We babysat all day yesterday. I think we will recover eventually.
And just because, a spider web on my lawn. It was so high in the rhododendrons that I had to hold the camera 'way over my head and snap at random. But I had to try, because the sun was highlighting the web so beautifully against the upstairs windows.
Looking up from my desk, I see:
Rhododendrons and bees.
Butterflies. A Swallow-tail, Papilo rutulus.
Just the butterfly. Who flew away when I took one step closer.
Rainbows, double.
And back to work.
When it's impossible to follow the dictates of the home decor industry, you dance to your own drummer:
You use the materials at hand: here, on a shed door, hand-milled boards and half-log, paint and plumbing hardware.
You let things be: so the door kept getting splashed with the copper sulfate from the net-soaking tub? Well, it's a pretty green, isn't it?
Antlers, leaded glass, red lifesaver and ancient, unpainted boards. As your whimsy leads you.
And you make things easy for the cat:
Good Planets are Hard to Find is up, at The Gypsy's Caravan. Fascinating photos, as always. Including two of mine, a Clark's Nutcracker and a fat chipmunk at Chase, BC. I am inspired by C. Corax's patience, sitting for an hour to watch a flicker build a nest. And quieted by Liza Lee Miller's cows, meadow and ocean. And ... oh, so many more ... Thanks, Gypsy!
The Creation Museum Carnival is at Pharyngula. My post, My father knew no science, is there. And some 73 others; go see.*
Next month, I will be hosting Good Planets; send your photos of this globe we share by Friday, the 8th of June, to susannah at dccnet dot com. Open thread, this time; no topic. Although, here is a thinking point: what about our planet makes you smile? What makes you laugh?
*And I think this will count for my Weekly Five science links. There are 73 links in that one carnival, mostly on science.
Living in a tidal community has unique challenges. Things don't stay put. Floors slant off in odd directions, according to the time of day and season of the year. Unanchored items, left on solid ground in the morning, may have just floated away by mid-afternoon. Even your house might up and leave in the spring, when tides run high: I have seen this happen.
In Finn Slough, the effect is multiplied by the narrowness of the waterway. Houses anchored side by side may tip in opposite directions. Walkways twist and gap. Steps down become steps up. Boats lie like logs on a beach, wherever the water left them.
Houses and sheds built on pilings stay at a permanent level, more or less horizontal. Only more or less, because over the years, currents have pulled and pushed at those pilings, yanked them out of plumb.
The blue shed is fairly recent and on pilings.
Detail of a shed up against the bank.
Ancient pilings and sagging platforms.
The little dock will float when the tide comes in. So will the boat.
The Mermaid III. Unlikely to be putting to sea anytime soon, I think.
Pansy, anchor, fishnets and raingear.
Wetlands. Endangered species. Sinking islands. Developers and fishermen. Language barriers. Common law and lawyers with writs. Bureaucracies, old and new. And a long struggle and desperate hope; the tale of Finn Slough has it all.
The story starts 120 years ago, in the 1890s, when a group of Finnish fisherfolk pooled their savings to buy land on the south shore of Lulu Island, near where Woodward slough meets the sea.
Now, Lulu Island is flat terrain, at sea level and prone to flooding; early settlers built dykes by hand to protect their fields from the salt water. The dykes went up both sides of the slough, which wasn't dammed; a convenient setup for fishermen, who could bring boats right up to their doors.
They set about carving homesteads out of the forest, and began to build fish boats. One of the men towed two float houses up the slough for his family; others built from scratch, on pilings. And of course they built a sauna for the community.
At high tides, the sea invaded. Chickens had to roost at times on the roof of the henhouses. Plank walkways were built above the tide level, and drawbridges with removable boards to permit boats to go on past and into harbour.
Life was good there; salmon were plentiful and the water calm. The community thrived.
In 1900, a local farmer had a dam built at the foot of #5 Road, and floodgates set in the entrance to Woodward Slough. It is doubtful whether the Finnish-speaking residents had any advance notice of this, since they didn't read the English newspaper, where it was publicized. At any rate, they could no longer bring their boats up the slough, and instead found a handy harbour between Whitworth Island (just a gravel bar, really) and the mainland. They built a walkway over to the island for access.
