Blues in a White Rock Alley

I've been sorting photos, cleaning out the hard drive. These are a few leftovers from the last time we made it to White Rock. We walked down an alley, looking for shade. (I don't remember finding any.) We did find a cheerful blue bird, though:

New species?

Teasels. With blue stems and sunbursts.

Blue car, with reflections of the machinery alongside.

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Defining "Slow Pandemonium"

1. pandemonium - a state of extreme confusion and disorder (The Free Dictionary)

2. Slow pandemonium - this summer, now mercifully almost over.

Restaurant window, Vancouver. With reflections from across the street.

I have been blogging a bit irregularly for a while, and skipped yesterday entirely. I haven't lost interest; it's just that slow pandemonium thing. A brief explanation may be in order.

It all started, as far as I was aware at the time, back in June, when Laurie fell badly on the rocks at Kwomais Point. He injured both legs, knees and ankles. No broken bones, fortunately, but the swelling and pain lasted all through July and half of August. So our hiking and walking was drastically curtailed.

Then came the burglary, and the theft of Laurie's wallet, keys, and vacation cash, and our car. The police found the car the next day, but it was damaged beyond repair. (And as long as I don't get on the topic of young punks who think they're hard done by if they get slapped on the wrist, this won't turn into a rant.)

We've weathered that ok. Most of the ID has been replaced. The locks have all been changed. We've dealt with the insurance people and spent hours on the phone, pressing "0" to speak with a human and listening to "Please continue to hold. A service representative will be with you shortly." And we're getting around, for now, on buses. We're managing.

But the sore feet and the lack of transportation made the next event much more challenging. A routine appointment to replace Laurie's glasses turned into a series of visits to doctors. In Vancouver, in Surrey, back in Vancouver, etc. By bus and SkyTrain and sore feet. This Wednesday, he had cataract surgery on one eye. The next will follow in a month. (He's fine; he can see, his eye doesn't hurt.)

Orchids not in an old truck. (Double reflection: house window/truck window.)

An interesting summer, certainly. But not one I want to repeat.

Window, Strathcona. That twisty yellow thing is a kayak on the roof of a car.

Some tidbits of information I picked up along the way:

1. SOC police are politer than traffic cops.
2. Never try to remove leftover fingerprint powder from walls with a damp cloth. It immediately turns black, black, black, and glues itself to everything. It also covers much more area than is apparent: may as well plan on dusting everything in the room, and washing all affected areas half a dozen times.
3. The police are terribly Biblical; the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
4. Credit card companies will get you a new card in days. Government agencies take several weeks.
5. From here to the closest beach by bus involves two transfers, and an hour and a half on the bus. That doesn't include the time walking at either end.
6. A bag that doesn't weigh anything at all at the beginning of a trip somehow weighs half a ton by the time you're home.
7. The doctor who developed the first plastic intraocular lenses, Sir Harold Ridley, got the idea from his experience with WWII aircraft pilots. He noticed that splinters of perspex windshields lodged in their eyes were not rejected, and had lenses made of that same material. He implanted the first one in 1949. (Laurie's ophthalmologist told us about it.)
8. A 15-minute operation takes 4 hours of prep and paperwork.

Outside of a door with glass window. The pathway, reflected.

And I'm tired. Exhausted. But there's light at the end of that tunnel; another month of rounds of labs and doctors' offices, and we're done! And next week, I'm determined to find a car. So that we can get back to the beach; it's been far too long, already.

(Meanwhile, I'll go back and re-read Hugh's post on the lugworms of our favourite beach, at Boundary Bay. Amazing critters, they are!)

The pictures: Laurie has been taking photos of reflections, in mirrors, car windows, houses, and water. A Lewis Carroll universe.
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Slow Pandemonium

Sometimes life feels like that.

Pandemonium


Slow Pandemonium, at that.

Photos from a Strathcona alleyway, last month.
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Photos through dirty windows

We still haven't replaced the car that was stolen a month ago; while the weather is decent, it won't hurt to walk a bit more, and use public transit for longer runs.

We had to go into Vancouver on Monday, which entailed several hours on a series of buses and the SkyTrain. I entertained myself (and probably some of the other passengers) by taking photos through the windows. Here are a few of the least blurry:

Tipsy. No wonder: I was holding my the camera above my head on a swaying bus. A fragment of Delta, and blue sky above.


The Fraser River, from the SkyTrain bridge, looking west.


Apartment buildings, somewhere in Burnaby. The train is entering a station, so the track is fenced.


Rooftops, and beyond, on the other side of the river, Burns Bog. Looking southwest.


Somewhere in Burnaby, looking south.


A freight train parking lot. New Westminster.


The Port Mann Bridge, from the SkyTrain Bridge. New Westminster-Surrey. Looking east.


The first support of the Alex Fraser bridge, from the Scott Road Station, looking west.


