Author tells out-there stories of Northwest wild things in trio of books

SHARON WOOTTON

Originally published July 10, 2001

Pat Lichen has mellowed out a bit since her Greenpeace days when she chained herself to the harpoons of Japanese and Peruvian whaling boats to save the whales.

Now she's the author of three delightful books, "Brittle Stars & Mudbugs: An Uncommon Field Guide to Northwest Shorelines and Wetlands," "Passionate Slugs & Hollywood Frogs: An Uncommon Field Guide to Northwest Backyards" and "River-Walking Songbirds & Singing Coyotes" ($14.95 each, Sasquatch).

Lichen has packaged about 200 essays that bring "out there" into your hands: birds that walk underwater as well as slugs that mate while suspended in mid-air, stories of why the ladybug was named after the Virgin Mary and why shells of Dentalium were once as good as gold.

Girl Scouts introduced Lichen to nature, and she grew up during the start of the environmental movement. In 1978 she left Ohio to "join Greenpeace and save the world. I was amazed, really ... you would not have picked me out as a person who would join Greenpeace."

After six years, she returned to college, studied marine biology and worked a summer job at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, educating visitors about the environment, guiding them through old-growth forests and down into lava tubes.

"The books are a continuation of that educational work with Greenpeace and as a naturalist," Lichen says. "The more people know about the natural world, the more apt they are to care about it and preserve it."

Even an experienced naturalist can learn new things. Doing her research, Lichen said she discovered a bit about the great blue heron.

"The tips of special feathers on the breast, called powder down, disintegrate into a dust that the heron uses to clean itself and help absorb oils," Lichen says.

And she discovered a beetle that she didn't know existed in the Northwest.

While on a near-dusk hike with a naturalist friend, they found a beetle apparently trying to move a dead shrew. Later on the same walk, they found another shrew and the same type of shiny black beetle with bright orange markings.

A check with the field guide identified the margined burying beetle, native to the Northwest. It buries small dead animals, moving them as much as 16 feet to a place where it can excavate the soil before maggots or other carrion feeders discover the meal.

Lichen has more fascinating tidbits on the burying beetle, but you'll have to read "River-Walking Songbirds & Singing Coyotes" for the full story.

Roam through essays on the striped skunk, Western thatching ant, meadow spittlebug, devil's club, bedstraw, tufted puffin, bull kelp, sand dollar and many, many more that should be of interest to anyone with even a passing interest in Northwest wild things.

The series is graced with wildlife artist Linda Feltner's black-and-white illustrations.

There is a story about the author's last name -- Lichen.

While at Mount St. Helens, she and her husband-to-be decided to choose a name that they both would carry. But when the wedding was but a week away, they still didn't have a name.

It came to them as they were walking through an old-growth forest.

"We decided, yeah, lichen, two organisms coming together to form one!"

Sharon Wootton is a free-lance writer from the San Juan Islands. E-mail questions, suggestions or comments to songandword@rockisland.com.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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