Chickens of the woods not always easy to tell apart

When a grouse flushes from the brush, my heart skips a beat before I scan to see who made the noise. Was it a spruce grouse, ruffed grouse or dusky grouse? Each of the three species living in North Idaho has certain characteristics that help with identification.

A yellowish-orange comb above the eye helps identify a dusky grouse

If the grouse is big, it most likely is a dusky grouse. Dusky grouse are twice the size of ruffed grouse which are roughly one pound. The spruce grouse is the smallest of the three species. 

Do you know your cones?

Plink, plink, plink, plop. Plink, plink, plink, plop. The sound of a busy squirrel harvesting cones as they drop to the forest floor. The squirrel is harvesting cones with the seeds still intact so he can stash them for winter. 

A few “green” cones may be forgotten by the squirrel and they join the hundreds of other cones in varying stages of decay that have fallen onto the forest floor. 

A green grand fir cone most likely harvested by a squirrel 

After hearing the squirrel’s chatter, I decided to wander through the woods and see how many different cones I could find. I didn’t find cones from all the conifers in the area but I found nine--from the large western white pine cone to the tiny western redcedar cone. 

How many cones can you identify? Clockwise from top left: ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, western larch, western hemlock, western redcedar, western white pine, grand fir, Engelmann spruce and Douglas-fir. 

Recent swarms of insects are woolly aphids

During the past few weeks, swarms of tiny blue and white insects have pelted windshields like raindrops and stuck to the clothing of anyone walking through them. The millions of almost cottonwood-seed-fluff-like insects are none other than woolly aphids, also known as ash bugs, fluff bugs or fairy flies. 

Like many other animals, woolly aphids are on the move in the fall because they are migrating. They aren’t migrating to warmer climates like birds but instead to a different host plant. 

Swarms of woolly aphids can look like snow falling or drifting cottonwood seeds--but out of season!

Digging deep into the formation of igneous rocks

Myrtle’s Turtle and the Beehive are two of the most spectacular rock exposures in the Selkirk Mountains. They are the Half Domes of the Selkirk Mountains and rightly so because they, including Half Dome in Yosemite, are masses of granitic rock. 

Myrtle's Turtle is a huge dome of exposed granitic rock

Last week, I discussed the composition of granitic rocks but didn’t delve into the formation. Going deep beneath the surface reveals the variations of the granitic rocks in the Selkirk Mountains.

Rocks in the Selkirks not all the same

From the giant rock faces of Myrtle’s Turtle and the Beehive to the rocky shorelines of Trout Lake, one can’t help but notice the rock that forms the Selkirk Mountains. 

The speckled black, white and gray rocks found underfoot on trails and shorelines in most of the Selkirk Mountains of North Idaho, except for the far northwest corner of Boundary County, are granitic rocks.

A collection of rocks found on the Hidden Lake trail shows some of the variations of granitic rock in the Selkirk Mountains

From afar the rocks on Roman Nose look similar to West Fork Ridge but there are slight variations.