 11 vocalizations that signify either greetings, alarms or contact calls. I remember attending the Saturday afternoon matinees at Fort Bragg, North Carolina while in grade school when my father was stationed there in the early 1960s. The feature films were generally grade-B westerns with manufactured backdrops and coyote calls in the background to provide western authenticity.
I haven’t seen coyotes near my home in downtown Corvallis, but deer frequent the waterfront park next to my office on 1st Street. Last spring a beautiful, dark-furred mink ambled across the bike path in front of my office window. Occasionally a possum or raccoon will climb one of my cherry trees when the fruit is ripe. However, I fully expect that one early morning I will encounter a coyote perhaps wandering down the railroad tracks in front of my house.
Blog Writer: Michael Pope
Coyote crossing the fields at Bald Hill Farm