Almost home again: window of a supermarket, Delta.

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No wonder they won't pose!

Bad hairfeather day:

I've been trying, at intervals in the last few days, to take a photo of a red-headed house finch. With no luck; he's not interested. I am, and not only because he is so vibrantly coloured.

Today, I stood at the door, stock still, camera ready, all lights at my back off, pretending to be part of the door jamb. The redhead was in the feed bucket.

Normally, the finches jump in the bucket, grab a seed, hop up to the rim to deal with it, then drop back down for the next.

Cracking the seed.

"Red" was doing just that, when I turned on the camera. While he was down in the bucket, I positioned myself at the door. And waited for him to show up. And waited. And waited...

Meanwhile, a chickadee took a bath at the feeder to my right, a family of sparrows lined up on a branch of the rhododendron, another pair of finches was bouncing around at the edge of my vision. Photo-ops galore, and I stood focussing on a bare rim of a tin bucket.

Five minutes went by. Six, seven. No Red.

I eventually decided that he must have left while I was distracted by the chickadee (I was? I was sure I had kept my eyes on that bucket the whole time. But maybe I had lost concentration for that necessary split-second.) I gave up and walked over to peer in the bucket.

And Red blasted out of the bucket and away. I think he was laughing.

I did get a shot at him later, at a distance and with the wrong background:

The red topknot almost disappears against the dirt.

A couple of weeks ago, this bird was smooth and beautiful. Now, he looks scruffy. His head is knobbly, there are bald spots, and the feathers stick out at odd angles. I have been trying to get a close-up to see if I can determine whether he is just molting, or if there is a mite infestation problem to worry about.

The chickadees are all looking good, but some of my other finches are showing signs of wear.

Looks like it's been in a fight. A feather-pulling fight.


Zooming 'way in, same bird. Bare spots on head and neck.


Wearing a Mohawk.


This one looks good.

I'm beginning to understand their reluctance to smile for the camera.
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Buggy Post

The good kind of buggy, mostly. A collection of small beasties that have turned up here or in the neighbourhood in the last week or so.

One of our neighbours grows tomatoes. He doesn't have much sun, so he moves his plants (a whole row of them!) out to the sidewalk every morning, and brings them back behind his hedge at night. We walk past and inspect the ripening progress every couple of days.

On his first red tomato, last week, we found this beetle*:

It's black, with an orange rim, and greenish underside.

Captured, and brought home (the tomato grower didn't object) I got a closer look:

"Where's my tomato gone?"

I couldn't find this beetle on BugGuide, so I have submitted it to be ID'd.

*Update: it's not a beetle, it's a stink bug nymph, Chlorochroa. Thank you, Jim!

And I brought home from the church next door, a handful of weeds to decorate the kitchen table. Wild daisies, some tansy, a small yellow ray flower, etc. A few residents came along for the ride:

A tiny yellow inchworm.

A fat crab spider.

Zooming in. She is so transparent that the eye arrangement is laid out like a diagram. Only 6 eyes on this one.

In her ambush position. Just because she's beautiful.

And today's haul, one step outside my door:

A tiny, tiny, yellow spider, in a flower vase. That green stuff is the foam that the flowers were propped in.

Unidentified brown moth. Submitted to BugGuide.

Full-frontal view.

He has an odd protrusion on his snout. (A wart on the nose?) I've never seen that before.

And this was not a welcome find. Out of a crack in the bathroom baseboard, 8 carpet beetle larvae have crawled. Two had made it into the laundry basket. I killed these without the slightest qualm of conscience. These are the villains who make holes in my wool sweaters. No proper buggy manners at all.

Grrrrr!

As soon as things calm down around here (I hope by Friday), I will shampoo the carpets and upholstery again.
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Quick note

I missed posting yesterday, and today, I'm swamped with work.

On my breaks, I've been rummaging through old photographs. Here's one of a granddaughter on a neighbouring farm, some 20-odd years ago:

Milking lesson

And now, nose to grindstone again.
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Arghhh!

Textures and shapes at Steveston Pier:

Tangle of ropes


Old boat, moldering away. Rust, old paint, rot. And weeds.


Rope bumper.


Must be a pirate ship: she says "Arghhh!" Or something like that.


A more conventional view, on a grey day.

Photos from Laurie's almost defunct film camera, taken last June, and forgotten in this summer's to-ing and fro-ing. There's one more batch in the camera.
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1000 Photos of chickadees

Laurie says I must have at least 1000 photos of chickadees already.

I don't. However, I think I have taken 1000 photos of empty perches. Some of them even have a blurry section where a chickadee was a split-second ago.

Empty perch #1043. Or thereabouts.

I don't keep them, though; have to leave space on the hard drive for the chickadee photos. I'm an optimist.
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Pure Gold!