New immigrants arrived. Many could not afford land, and lived in float houses or on their boats. A school was started. Gasoline motors revolutionized the work; the first powered gill net drum was invented and built here. #4 Road was extended to the dykes; now the fishermen could drive to Steveston or Vancouver.
Now, here arises a problem. Whitworth Island, or Gilmore Island as it is also called, was never purchased by the residents; it was just a spit of land in the river where they could pull up their floating houses and docks. In fact, it moved around as the river ate at it, so that the surveyed area of the island no longer exists; it is underwater.
In 1989, a developer managed to obtain a deed for the property. Four years later, the residents found notices pinned to their doors: "... all individuals without written consent (must) leave the Island." This was the first they knew of a proposal to build a condominium and marina complex on Finn Slough.
They fought back, of course. They managed to get jurisdiction over the slough transferred to the Fraser River Harbour Commission and to have the site inspected and designated as an environmentally sensitive area. They formed the Finn Slough Heritage and Wetlands Society, and have been enlisting support of artists, environmentalists, historians and the general public.
The water of Finn Slough is brackish; all of the island, except for about half an acre, is underwater at high tide. So it is home to salt-tolerant plants, several of which are rare or uncommon. One of these is the chocolate lily, Fritillaria camschatencis, which I included in yesterday's post, and which grows now in very few places in the Fraser delta.
Yesterday, as we walked, we were charmed by the singing of birds, a choir of different voices, each with his own tune, yet all harmonizing. I read that we could find the black-headed grosbeak there, and the yellow warbler. I don't think I have ever seen the first.
However, the deed still rests in the hands of the developers. There was an attempt made to invoke common law, which gives continuous residents for more than several decades a deed to the land they occupy, but so far, no luck.
Next generation of fisherfolk, learning the trade.* Raise Gilmour Island and put in estate lots similar to the lots developed at Deering Island. The Deering Island lots sold for a minimum of $500,000 during the last real estate recession Vancouver had in 1993.Note that all these proposals start with raising "Gilmour" Island. Killing the plants, burying them under tons of cement.
* Raise Gilmour Island and build a higher density complex. The City of Richmond feels that on this site it is realistic to build townhouses.
* Raise Gilmour Island and develop a residential plus marina and yacht club facility.
* Raise Gilmour Island and build a private residence with water access.
"The City of Richmond feels that on this site it is realistic to build townhouses."Realistic, on a site that shifts around with the tide, that is mostly in, not beside, the river? In an area that already needs to be protected by dykes, and at a time when weather patterns may be changing?
... and I do love alliteration!
A fascinating find; a chocolate lily. We finally made it to Finn Slough yesterday, and it was all that I hoped, and more; no wonder they make it the topic of an annual photo and artists' competition!
Painting the slough, the first necessity would be to lay in a good store of green. Reeds and grasses cover every flat spot; along the slopes, shrubs tower overhead.
Here's Laurie, down one of the walkways. 
At the entrance to this walk, among the rampant grasses, salmonberry bushes and roses, I discovered these.
Chocolate lilies! Fritillaria. I had never seen them before; that's a lifer, as birders say.
These used to be eaten by the BC natives, who dug up the bulbous roots and boiled or dried them. Now, of course, we wouldn't dare; they are "shy-flowering", meaning that they don't flower for the first 3 or 4 years, and the land available to them is always at risk of being paved over. This could happen in Finn Slough; the residents are fighting a desperate battle to keep the developers out. (More on this later.)
Black twinberry, Lonicera involucrata: the yellow flowers have gone and the berries haven't shown up yet, but the bracts look like flowers themselves.
And red osier dogwood, Cornus sericea. Not a dogwood, though. I read that the name comes from "dague" or "dagger", because the wood supposedly makes good skewers. I am not exactly convinced.
Comfrey. Probably a purposeful import. Often used as a home remedy for what-ails-you.
Skunk cabbage. No longer in flower, but I couldn't resist photographing it from the vantage point of an elevated walkway. It's not often I get anything but a side view.
The grey around the base shows the high-water level for the slough.
Next: history and old boats. And older buildings.
My Dad knew no science. Not that I find that surprising; he trained as a high-school math teacher around the time of the Depression, and later became a CPA. From his late 20s on, he worked in Christian missionary endeavours, as accountant, general manager and eventually as founder of his own mission agency. On weekends, he preached.
