Exploring Kootenay Lake

Normally when a bumble bee is flying, its tongue, protected by a horny sheath, is folded under its head and body. Certainly, the tongue is extended when the bee is sipping nectar from a flower, but leaving it extended during flight would increase aerodynamic drag.

Yet, now and then, one sees a bumble bee flying with its tongue dangling—probably on jaunts between adjacent flowers.

A Bombus vagans has already extended its tongue as it approaches a clover flower. Most of the tongue is covered by a sheath, but a drop of nectar hangs from the tip of the tongue protruding from the bottom.

The buzzing was incessant as I sat still on a rock in the middle of a patch of mud. Around me flew hundreds of insects spread over dozens of species of wasps, bees, flies and butterflies. Although I watched their activities, the minuteness and speed of many of these beasties put them beyond my photographic skills. So the pictures, below, are but a peek into this world. As long as I moved my camera slowly, most seemed unaware of my presence.

Western Yellow Jackets abounded. It was probably the heat of the day that prompted them to be sipping. The yellow jackets seemed to favour the flowing water.

There seemed to be no such preference from the European Paper Wasp; it happily sipped standing water.

The Thread-waisted Wasp was a new species for me and I could not figure out what it was up to.

Also new for me was the Western Leafcutter Bee. This solitary bee carries pollen on the golden hairs on the underside of its abdomen.

This is the same Leafcutter Bee seen from above.

While wasps and bees largely ignored me, flies would land on my trousers. This is a female Flesh Fly.

And this is a male Blue-bottle Fly.

A Woodland Skipper sips nutrients from the moist surface.

Finally, this unknown bee was amazingly small. It has extended its tongue to the surface.

High on the list of a forest walker’s unwelcome animals is the wood tick. An encounter with mosquitoes is a nuisance, a black bear on the path is merely fun (it is a bashful beast), but a tick—that’s bad. It is a disease-spreading blood sucker. (Mind you, I would prefer a tick to a cougar).

But, wood ticks are fortunately not all that common, and they are only encountered in the dry parts of the provincial interior in the Spring, typically from March to June. So, why did I find a wood tick on my clothes yesterday? Apparently, it had failed to read the instruction manual. Actually, while it is unusual to encounter one this late in the year, it is not unknown.

A wood tick on my trousers. It did not feed on me, and it was unceremoniously ejected.

As if to underscore my preference for bears over ticks, a few minutes later a bear wandered across my path. It then drifted away as I took pictures.