This is a follow-up on my post "Blanket on a Stick", and posts and comments by Seabrooke, and Hugh:

Actually, the story starts earlier, and it's a chain reaction. A quick recap: on the first of January, Gerry at Naturespeak, blogged about the Shy Cosmet (Limnaecia phragmitella) larvae he had found in a cattail head. Seabrooke read this, and brought home her own cattail in March; she discovered one larva. I picked up on this, read about them in BugGuide, collected a cattail, and found dozens of similar caterpillars.

However, BugGuide lists them as an eastern moth; BC is not in their range. What were the ones I had, then?

I had filled the birdhouse with cattail fluff, probably including a fair number of larvae. And I had a Tupperware lidded bowl with more fluff and larvae. Laurie contributed another cattail head, undisturbed. I tied a plastic bag loosely around it, to keep the inhabitants from escaping, stacked it in a corner, and left the whole shebang to sit until June or July, when the moths should be emerging. (If they were the Shy Cosmet, that is.)

And forgot about it; this has been an eventful summer. And here it is, the end of August.

Yesterday evening, I brought everything inside; the birdhouse:

Front door, with the bedding hanging out.

... the Tupperware, and the bagged head.

After all the rain we've had, I expected to find mold and mildew in the birdhouse. But the fluff was as fine and dry as the day I jammed it in. I pulled out a couple of handfuls and inspected them. No larvae, no moths, no other insect life. I re-hung the birdhouse, disappointed.

The bag next. I opened it carefully, removed the head. It was intact. I pulled apart some of the fluff. No larvae, no moths, no other insect life. Oh, well.

I shook out the empty bag, and two moths fell out. They looked dead; well, they would be, locked inside the bag like that. But when I touched one to position it for the camera, it moved.

Shy Cosmet, about 1 cm. long.

These were beautiful moths, if tiny. The wings, legs, antennae, head, all reflect a warm, golden light; like something fashioned by a fine jeweller. The camera boggles at it, and barely hints at the metallic gleam.

The wings are much longer than the body, finely feathered, curved outward and upward at the end.


Besides the antennae, the Shy One carries two long spikes upright in front of the head. I don't remember seeing anything like this before. It belongs to the family of Twirler Moths (Gelechiidae), and those spikes, or labial palps, are characteristic.


The moths started walking around on the paper towel where I'd dropped them, and one found a damp spot. He stopped right there and started drinking. (Look closely; you can see his feeding tube.) I gave the second one a drop of water, too.

But were these the insects that had been in the cattail, or had they somehow found their way inside the bag through the knot? I turned to the Tupperware container, and inspected its contents. One dead larva. Two dead moths. The same species as the live ones. That settled it. The moths are the adults corresponding to the caterpillars I found in the spring.

And the Shy Cosmet has come to the west.

After their drink, the surviving moths were in the mood for exploring. I collected them (had to chase one) and took them outside.

Sitting on the hedge.

Next time I looked, they were gone.

One of the Shy Cosmets on BugGuide had been found half a mile from a cattail marsh, so these guys have a chance at finding a home. I hope.
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Astigmatism at the mall

Laurie had an appointment with the ophthalmologist near Surrey Central*. Afterwards, we walked back to the mall:

Pointing up and out.


Surrey Central tower.


The tower, reflected in the mall windows.


Zooming in. No, that's not the eye drops; that's what it looks like.


Reflections and a view of the mall interior, superimposed.


The upturned-boat roof of the mall.


And to rest those poor abused eyes, a view of the world out there. But still a warped reflection.

We have to go back to the eye clinic now.

*Mall, SkyTrain station, and Simon Fraser University, all scrambled together.
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Evening walkabout

Just a few photos from our evening walks, the last couple of days:

The sky reflected in a neighbour's birdbath (with plastic bird bank)


Fireweed


One fireweed flower


Tonight's grey skies. Promising rain, and not following through.


Laurie has been experimenting with the macro settings on the camera. Tonight, his hand was shaking. But I love this photo; it looks like a painting.


Lines in the clouds


Panoramic shot. The reflection in the curved window of a car parked on the street.


Sunset.

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Metamorphosis

It all started with the tulip trees.

It was a hot day, with the sun blasting down from a cloudless sky, so we were walking on the shady side of the street. On the grass under the trees.

Under the tulip trees, the grass was covered with leaves. And the leaves were covered top and bottom with a sticky liquid. They stuck to our shoes; they stuck to my fingers when I picked them up.


And every sticky surface was covered with aphids and small flies.

Section of the underside of a leaf.

On one of the fallen leaves, I found a ladybug pupa. I carried it home, leaf and all. (Some of the aphids left the leaf and crawled up my arm. They tickled.)

Asian Multicoloured Ladybug Beetle pupa. With aphid.

