Spring Break
Communing with nature 101
Brian Beadle
Issue date: 5/8/09 Section: Diversions
The evidence is high above the Quad where the bumblebee yellow-and-black-streaked songbirds, known as grosbeaks, chat as incessantly as sorority girls. It's in the fresh swirling breezes carrying dainty, pink-petaled reminders of cherry blossoms through the air. The rhododendrons, star-shaped and as spectacular as Fourth of July fireworks, testify in salmon-pink, pastel-orange and an amazing array of other colors.
Ask the brightly plumaged song birds - many of them are reacquainting themselves with our community after a long South American vacation. "Es primavera, es primavera," the males sing sensually. It's spring, it's spring! The explosion of green, thick as a fruit smoothie and brilliant as bioluminescence, concurs. The buoyant adorable fluff of newborn ducklings and the little whisper of desire in our hearts corroborate.
It's a great time to unplug ourselves from technology and walls, flat screen TVs and frivolous worries, and in our own ways, enjoy the outdoors.
Tide Pooling
Newport's Yaquina Head Natural Area is a great, relatively close site where you can experience the weird wonders of tide pools. Watch closely and you may encounter a battle royale. I'm not sure what hermit crabs have to take exception to, but they scrap like grapplers from time to time. Brush aside kelp and other accumulated tide pool debris and you're likely to find these slightly reclusive little arthropods. More noticeable are the sea stars. Ranging from Kool-Aid purple to boring brown to OSU orange, these unlikely top predators are found close to the low-tide line, clinging to rocks like a delusional ex-lover clinging to hope. Giant green anemones - a wonderful flowering relative of jellies - are another common score in these parts. Turquoise as a tropical cocktail and odd as an alien, anemones are fun to gently prod. Like babies presented with something to suck on, anemones' tentacles grope intruding digits indiscriminately.
Birding
If you drop the frustratingly pricey seven dollars to gain access to Yaquina, you'll notice birds … some 65,000 of them! Among the sea stacks and surf-eroded cliffs adjacent to the shore, common murres, cormorants and pigeon guillemots pack the small area as full as the Peacock on Homecoming Saturday. These usually open-ocean birds' plumage features simple black or black and white patterns. Beyond the nesting masses, bald eagles and peregrine falcons loom hungrily.
Ask the brightly plumaged song birds - many of them are reacquainting themselves with our community after a long South American vacation. "Es primavera, es primavera," the males sing sensually. It's spring, it's spring! The explosion of green, thick as a fruit smoothie and brilliant as bioluminescence, concurs. The buoyant adorable fluff of newborn ducklings and the little whisper of desire in our hearts corroborate.
It's a great time to unplug ourselves from technology and walls, flat screen TVs and frivolous worries, and in our own ways, enjoy the outdoors.
Tide Pooling
Newport's Yaquina Head Natural Area is a great, relatively close site where you can experience the weird wonders of tide pools. Watch closely and you may encounter a battle royale. I'm not sure what hermit crabs have to take exception to, but they scrap like grapplers from time to time. Brush aside kelp and other accumulated tide pool debris and you're likely to find these slightly reclusive little arthropods. More noticeable are the sea stars. Ranging from Kool-Aid purple to boring brown to OSU orange, these unlikely top predators are found close to the low-tide line, clinging to rocks like a delusional ex-lover clinging to hope. Giant green anemones - a wonderful flowering relative of jellies - are another common score in these parts. Turquoise as a tropical cocktail and odd as an alien, anemones are fun to gently prod. Like babies presented with something to suck on, anemones' tentacles grope intruding digits indiscriminately.
Birding
If you drop the frustratingly pricey seven dollars to gain access to Yaquina, you'll notice birds … some 65,000 of them! Among the sea stacks and surf-eroded cliffs adjacent to the shore, common murres, cormorants and pigeon guillemots pack the small area as full as the Peacock on Homecoming Saturday. These usually open-ocean birds' plumage features simple black or black and white patterns. Beyond the nesting masses, bald eagles and peregrine falcons loom hungrily.
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