Ghosts aplenty

Posted on August 4, 2019 by Alistair

 

Each July and August, I keep an eye out for Indian pipe, a flower also known as the ghost plant. Only now and then will I encounter the strange plant that lacks chlorophyll. It has carved out an ecological niche on the deep, sunlight-deprived, forest floor, where it extracts energy, with the help of fungi, from surrounding trees, rather than from direct sunlight.

Alas, I rarely find it.

A couple of years ago, I and others, discovered a small patch of Indian pipe that had started growing beside the spawning channel at the Kokanee Creek Park. It was there again last year. This year, it has erupted into many patches, each with multiple flowers.

What is it about the weather this year that encouraged the growth of Indian pipe? I don’t know, but I do delight in the present profusion of these ghosts.

One of a number of patches of Indian pipe along the spawning channel.

This group of plants is sitting in a momentary patch of sunlight on the dark forest floor.

 

Posted in wildflowers | 3 Comments

A fish flew by

Posted on August 1, 2019 by Alistair

 

A headless fish flew by. It was being packed by an osprey.

For an earlier discussion of this strange phenomenon, see headless fish flying.

 

Posted in birds, fish | 1 Comment

July goulash

Posted on July 30, 2019 by Alistair

 

Nothing from this baker’s dozen of July images has had a posting of its own. 

A few birds avoid the valleys and prefer the mountains. One of these is the White-crowned Sparrow. Wintering to the south, it breeds here in the summer.

Another mountain bird, at least in the summer, is the Townsend’s Solitaire. Although it eats berries in the valleys during the winter, in the summer it switches to mainly insects.

The solitaire flies off after an insect.

Also seen in the mountains is a male Lazuli Bunting. That may be a female it is chasing.

A Cherry-faced Meadowhawk hunts insects from the ground.

Two fawns frolic in a field.

Another summer resident, the Willow Flycatcher does just that: It hunts bugs, often from a willow.

This Cedar Waxwing looks as if it is going after the seeds of the common tansy.

I was struck by the colour of this large beetle found on the beach.

A Double-crested Cormorant often swims low in the water.

A painted turtle is on a log in a pond, and all are covered in duckweed. Duckweed depletes oxygen in the water and so is hard on fish, yet it is welcomed by turtles, which feast upon it.

I don’t often see a goldfinch for we are near the northern edge of its breeding range.

A Barn Swallow obligingly poses on its nest.

 

Posted in birds, bugs, herptiles, mammals | 4 Comments

Bitching chicks

Posted on July 27, 2019 by Alistair

 

Osprey parents share a problem with a number of other species: How do you persuade maturing offspring to leave the nest? Being fed and looked after at home is comfortable, and consequently many offspring never want the coddling to end. But, it must.

The ospreys’s solution to this problem was treated extensively in a 2013 posting: It’s time you went. Essentially, the parents starve them out. An adult will taunt the chicks by flying past the nest with a fish, but will not deliver it. When it does deliver something to the nest, it is a stick, not a fish. 

The message is: You want to continue to eat; get out there and fend for yourself.

This morning, I witnessed the delivery of an early eviction notice: the stick brought to the nest prompted a fervent bitching by the hungry chicks complaining about their unjust treatment.

Mommy delivers, not a fish but, a stick to her increasingly distraught chicks.

What we have here is a clear case of two bitching chicks.

 

Posted in birds | 9 Comments

Kokanee Wild

Posted on July 24, 2019 by Alistair

 

Once a year, I mention a presentation that I will be giving — this is the one for 2019.

Topic: Kokanee Wild
Presenter: Alistair Fraser
Occasion: Science in the Park
When: 7-8 pm, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2019
Where: Nature Centre, Kokanee Creek Park
Proposed donation to the Nature Centre: $5

This will be a richly illustrated, observer’s guide to some of the wildness in and around the Park. After an introduction, the audience will pick a few topics to cover from a menu offering many.

The menu: Now, what will be chosen?

Given the vagaries of being able to make only a few choices out of many options, it is likely that any subsequent presentation of Kokanee Wild would be somewhat different.

 

Posted in commentary | 2 Comments

Mayfly mating

Posted on July 23, 2019 by Alistair

 

Mayfly adults live brief and perilous lives.

Mayflies emerge from the water as short-lived adults with one objective: to mate.

The mayfly is immediately beset by other creatures that would feast upon it. Fish frequently jump from the water to consume it. The fish in this picture is the shadowy presence that has missed the mayfly (and its reflection) just above the surface of the water.

Birds pick emerging mayflies from the air. This is a Chipping Sparrow.

And this is a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

Yet some of the mayflies do survive to mate before they die. Here the female is on the top and below, inseminating her, is the male.

 

Posted in birds, bugs, fish | 1 Comment

Chipmunk foraging

Posted on July 21, 2019 by Alistair

 

As a child, I remember chipmunks down around the lakeshore. Now, with the odd exception, I have only see them much higher in the mountains. Indeed, today’s chipmunk was foraging and feasting at about 1500 metres elevation. 

A chipmunk forages on an unrecognized plant.

The thing about small creatures is that they are not as strongly influenced by gravity as are large creatures. Here the chipmunk casually leaps from one twig to another.

The chipmunk forages on something. Is is a seed or a leaf?

Whatever it is, it is quickly consumed.

 

Posted in mammals | 4 Comments

Seeing nature remotely

Posted on July 20, 2019 by Alistair

 

Sometimes one cannot get out into nature oneself and the only way to appreciate it is remotely through a book, TV, or possibly even a blog.

There was an occasion fifty years ago today when I found an aspect of nature inaccessible, so I watched it remotely via TV — and even took a selfie of the occasion.

This occasion merited the only selfie I have ever taken.

 

Posted in commentary | 4 Comments

Cimbex sawfly

Posted on July 19, 2019 by Alistair

 

The white stripes on its abdomen made it look sort of like a large bald-faced hornet resting on the forest floor in the rain. But, that couldn’t possibly be correct: It was lethargic, Its face was entirely black, Its long legs had yellow barbs; It lacked a wasp waist; And what in the world were those yellow butterfly-like clubbed antennae? 

Given the dim light, picture taking was problematic, but it was good enough for a partial identification. The insect was a sawfly of the genus, Cimbex, probably Cimbex americanus. A relative of ants, bees, and wasps, the short-lived adult lays its eggs in the leaves of various deciduous trees and then dies.

They are not often seen in the heavily coniferous forests around here.

A Cimbex sawfly sits lazily on the wet forest floor.

 

Posted in bugs | 1 Comment

Vulture symposium

Posted on July 18, 2019 by Alistair

 

Today, I was granted observer status at a symposium of Turkey Vultures. The gathering was called on account of a cougar kill of a hapless deer. At eighteen delegates, it was the largest congregation of vultures I have witnessed, although it was reported to have been larger a day earlier. 

I chose to attend the first meeting of the morning, which seemed to be a disorganized exercise in callisthenics whereby vultures preened and stretched their wings in the sunlight after a wet and cool night.

Six of eighteen vultures are seen here, five of which have wings spread to catch the sunlight.

On an adjacent snag, four more vultures preened and basked in the sunlight.

It is always a difficult decision whether to turn one’s back or front towards the sun.

 

Posted in birds | 6 Comments