A ladybug larva was crawling on a fence post where I stopped to change the battery in my camera. I popped it in the empty battery bag and brought it home, too.

Hallowe'en colours.

I photographed both my catches quickly, then put the sticky leaf with the pupa outside. The larva worried me, though; it was hunching itself up in an odd position; I thought the heat from the lamp was bothering it, and set it aside to rest in a pill bottle with a damp rose leaf and an aphid or two for food.


I found out later, from BugGuide, that this is the normal pre-pupating posture. And sure enough, this morning, the rose leaf held a bright orange pupa where the larva had been.


If I had known, I would have watched it all night, if need be. Next time.

Funny how the colours morph; where the larva had orange, the pupa is black. Where the larva was black the pupa is orange.

This pupa was quite different than the previous one; smaller markings, a paler orange. This afternoon Laurie and I were comparing them; the time was just before 3:00 P.M.

I looked at them again at 5:30, and this is what I saw on the tulip leaf:


Now there's a pale, lemon-yellow dome, still wet-looking and almost transparent, on the side of the pupa casing. The adult ladybug is out!


Click on this to see it full size: you can see the split where the ladybug emerged. I don't know how it got that big dome out the small crack. The adult is not entirely free, yet; the pupa is still twitching, faintly, at the top where the split is. I can't see a head.

The elytra (the wing covers) look like a regulation hard hat. Or from the side, like a semi-transparent half-grapefruit.

Nothing much happened for ten minutes. Occasionally, a leg unfolded, then tucked itself away again. But then, the "hard hat" shifted sideways, and two wide eyes stared out at me.


More resting, with occasional small changes in position. Another 15 minutes went by. The movement in the pupa stopped. Then, the ladybug drew itself up to full height, away from the pupa, ...


... and marched down the leaf and away. 6:00 P.M.

Wow! What a big world!

It has the usual markings of an Asian Multicoloured: the W, however sketchy, on the pronotum. But I'd never seen a yellow one before, much less a yellow ladybug with no spots. Very pretty.

The pupal casing remained, standing straight up on the leaf. It is there now, although it is wrinkly and black by this time.


And the second pupa (the ex-larva) is still on the rose leaf, still that light orange. I wonder; the darker, more heavily marked pupa produced this marvel of delicate lemon custard; what will the next one be like?
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Caught by a Meme

You have to watch out, wandering the web these days; you never know when a meme is going to leap out at you and sink its fangs into your mouse hand. I've fallen victim, again.

So, of course, I'm passing it on. It's the only way to get it to leave go of me. Sorry about that. Blame it on Stranger Fruit, where it ambushed me.

This meme is a list of 100 food items, some a bit on the exotic side, others not really. You are supposed to bold the ones you have eaten and strike-through those you'd never try.

The remains of the Mole Poblano, con arroz blanco y frijoles.

The List:

(Some of these I didn't recognize by their name. I Googled them and discovered that they were old favourites. I added an asterisk to these.)

• 1. Venison
• 2. Nettle tea No, not as a tea. But we used to eat the plants as a vegetable in the spring.
  
• 3. Huevos rancheros Yum!
  
• 4. Steak tartare
• 5. Crocodile
• 6. Black pudding
• 7. Cheese fondue
• 8. Carp
• 9. Borscht
• 10. Baba ghanoush
• 11. Calamari
• 12. Pho* Vietnamese soup; noodles and sliced beef, in a beef broth. A staple in Vietnamese restaurants.
  
• 13. PB&J sandwich
  
• 14. Aloo gobi* A dry potato and cauliflower curry.
  
• 15. Hot dog from a street cart
• 16. Epoisses
• 17. Black truffle
• 18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes Pear.
  
• 19. Steamed pork buns
• 20. Pistachio ice cream
• 21. Heirloom tomatoes
• 22. Fresh wild berries Every summer.
  
• 23. Foie gras
• 24. Rice and beans
• 25. Brawn, or head cheese
• 26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
• 27. Dulce de leche
• 28. Oysters I had a can in my cupboard for ages and ages. I finally gave it away.
  
• 29. Baklava
• 30. Bagna cauda
• 31. Wasabi peas
• 32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
• 33. Salted lassi
  
• 34. Sauerkraut
• 35. Root beer float
• 36. Cognac with a fat cigar
• 37. Clotted cream tea
• 38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
• 39. Gumbo
• 40. Oxtail
• 41. Curried goat No. But barbecued, roasted, and stewed goat, yes.
  
• 42. Whole insects (chocolate covered ants/grasshoppers/crickets) Ants and grasshoppers. The grasshoppers were toasted, served on a tortilla with fresh lime juice. Mmmm - good!
  
• 43. Phaal
• 44. Goat's milk I used to make cheese out of this. But I drank a bit, too.
  
• 45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
• 46. Fugu Not that brave. Or foolhardy.
  