So science wasn't a topic he needed to deal with.
However, he did have an interest in it. It could be used to "prove" the truth of the Bible. I remember how he took us kids several times to see the Moody Bible Institute "Sermons from Science" and the man who let millions of volts of electricity run through his body and turn his fingers into spark plugs. (Now run by Whittier Christian Schools.) The object? To show us how important it is to connect to the power of God.
In the 1980s, he was supporting ICR, the Institute for Creation Research, and passing on their newsletters. I never heard him discuss any of the "sciencey" articles; it wasn't his cup of tea. But he told anyone who would listen how they showed the errors and outright dishonesty of "the evolutionists". And, of course, proved that the Bible had been inerrant all along.
In his final years, half-blind and increasingly frail, he discovered Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis. And their Niagara of books, pamphlets, tapes, tracts, magazines, articles and videos. Everything in bright, beautiful covers, easily readable fonts, with clear illustrations and simple language. Simple enough even for Dad to understand. He began to read "science" for the first time in his life. Wonderful information, he thought; he repeated choice bits to me when I visited. (And was disappointed when I wasn't impressed, deaf when I tried to explain the basic concepts and point out fallacies.)
He began using AIG materials as gifts. He passed them out to new converts and to prospective converts. He stocked the church library with them.
He was on a limited budget; in his missionary years, he had made no provision for the future. "God will provide," he always said. And in his 80s, scrimping on the basic senior's pension, he made no complaints; what God had provided must necessarily be all he needed.
But AIG was doing a great work for God, and needed the money. So Dad put an automatic payment to them into his budget. And continued to buy books and tapes. (This was on top of his tithe to the church.)
He needed more care, himself, but there was no money left to pay for a homemaker, or even a cleaning woman. I went out weekly and did as much as I could; church people mended his clothes and brought food, neighbours checked on him. But there was always a shortfall.
When he died, at 92, and I picked up the reins of his finances, I found that month's bill from AIG: $70. For DVDs. To give away, of course; Dad had no TV, no DVD player, no video player: he was almost blind.
And he had, stacked by the door to hand out to visitors, a pile of new, expensive AIG books.
I must confess that I destroyed them. With prejudice.
And I won't be sending a donation for Ham's new Creation Museum. Dad would have. He knew no science.
Wheelbarrow, in my son's garden.
And I'm working late, tonight; back to the grindstone.
These are the last of Laurie's photos from Gunderson Slough:
I mentioned the heron, in my earlier post. We were walking down the trail behind the old float-houses when the heron flew past, over the water. He disappeared behind a mass of blackberries and nettles, out of sight, but just a few feet away. I held my breath while Laurie cat-footed along the trail, camera primed and ready. I heard the camera click, then a great flapping of wings as the heron took off. And this is what Laurie had captured:
Herons fly with the neck folded back on the shoulder, and the legs streaming straight back. This one had barely leapt from the water; he still hadn't gotten into proper flying position.
Full-size, you can see how slender, almost scrawny the bird is; the long, skinny body a mere connecting rod between muscular thighs and neck. And all dwarfed by those astonishing wings.
I think he's a juvenile, because of the brownish streaking on the breast, and the lack of the "bib", those straggly breast plumes worn by the breeding adult. Here's a closer view:
Another view, a bit farther away. Isn't he elegant?
And a couple of general shots of the slough.
This is the same scene that Laurie photographed last December. How different it is in the sunlight!
I love these rusty pilings, supports for something long disappeared. And some of those boats look like they're back in the bushes, on land. They aren't. The slough meanders along, narrow and ringed by rickety docks.
One more: rotting wood pilings. With the remains of the deck above. Parts of it still in use.
A day late, but it is the long weekend. Victoria Day, in other words. Queen Victoria's birthday. Not that we're thinking about her, of course; what we're really celebrating is summer just around the corner.
Here's what I found interesting in science blogs and news this week:
1: Climate change: A guide for the perplexed From NewScientist.com news service, a "round-up of the 26 most common climate myths and misconceptions." A handy reference.
2: From grrlscientist, at Living the Scientific Life, Gay Flamingos ... Raise a Chick. What the title says. With a great photo of a flamingo chick in a fake egg.
