Being a city dweller my whole life, one of the things I had to get used to living in a place like this is all the wildlife. In addition to having four horses, we’re surrounded by an abundance of furry and feathery creatures.
- Wild Turkeys – Of the countless bird species we encounter on the farm, the ones I find the most amusing are the wild turkeys. Small groups (or, as they’re called, “rafters”) of turkeys regularly wander through our fields and orchard. During mating seasons the males are quite vocal, gobbling away in response to any noise. Other than trying to eat from the horses’ grain pans during feeding time, they’re less nuisance than they are comic relief.
- Birds of prey – Out here, there’s everything from red-tail hawks to bald eagles to harriers. Just like their namesake fighter aircraft, harriers are able to hover in mid-air. Most evenings we hear barred owls and great horned owls hooting back and forth to each other.
- Corvids – Unlike living in the city, I don’t see many crows on the farm. But I do see plenty of their cousins, the ravens. Ravens differ from crows: they’re larger (and smarter), travel in pairs as opposed to groups, and produce a croaking sound instead of a caw. I also frequently see their smaller cousins, scrub jays and stellar jays.
- Coyotes – Just like owls, you hear these animals at night more than you see them during the day. But unlike owls, occasionally you do see coyotes in the mornings and evenings—especially when they’re hunting.
- Rodents – Walk anywhere around the farm and you’ll see little creatures scurrying about the underbrush. Frequently you’ll see voles, but every once in a while you’ll spot a pocket gopher. Of all our resident rodents, California ground squirrels are our biggest nuisance. Not only do they mooch grain from the horses’ grain bins, they also raid our kitchen garden.
- Rabbits – Probably the cutest animals we see on the farm are our resident bunnies. Our guess is we have not one but two varieties of rabbits. One is the brush rabbit and the other is the eastern cottontail, which according to the Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife is a non-native species.
- Cervids – By far the most prevalent of these are deer, which have been a giant nuisance. Each night they slip through our electric fence network to graze in our gardens and orchard. It’s been an arms race to keep them out, but at long last it looks like were finally winning the battle. On rare occasions we see elk—sometimes hearing them bugling in the distance in the evening.
- Bees, Wasps and Hornets – Each spring when our orchard blooms, we’re always happy to see bumble bees, honey bees, and mason bees pollinating away, because without them, we’d have no fruit. Wasps and hornets on the other hand, are another story. On one hand, like bees, they’re credited as being pollinators. In addition, they also prey on flies and other insect pests. On the other hand, heaven help you if you accidentally disturb one of their nests. All of us on the farm have been stung at least once by a bald-faced hornet or yellowjacket. Just in case you might be wondering, of the two, hornet stings hurt worse than that of yellowjackets thanks to the large amount of organic chemical acetylcholine in their venom.
- Snakes – Every so often, one of us will spot a snake slithering along the ground. Speaking for myself anyway, most the ones I’ve encountered are harmless garter snakes. (No, there are no venomous snakes in western Oregon, in case you’re wondering.)
- Beavers – During this fall’s hop harvest, we learned that a family of beavers had built a sizable dam on the creek at the edge of the north field. Nature’s engineers are also the largest rodents in North America, easily weighing 30+ pounds.
- Creek Life – I’ve been told our creek is also home to crayfish. It’s also home to an endangered run of steelhead trout that is protected by the Endangered Species Act, as well as a non-threatened run of coho salmon.
- Bears – We have a black bear that lives on the west side of the farm. There haven’t been any sightings recently, but a deer hunter spotted his fresh tracks, and we have come across fresh bear scat (manure)