Lovejoy News at Jackson Frazier Wetlands

 

Lovejoy News: Ivy Hill to Jackson Creek

Around Corvallis

Lovejoy News in Stewart Slough

NE 9th Street, Corvallis

Jackson-Frazier Wetlands, NE Corvallis

In the Columbia River Gorge: for Mia Celeste Hajjarian.

Northeast Corvallis at Night

One leaf falls in the lamp light, orange like the crooked moon.

Chip Ross Park, Corvallis

Lovejoy News at Jackson-Frazier Wetlands

 

At Jackson-Frazier Wetlands the cattails melt off their stalks into the marsh as the song and chase of red-winged blackbirds rises from the grass and a chickadee leaves its nest in the dead tree.

Lovejoy News at the South Jetty in Newport

The wind blows the sand sharply across the South Jetty. The seagulls collect where the water turns dark. Meanwhile the raft of sealions swims north, barking at the lone fisherman.
Further east, the seals are quiet and one cormorant stands on the rocks.

Lovejoy News Takes Up its Own Space

Lovejoy News has moved to its own home: Lovejoynews.com. There is a new post up for you this morning, enjoy!

Lovejoy News in Stewart Slough

At dusk the last robin serenades the first star, twinkling inside the twisted old oak. The robin sleeps and the crickets take over the tune. An owl soon joins.

Lovejoy News: Getting Acquainted with the Northern Flicker

As a kid I thought of Flickers as the other woodpecker, I loved its pots and stripes as much as the red crest of old Pileated. It was a special treat when we saw one in the yard, pecking at the maple so I thought they were rare. As an adult living in Portland I knew Flickers as the flashy bird couple that frequented the parking lots around my building  but I never saw them pecking on trees and forgot they were woodpeckers

One day I saw an orange Flicker in the arboretum and was so curious
I had to look it up in Cornell’s Ornithology Lab on-line.

There I learned that Flickers prefer to hunt for bugs on the ground and are really very common. My two notions of the Flicker finally fused into one coherent reality and the orange Flicker must have been a female basking in the sun.

Lovejoy News for February 16th

The french pumpkin sliced smoothly open as the sun lit the tiny kitchen.
The deep orange flesh smelled pungently of sunshine, grassy fields and baseball. I could not bring myself to grab a spoon and scoop the seeds for the longest time. It was so orange, so fresh! It had worked so hard spinning light and soil into sustenance!
Eventually clouds creeped over the sky and the squash went in the oven while the camellias along 25th street were already dropping petals on the sidewalk.

Lovejoy News for February 12th in NW Portland

At five-something this morning somebody chirps diligently outside. I pull the blinds to get acquainted but she startles and leaves. I do not regret seeing the rosy sky behind the black trees before the light gets pale and yellow.
The wind rearranges the the shadows of the shingle oak on the windows molding and a spider builds a web on the other side of the glass. A tea cup rests on the sill in the stately cloak of gravity.

Lovejoy News for January 20th

The clouds return and the morning is finally light. There are no people on Lovejoy at 7:30 am Sunday but a robin hops across the sidewalk and into the bushes and a few crows fly north along 20th.

On Multnomah Boulevard the cafe is filled with the chatter of humans. One infant squeals and croaks like a tropical bird.

In the afternoon 405 North is lost in the silvery spray of the days rain and the grey overpasses look built to hold up only the heavy clouds so we may slip under the winter while waiting for spring.

Lovejoy News for January 15th

In the late morning the neighborhood is shrouded in bright sliver. Not a single crow is seen or heard along twentieth. There are sparrows, a jay, distant birds with long tails and one, lone hummingbird singing from the top of a tree just past Johnson.

Lovejoy News for January 7th

Winter disguises itself in a balmy dusk. I leave home without a hat and pedal past the crows, still in the tree tops along 20th. One shifts a soft black shoulder against the fading sky. 

Along Balch creek the water cannot contain its joyful reminiscence of summer and the rocks sigh underneath. The space between trees goes black.

Lovejoy News for Earlier this Month

The morning is dark, only traces of blue and purple behind the tree in the lot. A jet rumbles across the sky while the shadows of the room stretch and slink out the door. 
It is Saturday, only an occasional car. When a truck goes by the squeak of its brakes lays across the bed with the fragile blue light. The oak holds its curly branches still against the grey while two leaves wiggle slightly in a tiny wind.