• 47. Chicken tikka masala
• 48. Eel
• 49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
• 50. Sea urchin Raw, on the half shell. The other half walked across the table and fell off the edge. Spoiled my appetite.
  
• 51. Prickly pear
• 52. Umeboshi Pickled Ume fruits.
  
• 53. Abalone
• 54. Paneer* A milk/lemon unaged cheese.
  
• 55. McDonald's Big Mac Meal
• 56. Spaetzle
• 57. Dirty gin martini
• 58. Beer above 8%
• 59. Poutine No. But I should have; I'm Canadian. Just not fond of gravy.
  
• 60. Carob chips
• 61. S'mores
• 62. Sweetbreads
• 63. Kaolin As an ingredient in a medication only.
  
• 64. Currywurst
• 65. Durian
• 66. Frogs' legs Cooked up a batch. And my silly kids started hopping around the table.
  
• 67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
• 68. Haggis One taste was plenty.
  
• 69. Fried plantain
• 70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
• 71. Gazpacho
• 72. Caviar and blini
• 73. Louche absinthe
• 74. Gjetost, or brunost
• 75. Roadkill
• 76. Baijiu
• 77. Hostess Fruit Pie
• 78. Snail
• 79. Lapsang souchong
• 80. Bellini
• 81. Tom yum* Thai soup with lemongrass, those little slippery mushrooms, chili, cilantro, chicken and/or seafood.
  
• 82. Eggs Benedict
• 83. Pocky
• 84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
• 85. Kobe beef
• 86. Hare
• 87. Goulash
• 88. Flowers
• 89. Horse
• 90. Criollo chocolate
• 91. Spam
• 92. Soft shell crab
• 93. Rose harissa
• 94. Catfish
• 95. Mole poblano
• 96. Bagel and lox
• 97. Lobster Thermidor
• 98. Polenta
• 99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
• 100. Snake

I've eaten 59 of these. I'm not likely to try the cigar, and I'm sure not to try the fugu. Anything else -- well, I've eaten balut; after that, it's all uphill.

And there you have it; squirm out of its clutches, if you can!
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Reds

In a shady garden,


Over an alley fence,


And on a sunny ledge.



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Midnight survey

I was grumbling to Laurie, a couple of days ago, that there are hardly any bugs this year. Except for a plague of tiny biting black flies, he reminded me.

Something is definitely odd, though. Last summer, the evergreens across my lawn were festooned with hundreds of big cross spider webs. (Both the spiders and the webs were big.) This year, I've found fewer than a dozen, all tiny.

Last year, I had to put out crushed eggshells to stop the slugs. This year, the eggshell container is still full.

Last year, I was monitoring Fat Momma and Chica, my American house spiders, chronicling their doings and matings. This year, the final batch of eggs hatched in March, and a couple of tiny males set up their webs. And that was it. No females, no matings, no babies. And no photos.

Last year, my visitors included big brown moths, crane flies, assorted caterpillars, leafhoppers, lemon-yellow lauxaniid flies, bald-faced hornets and granddaddy harvestmen. This year, a moth or two, a pair of crane flies, no caterpillars, a few tiny harvestmen. The only flies so far are those biting black flies. And a few mosquitoes. (I could do without those.)

I am wondering whether that is a normal variation, or whether it is because of the changes in our weather patterns.

Almost a year ago, in September, I went out with a flashlight to see a big cross spider that built his web on our bicycles every night, and found the patio crawling with life. I've looked out at night this year, and rarely saw any more than a few pillbugs.

I decided to do a thorough search; I went out Tuesday night and last night with the lamp on an extension cord, and peered into every corner. With some success.

There were slugs. Several kinds of slugs.

Doesn't it look awfully snake-ish, coiled up? It does to me.

A light-coloured slug, eating something dried and red. Maybe an old earthworm.

A dark-brown slug, climbing the wall with a harvestman for company.

And a couple of kinds of pill bugs:

The ones that make pills.

And the ones that don't.

I thought this one was a pillbug until I saw the photo. Now I don't know what it is.


Besides these, I found an earwig or two, two snails, a tiny leafhopper on the rhododendron, and a couple of earthworms out for an evening stroll. No moths, no caterpillars.

There were a few spiders: the tiny cross spider whose web I broke, and a miniature cream-coloured one that never stopped running.

Fuzzy photo; the spider wasn't co-operative.

And -- and this made me happy! -- a female American house spider, possibly one of Fat Momma's brood. She was setting up shop at the crook of an old boat smokestack that I've had hanging around, and tying her web to the beak of a wooden shorebird beside it. Not a safe location, but I'll try not to disturb it.


There are a few small males in the vicinity; she should have plenty of suitors. I'll keep an eye on her, hoping for photo ops.

I also found several of these beetles. Out there in the semi-dark, they just showed up as brown blobs, so I brought this one inside to have his picture taken.


