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Great gray owl near Fort Klamath.
From Kodachrome by Welles & Welles

An unidentified visitor was the source of evidence that the great gray owl, Scotiaptex n. nebulosa (Forster), ranges within this park. A dead specimen was picked up on the roadway one and one-half miles within the south boundary at about 7:10 a.m. on August 27, 1955. The bird appeared to have been killed by a car. It was prepared as a skeleton, and the specimen (CLNP 657) has been added to the park collection.

The bird was presented to the ranger on duty at the park’s South Entrance. He indicated that it should be taken to the Park Naturalist’s office at Park Headquarters. There the visitor turned the bird over to Ranger Naturalists Edward A. Burnham and John Mees. The donor was in such a hurry that he departed without having his name and address properly recorded. The ranger naturalists were able to recall that the gentleman was from Monterey, California, and that his name was something like “Gamelin,” “Gmelin,” “Gambling,” or “Gamble.” However, a later search of the Monterey telephone directory proved fruitless insofar as locating the man by this name is concerned.

There is little reason to question this record. The visitor appeared to be a reliable person who was well oriented in the park and who, therefore, should have believed correctly that he was inside the park when he found the bird.

The establishment of such a record is not unexpected. The experiences of Ranger Ralph Welles and his wife, Florence, with this bird in the Fort Klamath area have also been reported upon in this issue of Nature Notes from Crater Lake. I have, on numerous occasions during the autumn, heard great gray owls hooting at dawn in the forests near Wood River, south of Fort Klamath. I have seen them several times, although outside the Park, within a mile of the south boundary, along the road to Fort Klamath. However, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that the species has been recorded within the park.

It is to be hoped that great gray owls will be seen more often within the park, for they would make an interesting addition to our avifauna. In outward appearance, the great gray owl is the largest of the American owls. However, this is deceptive because, in actual body dimensions, it is exceeded by the great horned owl. The seemingly greater size of the great gray owl results from its much fuller feathering and the greater length of its tail. This bird inhabits primarily the northern forests and similar high-mountain forests, such as occur in the High Sierra of Yosemite National Park, where there are few people. In winter, the species may be found in more southerly areas, including Iowa and the Lake States. Individuals seen in such circumstances frequently appear to be quite unafraid in the presence of man.

References

American Ornithologists’ Union. 1931. Check-list of North American Birds (4th ed.). Lancaster, Pa., American Ornithologists’ Union. xix, 526 pp.

Bent, A. C. 1938. Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey (Part 2). Washington, D. C., Smithsonian Institution. viii, 482 pp.

Craighead, Frank, and John Craighead. (?)1956. Hawks, Owls and Wildlife. In press. Ca. 468 pp.

Farner, Donald S. 1952. The Birds of Crater Lake National Park.Lawrence, University of Kansas Press. xi, 187 pp.

(Mr. Parker has been Chief Park Naturalist at Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, since December 11, 1955. – -Ed.)

Breakfast Interrupted

On the morning of July 31, 1954, I was making my way toward the rim of the lake. As I approached a meadow area, I chanced upon a Columbian blacktailed doe and her two fawns. The interesting part of the observation was that the two fawns were busily nursing the doe. As quietly as possible the camera was made ready, but the ever-alert mother sensed the presence of an intruder. Before a picture could be taken, mother and offspring were bounding gently and gracefully off through the meadow, leaving a disappointed photographer but a greatly enriched observer of nature.

A young bear surveys his surroundings from a mountain hemlock lookout From Kodachrome by Welles and Welles

William Rosenbalm — Bill to many of us — Truckdriver during the 1955 season, has served as a member of the maintenance staff in the park for several summers. He is therefore particularly well acquainted with the area, and he has come to know and recognize individually many of the bears that live here. On September 12, 1955, I finally found the long-awaited opportunity to chat with him for a while about “our” bears and to visit with him one of the places in the park bears frequently gather.

