Places like this Greenway park offer the opportunity to restore patches and corridors of native shrubs and wildflowers to give a lifeline to struggling insects (and all the creatures that depend on them). Many species are in decline, and some are already extinct here in the Willamette Valley. The widespread changes we humans have made to the landscape have had dramatic impacts on insects.
Orange rumped bumble bee full#
Remember when summer nights were full of a chorus of crickets? Monarch butterflies and Western bumblebees were common flitting around the garden? Windshields were full of splattered bugs after a road trip? Those days are already gone. There is a lot of insect life here still, but it pales in comparison to what was here even a few decades ago.
There is an amazing diversity of insect life-all of it busy playing its bit role by eating, pollinating, feeding other insects and birds and fish, and generally supporting a healthy, humming orchestra of life here on the Greenway and in the nearby river. There are carpenters, masons, drones, gall-makers, leaf-cutters, longhorns, cuckoos, stinkers, nomads, soldiers, painted ladies, widows-and even robbers, assassins (Assassin bugs), wolves (Beewolf), Devil's coach horses, blister beetles, a zebra (Zebra jumping spider) and three types of tigers ("Tansy TIger," Tiger swallowtail, and Night-stalking Tiger Beetle)! There are native and exotic insects, and some that are introduced as biocontrol agents. There are skippers, dashers, darners, dancers, diggers, skimmers, hoppers, miners, borers, chewers, suckers, and jumpers. It is especially important (and opportune) to prioritize nature at this park with its ecologically sensitive location fully within the Willamette Greenway.Īs you can see in the galleries, hundreds of butterflies, bees, dragonflies, beetles, crickets, and more call this park home, at least for part of their life cycle. Rasor Park shows us that even a 10-acre "weedy" open space can support (and be an important refuge for) a riot of insect (and bird) life if attention is paid to managing for conservation and stewardship of natural values. They are also calling for urgent action to restore insect habitat to farms and to urban parks and yards. Scientists are sounding the alarm about precipitous (and unprecedented) declines in insect abundance and diversity across the globe. Insects are tiny and easy to overlook, but of out-sized importance to our own health, and as the base of ecological food webs that support the survival of nearly all other wildlife species (including most birds, our native Upper Willamette chinook salmon, and so many more). Check out the galleries on this page to see some of the amazing array of insect life that we have found in Rasor Park in recent years. Improving natural habitat and biodiversity is one of the major goals of the restoration effort at this Greenway park and natural area. I do need to feel, and be in, its wonder.A Riot of Life: Biodiversity in an Urban Park I don't need to be in charge of the world. It is profoundly simple and one of the most difficult things I can imagine. The language of Nature is so very different from the frenetic words and actions of humans. Now I remind myself how lucky I am to live here but so many things interfere with really feeling that. I could feel the tides move, and sensed the mysterious and miraculous moods of this amazing ecosystem. Our rock island, completely surrounded by sea water. There are some reports of surface nesting (Thorp et al. When I first moved here, I remember having the feeling of being on a boat. Scientific Name Bombus melanopygus Common Name Orange-rumped Bumble Bee Habitat Underground nests in Cordilleran forest and Boreal-Cordilleran transition zones and common on alsike clover Trifolium hybridum L. My life here is fragmented between social engagements, trying to stay fit, trying to eat local and do the right thing, trying to keep our Grange alive, connecting with family and friends, and of course, the one that always falls through the cracks, nurturing creativity. People often think island life is quiet and perhaps full of solitude. Presence that filled me on our float trip. And without vacation, without aĬanoe and a reason to float, I am trying to breathe back the feeling of Now I am back and looking at the same face of Infinity I did with thoseĪncient rocks, the Salish Sea itself. Heart gradually aligned themselves to the landscape.
After 7 days in the Canyonlands, floating at river speed, my head and But I had to go all the way to the Green River in Utah to remember why a sense of place is even important.
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