3: From denialism blog, a new blog I am finding fascinating, "Denialists Deck of Cards: The 9 of Spades, "Exploit Others' Ignorance". Although one would wish that they didn't put half the post in the title.
This is part of a series of tactics used by denialists of all stripes. This one, in particular, pinpoints a technique that has had a large and pernicious impact on some members of my family. (I may end up blogging about this.)
4: Joel Pel, in the Science Creative Quarterly, generates and tests the formula that describes Murphy's Law:
Ground-breaking research!
5: At the Cognitive Daily, Greta and Dave Munger report on a glitch in our assessments of popular opinion: How to make your personal opinion seem "popular". They explain (although they don't bring this up) why your kid comes home telling you that "everybody" is buying/going/doing whatever. And when you phone up a couple of other parents, it turns out that their kid (a) says exactly the same thing, (b) definitely is not b/g/d it and (c) can not identify more than one person in the category "everybody". And why one loudmouth can browbeat a whole group into compliance.
Something to think about. Especially, how have we (I) been influenced by one-man peer pressure? How does listening to the same person tell you the same thing every day or once a week (a family member, pastor, news commentator, etc.) lead you to consider his views to reflect the general consensus?
Hmmmm...
This modern world is spoiling us. We go on an outing, I come home and dock the camera, transfer the photos. By the time I've got my jacket and shoes put away, the photos are ready to be viewed, selected and blogged. So the photos from Laurie's film camera, not developed until he has finished the roll, not loaded to the computer until we have assessed the prints and taken them bodily back to London Drugs for loading to the web, almost come as an afterthought.
An afterthought well worth waiting for, though. There is a texture to film-based photos that I don't see in digital, a less clinical, gentler view of the world.
These are some of his photos from our visit to the Buddhist Temple a week or so ago.
Starting with the Guan Yin in the shade of flowering vines. (Compare with the March photos; there was more light back then, simpler shadows.)
The "laughing Buddha", in his glassed-in kiosk beside the pool. A side view, bringing to mind those Chinese sedan chairs. All he's missing are the poles and the carriers.
A bridge over the pond, with a turtle sunning himself on the ledge.
A happy reinlion. Or something. The mate to the one with a spider in his ear.
Dramatic colouring. Natural: Japanese maple,
And flowers floating in a stone tank.
And man-made: the roof of a tiled mural.
And, to untangle your eyes after that, a temple guardian in his kiosk, shady, serene and maybe oh-so-slightly amused.
Alien space ship, parked and camouflaged. At least 8 alien faces, watching.
Along the Kamloops-Merritt highway, BC
This one, not this one.
I had a visit this morning from a pair of yellow-jackets. They were at my back door, trying to get out, but of course I had to photograph them first. Here is one, looking at his reflection in the double glass of the door.
These are the same (Vespula pensylvanica?) as the ones we saw at the Buddhist temple in Richmond a week ago. And there were a few at Gunderson Slough, as well. One was chewing away at an old piling; he paid us no mind, even though both Laurie and I held cameras only a few inches away. He must have been collecting woodpulp to make his paper nest.
Other varieties of yellow jacket, and the related bald-faced hornet, nest in trees or in the ground. V. pensylvanica will also use human habitations. I have often seen them, in great numbers, entering and leaving a building via a tiny crack in the siding or roof overhang.
Right now, they are peaceful enough, just interested in food and building materials. Later in the summer, once their numbers increase, they can get quite agressive and will sting repeatedly. One stung my grandson when he was only 6 months old; how the poor baby howled! But a bit of baking soda and water paste stopped the swelling, and a bottle and a good cuddle tided him over the rest. By the time his mother got home, he was fine. Unless you are allergic to them, the sting produces only a temporary reaction.
However, I'll be keeping a watch out for them here, and stop up any cracks I find them using. I am tolerant of so-called "pests", but there's a limit.
... posting photos of their coffee mugs, that is.
David, at the World's Fair, asks:
1. Can you show us your coffee cup?
2. Can you comment on it? Do you think it reflects on your personality?
3. Do you have any interesting anecdotes resulting from coffee cup commentary?
3. Can you try to get others to comment on it?
Well, #1, yes. #2, ditto. #3, not exactly. #3 (what, again?) That's up to the rest of you.
