I Didn’t Expect To See You Here
Yesterday after work I went to Tualatin Hills Nature Park in Beaverton. I haven’t been hiking in quite a while and wanted a little change. I took the big lens and tripod with me and two hours later it was pretty obvious I wasn’t in the best hiking shape. I went to bed more than a little sore but thankful for the time in the outdoors.
In urban areas, Oregon’s native tree squirrels have largely been replaced by eastern foxes and eastern grays. And while I saw eastern foxes yesterday, it was the black stripe of this squirrel that immediately grabbed my attention. This is a Douglas’ squirrel, a native here in the Northwest that I hadn’t expected to see in a city park. Tualatin Hills is heavily forested, so apparently these squirrels are able to share their habitat with the more aggressive squirrels from the east.
This squirrel’s handiwork was everywhere, there were little middens of soft scales from the cones all along this section of the trail. They pull apart the cones to get at the seed inside, like the one being eaten in the picture. Given the many piles scattered here and there, this shy creature seemed to be pretty well fed.
Tags: Douglas' squirrel, mammals, Oregon, Tualatin Hills Nature Park
August 17th, 2008 at 7:42 am
I saw a couple of these guys at Saddle Mountain yesterday. And just last night while poking through the hiking book I learned that I can get to Tualatin Hills park by public transit! This is very exciting since car rental is somewhat annoying and ZipCar is too expensive for more than about 3 hours of use. I’m planning to go in the next 2 weeks, before my all-zone Trimet pass expires.
August 17th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I found this out the hard way when I wasn’t paying attention one morning on the MAX on my way to work and ended up one stop to far, which turned out to be the stop at Tualatin Hills Nature Park. I plan on visiting a lot more when the weather gets wetter, it’s supposed to be a good place for newts.