Bald Hill night life

[Lisa Millbank]

We rode out to Bald Hill Park this afternoon to try to get videos of calling owls.  The Corvallis Parks Dept. website says the park is open until 10 PM.  A pair of Great Horned Owls were singing a duet, but they wouldn't fly in to investigate Don's imitation, so we just listened instead.  We walked up Mulkey Creek, tried for Western Screech-owl and even Saw-whet Owl, just in case, and heard nothing.  Has anyone heard Western Screech-owls calling so far this year?  We're looking for a reliable, accessible spot near Corvallis to take a video.

 

While we were out we found a Douglas-fir Glowworm (Pterotus obscuripennis) larva.  It was pretty cool, like a dim blue LED glowing on the ground.  I attached a photo, but unfortunately, the flash overpowers the glow.  The orange spots are the luminescent areas.  They don't glow orange, it's a soft blue-green.  We didn't know they would be out so early in winter, but they eat slugs, and slugs are certainly out and about.  You can try to look for them on the ground in mixed oak/conifer forests, but you can't walk with a flashlight (unless you use a red light) because your eyes need to be fully adapted to the dark to notice the dim glow.  Glowworms are fireflies, which are beetles.

 

Mammals included a Coyote family, singing together west of Bald Hill.  We were also surprised to see a bat out flying around.  I looked though Chris Maser's mammal book, and it seemed possible that it was a Big Brown Bat.  Most of the other species accounts said that the bats either migrated, or tended to hibernate through late February or March.  Although it was odd to see one in January, I guess the weather is mild enough that there are some bugs to eat.  I'm sure when it gets cold again, that furry little bat will tuck into a crevice somewhere and return to dormancy. 

 

Lisa

www.neighborhood-naturalist.com