I know: that's three mugs. One for the road, a small one and a large one for around home. Oldies, all.
I like old things; they have history behind them.
(And now my keyboard has gone stark raving mad, asasdasding lqwettqwerasd asnasd asdpaszxcqweasd no rqweasasdon. I think that's it for tonight. Unless I get this fixed. Anybody know how?
HQWELP!) (Edited, next morning; I think I've got this fixed. For now. Took it apart, shook it, blew on it, dusted it with a paintbrush, put it together. And it's working. Yay!)
Pardon the interruption; back to talking about coffee mugs.
I'm a follower of the 3 Rs; Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. But even better than recycling, is to Refrain from buying new when the old will function just as well (if not better, sometimes.) So, the 7-11 cup has been my companion since last century, 1995 or thereabouts. My son bought it for me, then to match his, now long since lost. It holds two cups of coffee, keeps it hot long enough, fits my car. What more could I ask?
The old "hotel-ware" cups are from the 1960s. They bring back memories of trips with the family, when Dad would drive through the night while Mom and my brothers slept. I never did, but sat behind him with my eyes on the road magically unfolding out of the dark. At some point, he would stop at a truck stop and we -- he and I -- would go in for coffee and hot chocolate. A strange, foreign world that was, with brassy waitresses and chatty truckers eating huge stacks of hotcakes, middle-of-the-night breakfasts. And me, the only girl; the only kid.
The cups were like these; thick, heavy, durable. They held the heat well; on a cold night, I would warm my hands on my cup in between sips of chocolate. I still do that, now with coffee, mainly.
At the edge of the Horseshoe Slough parking lot, a middle-aged man stood staring intently at a dandelion gone to seed. After a long while, he lowered his hand and blew away the fluff. We stopped to chat for a minute or two, standing looking down at the chocolate water of the slough. He asked if we knew what made it that colour. I had a vague idea that it was algae, but no more information. He mentioned several other sloughs he had seen with similar colouring.
He started me wondering. So I've been Googling.
Brown water can be a result of several things; golden-brown algae, a conifer-dominated watershed, peat run-off, oxygen depletion, acidity. (I think there is some cross-over in that list.)
Brown water in a ditch near the slough.
I Googled golden-brown algae. They grow in fresh and salt water; Horseshoe Slough would be brackish -- freshwater with an occasional influx of salt at high tide. They include thousands of microscopic species, and are an important foundation of the food chain. They include beautiful diatoms, which are said to be responsible for a large proportion of global CO2 fixation.
So: good stuff, it seems.
What may make this slough so unusually chocolaty is that it is a part of the Richmond bog system, which covered at one time about half of Lulu Island. The creek that feeds the slough runs down from the ancient bog, now mostly cranberry and blueberry fields, but still based on red-brown peat.
Browns and greens.
A trail follows the creek back into farm lands. Those are stinging nettles at the left, burdock at the right. Left to themselves, they would close off that path in short order. Behind them is a wild cherry tree, loaded with still-green cherries. Bird heaven!
And smaller weeds. I don't know what these pink flowers are. Some of the leaves look like creeping buttercup. Next: tiny blue flowers, hiding in the grass.
I've been babysitting this afternoon. And this evening, I fell asleep twice with my head on the keyboard.
And Blogger crashed while I was uploading photos.
That's it. I'm going to bed.
See you tomorrow.
We've been visiting brown-water sites. And taking dozens of fuzzy photos of birds.
It all started out when we decided to go to Garry Point Park, at the tip of Lulu Island, where the river meets Georgia Strait. I suggested a slower route, along the south dyke, out of the traffic.
We never got to Garry Point.
First unplanned stop, Horseshoe Slough. It's not on the map, but there was a parking spot, a sign and a trail into a small park.
The water in the slough is a rich, chocolaty brown. I am not sure if this is its natural colour (it matches the mud) or whether it is polluted. But it made for interesting photos, which I will post in a day or two (they're from Laurie's film camera).
And I followed a rabbit back to the parking lot, managed one shot before he disappeared under the salmonberry and elder brush.
