March 2-8, 2025

While slightly colder temperatures slowed the rate of melting, snow and ice continue to roll back and reveal the coming spring.

Week in Review

Despite an extended run of sunny days, it's been a tough time for exploring the outdoors because we're getting into the mud season. Nighttime temperatures are still in the 20s so snow starts out icy in the morning, but turns into a sloppy mess of snow and mud a few hours later.

Nevertheless, everything is steadily melting and the world is waking up again, although it's an odd mix of conditions. Some days are cold and silent, as if every part of the landscape is holding its breath, while other days sparkle with exuberant bird calls and the sounds of water dripping off roofs and branches.

Ice on the lakes can be an excellent indicator of how fast the seasons are progressing, but like everything else, it's a mixed bag right now. At one point it looked like all the ice might melt in a single day, then things froze over again even though the ice is still thinning and will disappear quickly at some point.

This season is almost certainly a mixed bag for animals as well. Many are feeling the need to establish territories and get ready for the breeding season, but they still have to deal with snow and ice, and at the same time, food resources are very limited. For example, I've been noticing that voles became very active this week and squirrel activity is ticking upward as well.

Birds are also becoming noticeably noisier and more active. Many are singing or calling in trees, and I've been seeing northern flickers chasing each other. I don't know if this is territorial males fighting, or males and females doing some type of courtship, but you can definitely sense their urgent energy after a long, quiet winter.

All winter long birds have been centering their activity around the open waters of the river, and this still continues to be the case. However, it now seems like some ducks are beginning to splinter off from their large winter groups and this might be a move towards finding a mate.

American dippers are also very active right now, and just like with northern flickers there's a lot of chasing and squabbling going on right now. The river, with a variety of emergent insects, is equally busy with early Say's phoebes. Arriving early in the spring is a risk for these insect-eating birds, so they need to find food wherever they can.

By far, the greatest thrill this week was spotting an adult peregrine falcon in prime breeding condition. It's possible that a few stick around all winter, but this bird could also have been an early migrant because at some point a number will begin migrating north through the valley.

Observation of the Week: Open Ground

Picking a path through snow patches and soggy soil isn't easy, but I still tried to get out and see if I could find the first flower of the year (which will almost certainly be a sagebrush buttercup). I didn't find any flowers but it was still fascinating to observe the dynamics of the expanding bits of open ground.

Even as the snow rolls back to invite new life, it reveals the life that has been here all winter, including hardy plants that hunkered down under the snow in order to get a jump start over plants that must grow from seeds each spring.

One conspicuous feature are sinuous ropes of dirt left by gophers as they packed soil into tunnels on top of the ground during the winter. In areas that melted early, the gophers have already been busy digging new burrows and piling up mounds of fresh dirt.

Although I didn't find any flowers, I still found signs of one of our most beautiful early blossoms. Bitterroots grow on dry, sun-backed hillsides so they need to get an early start on the season and they do this by producing a rosette of leaves in the fall. Then, as soon as the snow melts, they immediately begin photosynthesizing so they can produce large, flamboyant flowers before temperatures get too hot.

Hillsides of melting snow are mostly quiet right now, but there is quite a bit of bird activity as Oregon juncos, American robins, western bluebirds, and mountain bluebirds fly from patch to patch in search of food.

It doesn't seem like there'd be many things to eat so I was worried as I watched a robin hopping around in search of food. To my amazement, this male easily found and eagerly devoured a large earthworm, so I guess there's more food out there than we realize!