Life on the Outer Coast

Sunday afternoon the sun came out and the feeder was swarming with birds and I realized that I'm seriously smitten with the Nuthatches. At least it seems like obsession since I can barely take my eyes off of them when they are around. Being entranced by their chatter is another symptom. I think that I can recognize two of the birds; both are lighter in color than the rest of the birds. According to the Cornell web site the top of the females head are blue-grey, the belly is lighter and the eyestrip narrower. The juveniles are similar to the adults but duller. In the end, I'm not sure if the lighter ones are juveniles or females. After looking at the photos I've taken, I can't notice much difference in the width of the eyestripes of the birds. The belly and head color might be more reliable indicator of gender.

One of the lighter birds is much fluffier than the other rather sleek looking birds. The other light one is just as slender as the other darker or richer colored individuals. I managed to get a photo of the fluffy bird, but not of the sleek one.

Based on the dark head and the brightish belly, I'm assuming that the nuthatch on the feeder is a male.

Found a population of about 20 Armillaria growing in the alder chips in front of the flower garden behind the house. I'm sure that they are the same as I found there last fall. Last fall, I decided they were A. ostoyae based on the macroscopic features. The key character that lead me to ostoyae was the dark fibrils on the surface of the younger caps.

Trolling around Tom Volk's website I read an article about a relatively newly described species of Armillaria (1999); A. nabsnona that had slipped under my radar.

An unfortunately easy thing to accomplish. The clincher for this species was the interesting branching of the basidia. This wasn't a subtle character with a thin section of the gill, at least not with some careful squishing with an eraser on the coverslip.

One interesting thing about Volk's key is the absence of ostoyae. One of the questions I hope to get answered at Breitenbush this week is what happened to ostoyae. That species is included on M. Kuo's key to North American Armillaria. The key lead in the latter key to get to ostoyae is the presence of dark scales on the cap and that the primary host is conifers. Apparently it can also occur on hardwoods.

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/armillaria.html.

http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/feb99.html

http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/armkey.html

Continued to work on putting the garden to bed for the winter. I moved 8 5-gallon buckets of seaweed up the hill, brings me to 14 and I'll need about 10 more to cover the vegetable beds.

Also took a last swipe at the huckleberries just before dark. Didn't add much to the freezer, maybe a half of a gallon zip lock bag, but it was satisfying to pick from the last of the heavy laden bushes by the trail.