We drove on. And had to stop again, when we saw a ring-necked pheasant just across a ditch and fence. She stood there while Laurie dug the camera out, then sat down, leaving just her head and neck visible. I think she must have had a nest there in the tall grass; at any rate, she sat still until Laurie opened the car door. Then she got up, looked our way and flew off.
I memorized the spot: we'll be back.
On to Garry Point! Passing Finn Slough, which I had heard about, but could not find on the map. A wonderful historic site, with a fascinating story, and the subject of an annual photography contest. But it was late, and we wanted tea. Finn Slough will have to wait for another day. Soon. So will Garry Point; we got hung up in Steveston Village over tea and second-hand books.
And yesterday we started out again, and ended up in Gunderson Slough. Last time we were there, it was December, rainy and cold. It was beautiful, in spite of the greyness of the weather; we wanted to see what it is like in the spring. 
Weeds and brown water. Boats, ramshackle buildings, grubby workshops and docks, rotting machinery, stacks of lumber. And birds! Violet-green swallows, house finches, seagulls and crows, a hairy woodpecker pounding away in the bush, robins, great blue herons. And a stand of cat-tails where red-winged blackbirds proclaim ownership.
Feeding on the cattail fluff.
Switching perches.
On a log boom, a heron was finding plenty of goodies. As we watched, he plucked something off these logs every few steps; some sort of large insect, probably. Maybe wasps.
More photos tomorrow, and a bit of history.
I laughed myself silly.
And PZ says that no actual insects were harmed in the filming.
Millimetres matter.
I promised: to post a list of five science links, every week.
A problem has arisen. Checking over the posts that I found interesting this week, I filled my address bar with far more than 5. So here I am, at the Express Check-Out with a full cart. Be lenient with me, Mike.
#1. Daily Kos, Marine Life Series: Boring Sponges How something soft and mushy eats its way into something hard. Like a thick oyster shell.
I've seen that! But I didn't know what I was seeing. Now I do.
And just last night, I was reading a small reference booklet, "Tidepool & Reef - Marinelife Guide to the Pacific Northwest Coast"; it says, about the Hermit Crab Sponge,
"Grows on shells inhabited by hermit crabs; eventually dissolves the shell. Instead of finding larger shells as the crab grows, it can make the sponge its permanent home." (My emphasis.)An interesting symbiosis.
Staying in the shade. No neon lights. Not a zombie. (Under the chin of a totem pole animal.)
At our last visit to the Richmond Buddhist temple to see the jade Guan-Yin, we were told she would be once again on display "in the spring". So, it is spring; the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming. Time to go back.
We dawdled around the garden areas, first. The temple staff expends a fair amount of effort on this; it is an integral part of the philosophy, as essential as the statues of the Buddhas themselves. It's all about "mindfulness", awareness of the moment and our place in the ever-changing, ever-the-same pattern. Focussed attention on every act, seeing, hearing, speaking. Even a simple cup of tea becomes a reverent ritual.
Along the side of the parking lot.
A bud. I don't know what it will open out to.
Laurie in the rock garden by the gate, blending in.
The pool, with swimming dragons.
And I, of course, found tiny inhabitants, wasps and spiders. On one of the rock sculptures, a tiny seedling. On the seedling, a wasp.
They were building a nest on the next rocks over. The tiny stemmed upside-down paper flower is the beginning of the nest. (Click to see this full size. And see another from my box of goodies in close-up .)
And spider webs. In a crevice in the rocks:
And in the ear of a fantastic lion/reindeer. (Lion face and body, reindeer antlers.)
In the courtyard, the roof of a shrine held more fanciful creatures.
Another hybrid, just the size for a kid to ride:
And, necessarily, one of the Buddhas, meditating by a pool to the music of three strands of falling water.
The hall where the jade Guan-Yin is was still behind "Under Construction" signs. The woman I asked about it was more realistic than our previous informant. When would the hall be open? "A long time. Very long. Maybe a year."
Oh, well. Laurie pronounced himself satisfied with the beauty of the gardens; Guan-Yin can wait. She won't fade.
There were three peonies blooming beside the path back to the parking lot. Dessert.
At the Buddhist temple, Richmond. I think it will eventually be a pool, with fanciful water spouts.
More on this day's outing, tomorrow.