This is the same as the one that Chica caught last year. He's lucky I brought him in; when I went out in the morning, the new spider* had one of his relatives:

Beetle taco.

So there's life out there. But not nearly as varied or as numerous as last year. I hope it bounces back next year.

One last photo: a pile of stones I will be flipping the 7th of September. With a slug on the turtle.



*I'll have to find her a name. It's awkward to be always writing "the new American house spider".
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Midnight photos of a web

I was out at midnight, taking photos of the nocturnal activity just outside my door (more on that later) and wasted a few shots on a spider web. The web caught the light from the flash and played games with it.

Here's one shot. I had inadvertently broken the web, chasing an earwig. The bright object in the centre is a tiny cross spider. Very tiny. The strands of spider silk look like square glass rods; at full size (click on the photo), they look solid, not like a spider web at all. If I play with the brightness settings, the colour changes; when I dim it, for example, upright rods go green, the ones forming a tipped floor look red.

And I have no idea how I ended up with those pentagonal dots.


Without the flash, using only the light from my lamp a few feet away, the spider can be seen, holding tightly to the fragments of his tattered web. I went out again half an hour later; he was busily repairing the damage.


This is the spider, in daylight, yesterday, before that great bumbling klutz swung a camera strap through his home.

Araneus diadematus, about 1/4 inch, toe to toe.

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Stalking elk

Another offering of the mad poet without a blog:

In the world I see you're stalking elk
thru the forest around the Rockefeller Center
You'll wear leather clothes that will last
for the rest of your life.
You'll climb the wrist thick kudzu vines
that wrap the Sears tower
And when you look down
You'll see tiny figures pounding maize
Laying strips of venison
to dry on the empty carpool lanes
of some abandoned superhighway

Anonymous. Seen in an alley in Strathcona.
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I haven't done this for a while.

I promised, but ... In my defense, I might say that life has just been too complex to keep track of my bookmarks recently. ... No? Didn't work?

Oh, well. My bad.

I'll try to get back on track. Here's a collection of what I've been looking at and enjoying for the past little bit, in no particular order.

Deep Sea News : Everything Poops:
Even copepods. "Beautiful!" say the researchers.

I and the Bird #81 « the Marvelous in nature:
A work of art, by Seabrooke

bioephemera : A Spiderweb Optics Mystery:
An interesting two-colour spider web.

Reflections on Snail Photography:
On the use of reflectors. Good tip.

Deep Sea News : Invert Pictures...TGIM?:
Oh, the eyes! Bay scallop.

Sam Kee Building - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
We were here a couple of weeks ago. I'd like to tour the building some day.

Powell River Books Blog: Ancient Sea Water Trapped in Powell Lake:
About 10,000 years old, and it smells of rotten eggs.

The spider that crushes its prey with 140 metres of webbing:
What the title says. Blogging on Peer Reviewed research.

Burning Silo » Blog Archive » precious metals
Tortoise beetles. I love these beasties, with their fecal shields. Great recycling!

International Rock Flipping Day, round 2:
Remember last year's Rock Flipping Day? Well, it was such fun that we're doing it again. On September 7th. I'm already looking for a few likely rocks.

This one looks interesting. On the beach below Kwomais Point.

Join the fun! Instructions, here.

Tetrapod Zoology : Chicken chicken chicken
This is an oldie, but I recently watched it again and laughed (again) till I cried. So I thought you might enjoy it. (Hint: watch it to the end, through the question period. That last question/answer is a killer.)
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Hot stuff!

In a big glass jar on my kitchen countertop, I keep large dried chile peppers, chile pasilla and chile ancho, which I use occasionally in Mexican recipes, or in soups and stews of my own invention (in other words, if it's not pinned down, it goes in the pot).

Chile pasilla and tomatillo (tomate verde).

We haven't been home much lately, so the latest batch of chiles has been sitting undisturbed for over a month. The other day, as I was standing waiting for the microwave to zap my supper, I noticed a tiny insect on the inside wall of the jar. The lid was on tight; it had to have come from the chiles.

I dumped out the contents and caught the bug. A beetle, about the size of a carpet beetle.

Must have hatched from a pupa inside a chile pepper.

I shook out the seeds from the chiles onto a paper towel, and combed through the resulting mess. My catch: half a dozen live beetles, and a couple of dozen dead ones.

I dropped beetle #1 into a pill bottle, replaced the lid. Caught beetle #2. Took off the lid, peered down into the bottle. Beetle #1 was not there. I found it on the underside of the lid. Ok. Beetle #2 went into the bottle. And then #3, and #4.

Except, when I got to #5, there were only two beetles on the bottom of the bottle, and two on the underside of the lid. And they were mating.

Love at first sight.

