Puffins return to Bandon, Ore

Tufted puffins are nesting on Elephant Rock, near Bandon, Ore. for the first time since 2001, says this Associated Press Story. The birds, considered emblematic of this stretch of Oregon's south coast, have declined by an estimated 75 percent in the past 20 years.
Via Wildbird on the Fly.

Alaska Fish and Wildlife Service Photo

Re-introduced fishers have babies

The National Park Service has announced that a pair of fishers, introduced to Olympic National Park in January 2008, have mated and produced four kits - the first fisher kits known to be born in Washington in decades. The Kitsap Sun has a story here. Fishers, weasel-like carnivores that thrive among big trees, once ranged in Washington but were wiped out in the early 20th century, because of habitat loss and fur trapping.
Here's a video showing the mother carrying her babies one by one from one den to another.

Via Watching Our Waterways.

Scientist finds that birds thrive in the urban fringe

John Marzluff, a University of Washington biologist, has found that some kinds of urban development enhance songbird diversity on the edge of cities, says this report on KUOW.
What works best, it turns out, is sprawl: houses distributed widely, mixed with yards and woods.
By the way, I heartily recommend Marzluff's book: "In the Company of Crows and Ravens."
Via Sightline Daily.

Aphid mummies

If you find yourself charged with coming up with a premise for a horror movie, a good place to start with your brainstorming would be the life cycles of insects. They're always good for the bizarre transformation sequences.
The exquisitely keen-eyed Wanderin' Weeta documented one such transformation on the underside of a maple leaf.
And here are more details.
Amazing.

Salmon going ping

Here's a interesting story from the Tricity Herald about an effort by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to track steelhead and chinook in the Columbia River. Scientists are surgically implanting accoustic tags in the fish and then releasing them, watching them with sensors to see which way they go, and whether they survive.

Montlake fill

Urban wildlife is a contradiction in terms. How wild are creatures that exist in a human created environment? The answer is, that though their surroundings may be human made, the animals and plants are very wild indeed.
The Montlake Fill -- a reclaimed garbage dump that has become a showpiece for the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture -- is a study in those kinds of contrasts. Its ponds and paths are tended by some of the best minds in the state, but it is still an urban place, full of wanderers and runners, with a flock of starlings chattering in one of the cottonwoods.
And yet it is wild. That's why people come. Cottonwood seeds waft through the air, sparrows call from every shrub, and warblers lurk between the leaves (I spotted a common yellowthroat).

(I don't know what the flowers are, but I like the picture.)
Shoveler's Pond had northern shovelers on it, and the male was in the mood for courting, bobbing his head constantly.

Swallows (barn and tree) were out in force, and a Great Blue Heron fished offshore.

But the most entertaining birds were the red-winged blackbirds: males singing belligerently from cattails, males and females driving off crows, males joining forces with crows to drive off a bald eagle. The drama was all there.
Mount Rainier looked nice too.

One grim note: a dead beaver by the lake shore.

Ochre sea star may thrive as global carbon dioxide rises

A common species on local rocky shores might have a bright future as carbon dioxide levels rise in the atmosphere.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia have published a paper reporting that ochre sea stars(Pisaster ochraceus), sometimes called purple sea stars, grow faster as dissolved carbon dioxide levels rises and as water warms. So, assuming the sea stars have something to eat, they could thrive in a warming, acidifying ocean.

NOAA photo.