Two months ago, March 9th, Bev posted this question at Burning Silo;
How many of you are nervous of spiders? Are you bothered by looking at spiders? If you’re bothered by the sight of spiders, do you think it is tied to a particular incident, or do you feel you picked up a dislike or fear of spiders from something someone said? Would you describe your fear as arachnophobia?In the comments, I promised a story. I'm finally getting around to it. Sorry about that.
No tarantulas, though.
It was supposed to rain today ...
The wind was up this morning, but the sky was still blue. I took a few moments to survey my shady garden.
Everything blooms a little late, here under the evergreens; the rhododendrons have been rioting up and down the street, but here they have stayed green and sleepy. They've awakened, finally, red and pink.
The first of the lilies of the valley opened today. Bleeding hearts and columbine, blue-eyed grass, London pride and fringe-cup, all are showing bits of colour.
And, of course, the pansies and Johnny-jump-ups, in several varieties, are leading the way.
In the afternoon, it still hadn't rained; we went for a quick turn around Nicholson Park. The dogwoods are blooming there, and the air is heavy with the perfume of flowering laurel hedges. I found a bumper crop of lichens, grey, green, orange and yellow. And a caterpillar, also in yellow and orange. The spines along his sides look like ray flowers, themselves; click on the photo to see them full size.
Along the fence, a tiny striped spider was sunning himself.
The wind was chilly; we came home. And, changing the water on a vase of wild yellow mustard, I shook off a crab spider, painted in flower colours. I replaced him on a stem, and he busily set about making a new web.
And it still hasn't rained.
In the couple of weeks since I bioblitzed the vacant lot across the street, Laurie and I have been keeping an eye on it as we passed by, watching it grow and bloom. Today, we went over to get a closer look.
The wild mustard is in full bloom, daisies (which I missed in the BB, not recognizing the seedlings) are ready to open, the Scotch broom is doing its thing. On one right by the edge of the lot, Laurie found this for me:
And a few steps farther along, a small rabbit hid under the blackberry canes, hoping to be invisible.
Birds sang and fluttered everywhere; sparrows of some sort, starlings, crows. And Laurie says he heard a red-winged blackbird. We scrambled over a few gravel piles fast turning into alder and blackberry bush, and down a shallow ditch, where kids had laid down solid boards for a path. Laurie shot a roll of film. Water, ooze, blackberries, young alders, sparrows, more blackberries. Still, it was pleasant down there, in the sunshine and out of sight and sound of the traffic.
We ended up at the small pond where I had found the water striders a week ago. It's just the remains of an old boggy creek, very shallow, only a dozen feet or so across. But very much alive:
And yes, the water striders were there, half a dozen, at least. We watched them for a while before I realized that several of them were engaged in wild chases around the pond, two by two. I tried to aim the camera at them, but -- those guys are fast! It was hopeless.
I was tracking one couple when the chaser caught up with the chasee. And then, I was astounded. These two bugs started leaping together into the air. Down to the water surface, roiling it up, and up again, belly to belly. Again and again and again. At one point, their efforts took them a good 6 inches above the pond. Finally, they broke apart and went their separate ways.
Another couple ended their chase with a milder, shorter dance.
I got, I don't know by what luck, a couple of photos. Here is the first couple; you can see the ripples in the water surface marking the launching pad, the two striders above and their shadows below. Click on the photo to get a better view.
(Or, here it is, a bit larger.)
What was going on? They didn't seem to have been in a position for mating. Unless they were quicker than rabbits.
At home, I dug out my books and fired up Google.
Turns out that female water striders are reluctant to mate*. In fact, they only need to mate once in order to produce their broods. But the males want to mate frequently. Evidently, the last male to mate with a female is the one whose DNA gets passed on to the next generation.
So the males pursue the females, who flee, and then fight. Which is what we were watching.
From the Abstract of "The costs of mating and mate choice in water striders" by Locke Rowe, UBC, dep. zoology, Vancouver BC:
Mating behaviour in this species includes frequent harassment of females by males (mate searching), pre-mating struggles that may function as mate choice by females, mating which includes copulation and male mate guarding, and post-mating struggles. Each component of the mating behaviour of females increases predation risk. Escape by females from harassment by males increases the movement rate of females and predacious backswimmers are attracted to movement at the water surface. Capture success of backswimmers is almost tripled on females engaged in pre- and post-mating struggles relative to single females.Rowe says, as reported in National Geographic News:
That explains the "dances"; they were battles, with the female winning and the male giving up.Males want to spread their genes far and wide and mate with as many females as possible. Females would rather keep mating to the minimum.