They stayed in that position for the next half-hour, while I caught beetle #6, got out the lamp and camera, took photos of them all while they raced around (damaging 2 in the process; they are so tiny!), and downloaded the photos to the computer.

Finally, when I had cleaned everything up, and was watching them again, the larger one started to walk away. He/she dragged the other with him/her for a minute, then they separated and ran off in opposite directions.

I put a piece of chile, a vein and a couple of seeds in the pill bottle with them, just in case one of them wants to lay eggs. Maybe.

All 4 undamaged beetles are very much alive and roaming around the pill bottle as I write.
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What a difference a shoe makes!

A great expanse of knee-deep water.

I can't wear those floppy thong slippers that everybody else seems to use all summer. Never have been able to. They hurt my toes, flop all over the place and trip me up. And I can't wear the clunky-looking rubber clogs that every store has a rack of these days; the heel slopes back, and I end up with a backache. So I've been wearing cloth shoes for the beach and trying to stay out of the water as much as possible.

Laurie, in boots, looking over someone else's thong flip-flops.

Laurie always wears good, sturdy, sensible boots, with wool socks. Hiking boots of suede or leather, not rubber boots. He's very careful with them. So he stays out of water, too.

That has changed. Recently, as a result of a fall on the rocks at White Rock, he ended up with scraped and sprained ankles. His feet were swollen, and he could no longer tolerate the boots. He tried on those clogs and -- waddya know! -- loved them.

And last month I found, at Mark's Work Wearhouse, a pair of ordinary-looking summer shoes, with the heel that I like, but made of rubber. And they fit, and are comfortable. I've been wearing them ever since, for street and beach.

All that to say that the other day, when we found the tide high at Boundary Bay, we waded right in, and joined in with all the other revellers. Nice!

The building supervisors wear white.

The beach looks different underwater.

Seaweeds, no longer lying in an untidy mass.

Shallow water, with patterns of light. And lugworm egg case.

The sandy areas were dotted with these lugworm egg cases, swaying back and forth in the waves. We saw these here last year, about the same time. I checked, and it was sometime in the last week of July; I wrote about them on August 1st and 2nd. Hugh has another photograph, from this year.

I found one in inch-deep water that looked torn and ragged, so I didn't feel guilty about damaging it. I tried to dig its jelly "root" out from the sand, but it tore off. Digging deeper, I just came up with handfuls of sand, nothing more. I'm wondering just what is holding them down, and how deep it goes. (And where it goes to when I dig.)

They're beautiful, in their own way; the egg cases lying in the shallowest water were coated with sandy grains that glinted gold in the sunlight.

Abarenicola pacifica egg case, with lugworm poop, and snail trails.

As the waves rolled in around our knees, bits of eelgrass floated by; I grabbed at one with a blob of yellow stuff on it. Luckily, I had remembered to bring containers; I broke off the piece of eelgrass and shoved it in a pill bottle full of seawater.

At home, I poured it out into a bowl. Here it is, greatly enlarged (the eelgrass is really about 1/2 cm. wide):


It's a band of clear jelly, striped with yellow dots, firmly glued to the eelgrass, curled, but not joined in a ring. The jelly is quite firm; I could pull at it with a hook to spread the strip out, without it tearing. I think it's an egg strip, probably belonging to one of the snails, or a sea slug. (And yes, I do feel guilty about spoiling the batch. Unless it's one of the invasive Batillaria, in which case: good!)

Here are the "eggs" blown up even more:


Anyone know what these are?
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Down payment

I've been working late tonight. On photos from the last two days; we found all kinds of goodies to show you. But now, there's no time left to post. Two tiny, unidentified beasties will have to do for now.

Damselfly, barely an inch long.


Wasp-like fly or fly-like wasp.

What we found in the water at Boundary Bay, tomorrow.
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Thistle heads and bee tails

Thistles in Cougar Creek Park, yesterday afternoon:

With fluff


and with bees. Black bees ...


... and yellow.

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Flight patterns

My desk faces the window. Often I look up from what I'm doing, and reach for the camera; the birds are doing something. In the evening, when work and play is done for the day, we sit again, facing the window, or on the patio. We get in a fair bit of birdwatching. No life list entries, no exotic species, just our everyday lbbs.

Chickadee, on the other side of the screen.

The current residents of my garden are a family or two of chickadees, another of white-crowned sparrows, some twenty-odd other sparrows, house finches, a couple of nuthatches, robins and the occasional crow. And I've been paying attention to their flight styles.

I think a map might help:



This is the relevant part of my yard, the spot where we sit to watch the birds. The chickadees, the finches, and the nutchatches use the hanging feeder. The sparrows come down to the paved area to get seeds. The robins and crows stick to the lawn area. And all but the robins and crows use the bird bath, also on the paved area, and dry themselves off in the rhododendron.

