Wildlife at Coldwater Cove campground

Great weekend experience in Willamette National Forest of Central Oregon! I arrived at Coldwater Cove around 1330 on September 2, 2005, and registered for campsite number 4, half price with my Golden Age Passport. Tim arrived shortly thereafter. We visited over beer and generally became acquainted with the area, a site developed around 1937 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps. I relaxed from my four hour drive by watching the wildlife - several furry tailed squirrel types with which I am unfamiliar. Two came at different times, both very dark brown/black with creamy to yellow underbellies. Tim had planned for tacos, had the ground turkey cooked and seasoned, with the new ‘scoop' taco chips for dipping.
At that time the only visitors were a determined hornet that was willing to crawl right into the gooey mixture. They would get the greasy stuff on their legs and try to crawl out of the pan. I shoved them out so they could fly away. One was more difficult and crawled away on the ground. I thought it was gone for good until I felt an awful sting on the protruding part of my belly. By that time, if it was the same hornet, it managed to fly away or drop down beyond my vision. But the stinger was imbedded in my fat. I applied a sting patch that alleviated the pain somewhat but the stinger was still there.
We were up around 0700 on Saturday and you know that when you camp with Tim, you are going to hike. After coffee and toast we chose the Clear Lake Loop trail #3507 and began the counterclockwise walk at 0800. It was an easy hike although sometimes over rough lava. The old trees were beautiful and other plants caught the eye. We saw several species of water birds, probably Barrow's Goldeneye, common loon, mallard, and a pair of Canada geese. Most unusual were the pair of American Dippers. The British name for their species of dipper is Water Ouzel which Ron used to tease me with because I accused him of making the name up as he sometimes did. Our American Dipper is the only species of Cinclidae in North America and is a nonmigratory perching bird adapted to run and feed on aquatic animal life around and at the bottom of fast-running mountain streams. Ron and I had watched a pair feeding in a stream outside a restaurant window many years ago on a trip through the Oregon Cascades.
The walk ended three hours later and Tim suggested a light lunch of soup which he whipped up with chicken bouillon, chopped onion, carrots, and celery. With crackers it was really good. We played a couple of games of cribbage at which he skunked me on the first and only beat me by 2 holes on the second. I discovered that the hornet sting had formed a hard lump on my belly about 2 inches in diameter and a rash that spread across the entire mound - itchy as the devil to which I applied the itch reliever I got in Kenya when I developed a rash in Hippo Camp by Lake Naivasha in 2003. That was enough of relief to let me sleep.
That afternoon I studied background for the Jamaica novel I'm working on. We napped and walked the paths around the campground. The furry tailed squirrels never came around again until the last few hours we were there. Although a ground squirrel, the striped chipmunk in the rodent family, scooted around the trees and up and over the banks. Our part of the asphalt loop was about 50 feet higher than the lower asphalt road where we had to go to manually pump water and where the pit toilets were perched above the road. We bought bundles of wood and had warm bright fires every evening. Tim cooked potatoes, sauer kraut, and Kiobaso sausage for supper which we ate with toast. Tim had acquired a four-slice toaster for his camp burner and a new, more stable on-the-table burner on which he used a cast iron skillet for most dinners.
Sunday morning we had leftover sausage and eggs with coffee and went on the scenic route over Santium pass toward Sisters. At camp Tim made barbequed sandwiches from cold roast beef I had and we ate heartily of that on ranch biscuits. I was amused by the fat little curious chipmunk that scooted around expecting a handout and finally gave in and tossed a tiny hunk of raw carrot to it. That of course is a mistake of which I am well aware because that was an invitation to come closer and become braver. The animal was used to being fed by people I could tell by the way it merely ducked when I threw out my arm to shoo it away and came back to sniff out the morsel it thought I had thrown. We did foot stomping to discourage it. Tim spotted an animal sticking its head out of a hole close to where he slept. He had heard the skittering footsteps of the animal the first night but didn't get a look at it.
When the animal came up the road I immediately called it a mink. Its long tail tipped with black should have brought to mind the ermine but I since looked in mammal field guides and identified it as a long-tailed weasel. All those mammals are in the weasel family, Order Carnivora, not Order Rodentia, as are squirrels. The lovely sleek brown animal watched us curiously but it really had its eye confidently judging our quiet observation as non-interferance in its life.
Tim saw it chase another critter and wondered if they were playing. Upon closer observation we saw it chasing the chipmunk and I mean really chasing it in a life threatening race. The chipmunk ran in large circles on the asphalt roadway avoiding capture until it tired and the evading circles became smaller and smaller until they ended in the kill. The weasel held the dying animal for a few moments and then picked it up by the back of the neck, where it had broken its spine and began to cross to the down hill slope. Unfortunately a car came toward us and the weasel hesitated a bit before running across with its kill.
We looked at the dead chipmunk seemingly abandoned after the car passed but soon the sleek dark brown weasel came to retrieve its prey and disappeared into the underbrush. We examined our campsite more and saw many holes where the animals lived. My field guide states that the adults raise several young in dry burrows, well aired. We saw the animal disappear into the hole by Tim's bag and come up thirty feet down the bank. A long rotten root formed a ledge below my side of our ‘tent' where I could see many holes for critters to live.
Breakfast on Monday in the chilly 'white-breath' morning was coffee, toast, potatoes and eggs. That's when the black squirrels came through our camp, one chasing the other but more in a playful mode. They disappeared either behind or up the tree. I lost track but the long bushy tail and light colored underside haven't helped in their identification.
We broke camp around 0800 with Tim sorting and packing his stuff first. And he left for Eugene soon after. I packed but sat and wrote in my journal and also noted some items for further research on Jamaica. I left the camp at 1030, stopping occasionally to read a roadside marker and simply mark the roadside. A federal holiday, the day off for rangers, so I could get no information at the Sister's station for the Deschutes National Forest about fire lookout stations for rent.

Gas was over three dollars a gallon and I had enough from the fill on Friday at Madras at $2.95 to take me several hundred miles down the road. Traffic was moderate, although heavier in the westerly direction than going my way. Oregon state road 126 was the highway to the campground and I was back on US 97 at Redmond to Grass Valley where I stopped to browse for an hour at the junk/antique shop. Farther north at Biggs I went right on Interstate 84 to Umatilla. There I filled with gas at $2.99 so I have a relatively full tank for the next few days.
That is the end of outdoors for this summer with the exception of my backyard that must get some of my attention soon.
Naomi Sherer