My patience was well rewarded by a most interesting conversation and a view of more bears at liberty that I had ever before seen all at one time. During this period, fourteen different bears, including eight adults and six cubs, were in evidence at one time or another. This occasion also gave me a chance to summarize Bill’s knowledge as of that date concerning the bear population in the park, with particular reference to the latest additions. The most recent previous study of the bears in this respect is that of Roland D. Walters (1953. Observations and census of the black bear in Crater Lake National Park. Nature Notes from Crater Lake 19:26-28), who reported a total of forty-one; this included twenty-two adults, six second-year cubs, and thirteen first-year cubs.

As a result of my discussion with Bill, thirty-two bears of the park’s total were accounted for as of that time. Of these, thirteen are adults and nineteen are cubs: the latter are all assumed to be first-year cubs. In spite of some possible error in this assumption, this indicates that the number of first-year cubs may be on the increase; in any event, according to the available data, it is not decreasing. Of course, a certain number of bears is overlooked in any estimate such as this.

The distribution of these bears by color phase is as follows: adults, ten black and three brown; cubs, thirteen black and six brown. Grouping them by families, and including odd individuals, gives this result: one black mother with three black cubs; two black mothers (one being Sally, each with three cubs, two black and one brown; one black mother with three cubs, two brown and one black; one black mother with two black cubs; one brown mother with two black cubs; one black mother with two cubs, one black and one brown; one black mother with one brown cub; Sandy, a brown male about five years old; Charlie, a black sister to Sandy; one black female, characterized by a light-colored “necklace” that continues down toward her belly as a stripe and by a flattened appearance when seen from the front, which has made herself quite a nuisance in the East Entrance area this summer; another black female; and one brown male. Perhaps the most unusual feature made evident by this compilation is the relatively high proportion of families, exactly one-half, having triplets.

Bill Rosenbalm certainly provides an outstanding example of the values that may be gained by patient and persistent observation of our wildlife. I know that he has found it a fascinating experience; this can be seen simply by the way he behaves when he is near the bears and by the way he talks about them. I am most grateful to Bill for his having shared with me the interest, enthusiasm, and fund of knowledge which he has found through his association with these animals.

(A later report by Bill Rosenbalm, recorded in the observation file and dated October 21, 1955, indicates an additional family consisting of a black mother with two black cubs; in the family consisting of a black mother with a single cub, the cub apparently should be classed as black rather than brown. This gives a total of thirty-five bears including, fourteen adults and twenty-one cubs. —R.M.B.)

Water Bears In Crater Lake

One day in early August, 1954, Ranger Naturalist John Rowley and I were prowling about the base of Wizard Island, situated near the west end of Crater Lake. This was an important hunting expedition. Extensive and careful preparations had been made before starting the trip. First, adequate provisions had been secured by making arrangements, well in advance, with the dining hall for a supply of sandwiches and various suitable accessory food items — it was to be an all day trip.

After checking the supplies, we stowed them carefully, along with other gear, into pack sacks. These in turn were loaded into a conveyance that carried us to the Rim Village, which was as far as we could travel by motor vehicle. The remainder of the way to Crater Lake had to be negotiated on foot. Upon unloading at the Rim, therefore, we shouldered our packs and headed down the Lake Trail — a trek of 1.6 miles.

On this particular day we took our time. In addition to being rather heavily loaded with essentials, we had brought along various pieces of photographic equipment in order to make a complete pictorial record of our operations. Consequently, we stopped now and then to capture with lens and film interesting features and events along the way.

At the bottom (of the trail, not the lake), we obtained a boat with outboard motor — previously arranged for, to be sure. As quickly as possible, yet without undue haste, we loaded our gear into the boat for the one and one-half mile voyage to Wizard Island — the water being a little too cool for comfortable swimming, especially with full field pack — and took off, after the motor finally started, of course.

Upon reaching the island, we picked up other equipment which had been cached there during a preliminary exploratory mission and, now completely outfitted, set course for the shore of Fumarole Bay, chief base of operations.