(skipped paragraph)
Male water striders have evolved grasping hooks that grip the female in place as he tries to mate with her. To foil the males, females have evolved spines to dislodge unwelcome lovers.
(most of article skipped)
When a female water strider has mated, she rejects all subsequent males, both high and low quality. "When she hasn't mated, she accepts the duds at the same rate she accepts the studs," said Rowe.
Just looking at the ground under our feet:
White Rock Beach, ripples left by the retreating tide, with caved-in kid diggings.
White Rock, ripples and threads of eel-grass.
Boundary Bay, snail trails, ripples and sea lettuce. It reminds me of those illuminated manuscript designs from a few centuries back.
From Mike the Mad Biologist:
To help combat pseudoscience,
"Once per week, link to five 'science' posts that you found interesting."
... if you keep your eyes open.
Seen by the side of the street, today:
What was that? Leftover Easter eggs? I had passed them already when I realized; 'shrooms! I did a U-turn on a side street, and went back.
The grass beside the sidewalk was full of them, big mushrooms, up to the size and shape of a goose egg, singly and in clumps.
I could identify them immediately as Coprinus, "Inky Caps", because a fair number were turning into a dribble of blue-black goo at the edges. They weren't Shaggy Mane, Coprinus comatus, which I am familiar with, but slightly different, with just a hint of shagginess.
A close-up; see how they deliquesce, oozing down into the grass.
One had been stepped on; I brought it home to show Laurie. It smelled wonderful, like the smell of the piney woods I hiked in up north, nutty and sweet. The intact buttons would have been edible*, but they were just too beautiful to harvest.
*In case you are ever tempted to try them, pick only the intact mushrooms, cook them quickly, and (very important) take no alcohol with them, nor for the next 3 days, since they interfere with the metabolism of alcohol, making it extremely toxic.
Last week, along our street, Laurie saw this:
... put out as a "freebie" beside a pile of spring clean-up leftovers.
Tomorrow; who knows? We'll be pleasantly surprised. Again.
Little girl with balloon, not slowing down to notice an adult with a camera...
I could use some of that zip, kiddo. ... Please? ...
Looks like she's not going to lend me any. Oh, well...
That was resized, for easy loading. Here is a detail section, at 100% (after you click on it, of course). I can see some tiny cup-like structures on the top of the "leaves".
Spore cases? Or what?
After the concentrated seeing of the Blogger Bioblitz, a casual, aimless stroll down Cougar Creek was just what we needed.
The last couple of times, we started at the West end; this time we drove to the east end of the official park area; on the Google map, the green belt went on east, skirting school playing fields. We crossed the bridge to the east, following the creek.
A caucus of crows was holding a meeting in the trees above us and a couple of mallards dabbled in the deeper pools. Sunlight shone through open bush on the other side; we crossed on a line of rocks. Beyond, the red elderberry flowers were in full bloom.
The bush opened out into a clearing behind a row of housing, marked off with logs and mowed, not too closely. A red-headed woodpecker shouted out from a tall cottonwood; although we looked from all angles, we couldn't see him. As we walked, he moved ahead of us, calling from one tree after another, always invisible.
The creek turned north, between the playing fields and a cement retaining wall topped by chain-link fence. Along here, it was lined with cherry and plum trees, blooming pink and white.
The green belt over the creek dwindled to a mere line; we crossed it and turned back, across the field. And here we found the trilliums*, three of them. A real treat; something we don't expect to see close to populated areas. *(Or should it be "trillia"? Laurie says he doesn't bother himself with such a trivium.)
And back in the "Park" area, proper, where this winter dozens of mallards dozed and puttered, mushrooms dotted the ground. Some, I hadn't seen before.
Detail of the gills:
Time to turn around. At the bottom of the main lagoon, a kid was fishing. He told me that once, he caught a big carp. Enough motivation to sit patiently for hours.
And a final delight. A queue of ducklings trailing Mommy across the lagoon.
In spring, for us, every day becomes a Bioblitz.
