25 turkey facts to gobble up

Thanksgiving brings turkeys into the spotlight which usually is detrimental to them. So here are 25 turkey tidbits to ponder while your turkey is cooking in the oven.

1. A male turkey is a tom, a female turkey is a hen and baby turkeys are called poults. Juvenile males are called jakes. A group of turkeys is called a flock.

Poults leave the nest within 12 to 24 hours of hatching

2. Male turkeys are also called gobblers because of the “gobble” call they use to announce themselves to females. The gobble can be heard up to a mile away.

3. Wild turkeys make fifteen different vocalizations, including a “purr”, “yelp”, “kee-kee” and a clicking noise made by the females.

4. In addition to gobbling, toms impress hens by fanning their large tail, drooping their wings and strutting. 

Western hemlock tolerate life in the shadows

Fastest. Strongest. Survival of the fittest. When push comes to shove in nature, usually the weak or meek don’t survive. And in the case of trees, the towering giants bask in the sun and shade out their competition--at least in theory. 

A drooping top is one way to identify western hemlocks

Waiting in the shadows of some towering Douglas-fir and western redcedar are inconspicuous western hemlock. Often recognized by their droopy tops, western hemlock survive where many other species cannot--in the shade. 

By no means are western hemlock shade-loving trees. Instead they are shade tolerant trees. Western hemlock grows abundantly in the shade of mature trees waiting for them to topple and then they bolt upwards to the open canopy. 

Frogs breathe through skin and swallow with their eyes!

In the spring, I’m always listening for the first robin to sing and the first frog to ribbit. But in the fall, I never know if an insect song or frog croak will be the last I hear until spring. 

Just a few weeks ago a frog croaking caught my attention. Not only because it was October and I thought the frog should be settled in for winter (though it has been unseasonably warm) but because I heard it on a dry, ponderosa pine hillside. What was a frog doing up there away from water? 

Columbia spotted frog

Shouldn’t frogs be down in the mud on the bottom of ponds with turtles for the winter? Apparently not. 

What is that big beetle?

Whether a bird, plant or insect, identifying one I haven’t seen before is always interesting. So when I received an email that Cal Russell was displaying a big beetle on his counter at Boundary Tractor, I hurried down to take a look at the mystery beetle. 

I’ve seen big beetles before but not this big. The roughly two inch long, reddish-brown beetle had long antennae, gnarly-looking legs and short spines on its neck. 

Ponderous borer/western pine sawyer

Partly due to the long antennae, the beetle is classified in the long-horned beetle family. Like some other species, this beetle has many common names: ponderous borer, pine sawyer, western pine sawyer, spined woodborer and ponderosa pine borer. Even scientifically the beetle has two names because the classification has changed: Ergates spiculatus and Trichocnemis spiculatus. 

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.