Fully half a day had been consumed in this phase of our venture, so, reaching our destination, we sat down to devour our repast. All the while, excitement of anticipation for the hunt kept mounting within us. It was even difficult to make ourselves take the time to properly dispose of paper sacks and milk cartons for return to a suitable trash repository before heading out. In fact, John Rowley, younger and more impetuous, and having seen some sign which suggested the presence of game, set off along shore while still munching a sandwich. This he held firmly in his left hand while using his right to aid his progress along the rough and steep terrain.

I was not long in following, however. Presently, initial excitement having been replaced by the steadier verve of actual search for the prey we were working the area methodically as a well-accustomed team, leaving no stone unturned in the effort to exhaust all possibilities for finding their lairs. Then, having examined the original site thoroughly, we returned to the boat to seek other likely spore.

Finally, and much later, each of us sighted and drew fine bead — first I, then Mr. Rowley — on fair game. There, caught squarely in the centers of the fields of our respective hundred-power scopes, were two water bears — the first ever reported to be seen in Crater Lake. Mine was so nearly hidden by lush green vegetation that I could just barely (no pun intended) make out his — or, more probably, her — outline. Ranger Naturalist Rowley’s, on the other hand, was lumbering along nearly always in the open. No triggers were pulled, however — park regulations do not permit action.

We had, of course, returned to the laboratory, and our ” scopes” were microscopes. Water bears are very small animals. Although the largest of them are a little over one twenty-fifth of an inch in length, most tardigrades, as they are known to students of zoology, are only about half that size or less (Pennak, 1953). Actually, they are not very well known, even to the zoologist. The name of this animal means “slow walker,” and the clumsy lumbering way in which he gets around is very suggestive of his common name — water bear.

Since he has four pairs of short stumpy legs, some people consider him to be a rather distant cousin of the spider, while others place him in a completely separate division of the animal kingdom. Be his relationships as they may, these two specimens proved to be a very interesting find. To our inexperienced eyes, they appeared to belong to the genus Macrobiotus, although this has not been definitely determined. The one which came under my microscope was taken from the bottom of Fumarole Bay. It was collected with a mass of filamentous green algae (simple green plants) that was lifted with a plant grapple (Fairbanks and Rowley, 1954) from a depth of twelve feet. The other specimen, oddly enough, came from rotting wood lying in water along the nearby shore of the island.

Even though water bears are little known, they are reportedly very abundant in various aquatic and semiaquatic habitats (Pennak, 1953). Frequently they are found on masses which are intermittently wetted by rain or splashings from streams. The animals have the ability to shrink up and become inactive when conditions such as insufficient moisture make active existence impossible. In this way they are able to remain alive in a state of minimum activity, which can persist as long as there are food reserves available within their bodies.

Tardigrades feed mostly upon plant cells, from which they extract the fluid contents by a sucking action. They also may be cannibalistic to a certain extent. In the main, however, they should be classed as converters which make the food substances manufactured by plants available to other animals. They, in turn, are preyed upon chiefly by certain protozoans and by roundworms (Pennak, 1953). Therefore, they form one link in the food chain which always begins with the green plant and which leads ultimately to some large animal.

It might be correctly inferred that the “hunting expedition” mentioned above was not organized to track down the water bear. To be exact, we, were searching for other forms of life. The find, however, was one of considerable interest because it brought to light a little-known animal which had not previously been reported as part of the fauna of Crater Lake National Park.

Literature Cited

Fairbanks, C. Warren, and John R. Rowley. 1954. Tribute to the clarity of Crater Lake. Nature Notes from Crater Lake 20:34-36.

Pennak, Robert W. 1953. Fresh-water Invertebrates of the United States. New York, The Ronald Press. ix, 769

One afternoon in mid-July, when sunbathing in an open space not far from Park Headquarters, I heard the sudden whir of a miniature airplane motor within inches of me. It passed as quickly as it came. In a matter of seconds the sound was repeated. Watching for the cause, I shortly saw a blurr as something shot toward me and then quickly disappeared, accompanied by the same hum. It suddenly dawned on me that this was the season of the hummingbirds and that they, like humans, are curious creatures and may have been shooting low merely to view better an object obviously out of place in their habitat.