The chickadees fly in from the evergreens to the maple, where they sit a minute before dropping down to the feeder. They snatch a seed and skip back to the maple, or to the hedge, working at the seed until they get it open. They go back to the feeder several times, taking turns with the other chickadees in the group, then head back to the evergreens.

When they fly the longer distance, they dip and rise in the air, about once every metre, as if they were swinging from a series of vines, Tarzan-style. Even against a strong light, and at a distance, they are identifiable by this bumpy ride.

For short hops, like from the maple to the feeder, they fly direct, with the barest hint of a dip and rise. Between branches, they jump, barely opening their wings.

The nuthatch is much more business-like; he flies like an arrow, straight from the evergreens to the feeder, gets his seed quickly and zips back into the depths of the trees, also in a straight line, without a pause. He is travelling fast. I have never seen one take his time, or stay to talk with another nuthatch.

A couple of years ago, Laurie and I watched a pair near Chase. We noticed that they never go back in the same direction that they came in, and that they always disappear into a different tree than the previous time. We were guessing that this behaviour may help disguise their nest holes, or their stashes of seeds.

The house finches fly from the evergreens to the maple or to the rhododendron, following a more or less straight line. From there, they proceed to the feeder, stay on its perch for a while, then head back to the evergreens. There, they perch on an outside branch to survey the area, then flit back into the trees and out of sight. For bathing, they flit from branch to branch in the rhodo, checking out the availability of the bath, before dropping down.

The sparrows drift in, together, like leaves blown by the wind, angling down towards the lawn, and skittering along a bit after they've landed. Then they fly in short, quick flights, in towards the pavement and the bird bath. On the ground, they hop from place to place, back and forth, hop-peck, hop-peck, hop-peck. When they're done, they blow away together again. (When starlings appear, they behave similarly, except that there are a lot more of them, and they don't come close to the house, or bathe.)

I don't remember seeing the robins fly. They land somewhere out of sight, then run along the lawn. Eventually, they run back out of sight; soon afterwards, I'll see one on the topmost branch of the highest of the evergreens.

Robin, stopping to listen for worms.

Crows come in for an awkward landing on the lawn, usually squawking noisily as they come. They hop around for a minute scoping out the territory, see that there's nothing to scavenge, and leave.

And somewhere under the evergreens, a pair of flickers lurk. We rarely see them, but they call to us in the evenings.
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Wordless (almost)

Evening in MacLean Park:










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How much is that doggie in the window?

In a the top section of a window in Strathcona, a dog sleeps. Whether this is a top bunk, a loft/closet, or the bottom of the next storey, I don't know.


Sometimes he watches us; usually he is asleep.
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Beach, in greys and blues

They promised us showers and sunshine yesterday. We got the showers, with misty intervals. No sunshine. So the Boundary Bay beach was almost deserted, except for a quartet of herons.

Empty sea.


Two of the herons, far away.


Heron # 3.

One of the herons was fishing just off the shore.

Standing on a seaweed-encrusted log, fluffing his feathers.


A minute later, he's back to being tall and sleek.


Heron # 3, again. Opting for a cruise instead of flying.

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There's no place like it.

We're home. Our Strathcona vacation/housesitting/being burgled stint is over. We're home again.

And the neighbour who promised to keep my garden watered was as good as his word. The leaves are green and glowing, the hostas are blooming, so are the foxgloves, the hydrangea, the creeping jenny, and all the rest. Even the houseplants I set outside while the weather is warm:

Christmas cactus. In the rain.

Raindrops.

The little family of chickadees is practicing togetherness and choral dee-dee-deeing.

The old swimming hole.

The squirrels have found the bucket of sunflower seeds that I just refilled:

Hi! Glad you're back!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some serious stuffing to do.

The spiders are in their places, there are snails on the hostas, and a family of harvestmen have established themselves on the wall behind the lemon balm.

Missing a leg. Good thing he has eight.

And ... we got down to the beach, for the first time in three weeks. Ahhhh!

Sand, sea and sky.

Little green crab.

And lugworm poop.

It's good to be home!
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Handy-dandy larva ID guide

In the comments on my last post, about a mystery larva, Christopher Taylor contributed a handy rule of thumb that merits bookmarking. So I've given it a post of its own. Here he is:

"Quick (and not universally reliable) guide to identifying insect larvae: fly (Diptera) and Hymenoptera larvae both lack legs, but Hymenoptera larvae are generally confined to a nest and aren't out and about like fly larvae. Beetle and Lepidoptera (caterpillars) larvae both have six legs, but caterpillars have prolegs (leg-like stumps) in the back while beetle larvae don't. Lacewing larvae (such as antlions) have six legs and no prolegs like beetles, but can be distinguished from beetles by their enormous mandibles. The head of antlions also attaches to the first segment of the thorax very low down, which gives them something of a "flip-top head" appearance."

Thanks, Christopher!