Earth Sanctuary: A Nature Reserve, Meditation Parkland and Sculpture Garden

Palm Tree at Earth Sanctuary

At Earth Sanctuary, we have a 500 year plan to return the property to mature old growth forest. 

What trees should we plant with 500 years in mind?  The problem is complicated by the fact that at Earth Sanctuary, we have seen much longer periods between summer rain in past 10 years.  Last summer, we didn’t get any rain for 2 months and then the rain was only about 1/10″.  This makes it hard for a lot of plants and trees to survive.  The trees that are surviving are the drought tolerant trees such as pines and trees from California like Sequoias. 

A few years ago I asked some biologists what they expected the climate to be like in 500 years and they said: “Imagine parrots.”  So, we are getting ready for those future parrots.  We have just planted two Palm trees in the Earth Sanctuary arboretum as a symbol of climate change and our potential future climate.

The just-planted Ava Pettis Sequoia

For Christmas I got a small Sequoia tree from my daughter-in-law Kat and son Morgan.  Morgan is going to make a sign to go beside it: The Ava Pettis Sequoia Tree, named for my granddaughter.  Hopefully Ava will be able to watch it grow to ~100 feet in her lifetime.  The new Sequoia is now planted at the top of the Celestial trail in the new Earth Sanctuary arboretum beside a boulder cairn.  Sequoias seem to do really well at Earth Sanctuary and we are planting more of them this year.  -Chuck Pettis

Craig & Joy Johnson monitored a Rufous Hummingbird nest at Earth Sanctuary for 34 days and created a slide show from the building of the nest to eggs to fledged hummingbirds!  Click here to see the slide show.

This slide show takes you through the development of these amazing, tiny birds.  Arleen Stebbins first saw this nest while conducting her Wood Duck survey at Earth Sanctuary.  Many, many birds nest at Earth Sanctuary. 

Photos and slide show by Craig Johnson

Rufous Hummingbird

Above is a female Rufous Humminbird on her nest.  Under her are two hatched chicks.

Two Hummingbird chicks at Earth Sanctuary.

12 days later here are the two chicks!

Here is a web cam of a Black-chinned Hummingbird

Here is a web cam of an Allen’s Hummingbird.

Western Tanager at Earth Sanctuary (Craig Johnson)

Craig and Joy Johnson, Whidbey Island bird experts and authors of Our Puget Sound Birds & Habitat, provided this list of birds they have seen in the past two weeks:

1. Black-throated Gray Warbler
2. Western Tanager
3. Black-headed Grosbeak
4. Yellow Warbler
5. Wilson’s Warbler
6. Pacific Slope Flycatcher
7. Red-breasted Sapsucker
8. Swainson’s Thrush
9. Cinnamon Teal
10. Green-winged Teal
11. Cedar Waxwings
12. Wood Ducks with chicks
13. Hooded Merganser with chicks
14. Rufous Hummingbird
15. Brown Creeper
16. Golden-crowned Kinglet
17. Osprey
18. Tree Swallow
19. Barn Swallow
20. Violet-green Swallow
21. Northern Rough-winged Swallow
22. Northern Flicker
23. Red-winged Blackbird
24. Song Sparrow feeding young
25. American Robin feeding young

Visit their beautiful web site!

Arlene Stebbins discovered a hummingbird nest near the West pond.  Rufus hummingbirds incubate eggs for 15-17 days.  The babies are born naked and they are fed–and grow– for 15-19 days before leaving the nest. 

The Cottonwood Stone Circle stones are Columbia River Basalt columns.  When the cut stones are dry, they are gray in color.  When they get wet, they are black!

 See the full set of photos.  This set includes all 12 outer stones, wet with rain and black.

Sue Frause visited Earth Sanctuary recently and wrote a blog on her visit that appeared in Sue’s Seattle P-Blog on July 6, 2007.  Click here to check it out!

Sean Wood took this photo on June 24, 2007 in the Cottonwood Stone Circle at Earth Sanctuary.