* * * * * * * * * *

It was afternoon in late July, after a body-shaking ride over one of the fire roads. I had gone to the Crater Spring bogs for the purpose of getting photographs of three insect-eating plants, including two sundews, Drosera rotundifolia L. and Drosera angIica Huds., and the rather rare bladderwort, Utricularia intermedia Hayne.

While examining a sundew, my eyes happened to fall upon a most fascinating sight. On a nearby flower, a lady’s thumb, a bee had settled in its search for nectar. Upon this insect, with legs wrapped around it, was a large and beautiful, white, spotted spider having a head tiny in comparison with its extremely large, round body. Close examination showed that the bee was shrunken and motionless. It was evident that the spider had either paralyzed the bee or stung it to death. Then it had proceeded to suck out the body juices, filling its own body seemingly to the bursting point — a habit characteristic of the crab spiders (thomisids), to which group this individual apparently belongs. The bee was in perfect condition except for this aspect which suggested a deflated balloon.

Cony beside a red elderberry bush. From Kodachrome by Welles and Welles.

* * * * * * * * * *

When I was casually winding my way down the Lake Trail one morning, with eye ever alert for a new flower just emerging, a strange bird, or some other thing of interest, my attention was caught by a green branch, approximately sixteen inches long, moving crosswise over the trail. It appeared to be propelling itself, until — after a few seconds, at the head end — a cony suddenly appeared from nowhere. The long green leaves parted, exposing the little brown creature which evidently had decided that early August was not too soon to begin preparing its hay pile for the long winter ahead.

Apparently the animal’s attention was so intent upon its instinct-inspired task that it either failed to notice or deliberately ignored movement that ordinarily would have driven it to cover. Since the moving branch was within three or four feet of me before it disappeared under the rocks, I could clearly distinguish the red elderberry leaves that the cony had chosen to include in his winter food supply.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sitting on a ledge within a few feet of the Lake Trail during a prolonged pause on my upward climb, I noticed nine stationary white dots on the blue water. They formed a perfect arrow, four making up the head, five the shaft.

Suddenly the arrow broke as the dots changed position and as some of them left the surface and winged their way aloft. Probably never again will I see nine California gulls, Larus californicus Lawrence, line themselves up, by pure chance, in this perfect formation.

Sounds In The Wilderness

As one walks through Munson Valley, with keen ears listening to the sounds of the wilderness, he may hear creaks and groans as if some giant were struggling under a great burden. This particular sound came within my hearing one day while I was out enjoying nature’s vast storehouse of treasures. By following the sound, a Shasta red fir was discovered as the cause of the muffled complaint. At about forty feet above the ground the trunk forked, forming a crotch, and the two trunks ran up another thirty or forty feet. Lying in the crotch was an old dead tree with its broken-off base resting on the ground. As the light winds worked their way through the valley, they swayed the trees gently, causing the dead tree to rub over the bark of the fir and send out the remorseful sound. Indeed, a forest giant was complaining of its unwelcome load.

On day in late June, when I was near the South Entrance to Crater Lake National Park, I chanced to spy a beer bottle near the road. As I picked it up to dispose of it, something in the neck drew my attention. Closer inspection revealed the skull and forepaws of a white-footed mouse, and through the brown glass the hindquarters of this unfortunate rodent were dimly visible.

We can only suppose that this unsuspecting creature entered the discarded beer bottle, flung to the side of the road by an unthinking person, and became inextricably lodged in the neck while attempting to leave. Whether or not he imbibed the remaining contents is questionable, but the smell may have done its share in luring him to his doom.

The moral of this story is clear — someone not only contributed to the marring of the natural beauty of the roadside, but also lured one of the native animals into a fatal venture.

“Let no one say, and say it to your shame,
That all was beauty here until you came.”

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