Crow in a hurry

It was hot today; 30 Celsius on the balcony, a bit less on the street. Too hot for September, well above the usual range for this time of year. The weather people promise (threaten?) more of the same tomorrow. I'll be glad when the rain starts again, later this week.

We walked down to the mall, keeping to the shady side of the street.

On a hedge across the street, a crow was busy at something:

Look what I found!

He saw us pointing cameras in his direction, and took off in a hurry. Look at that wing action!

This yummy whole-wheat bread is mine! Mine!

I'm outta here!

He didn't have to hurry so much; we didn't want his bread.
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White duck

She's been sitting on those stony eggs since early spring: admirable persistence!


Hang in there, ducky!
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In a handful of duff

It keeps raining. And raining. Except for the times I can't get out of the house.

And I had a Bioblitz assignment to do this week.

So, I improvised. I did a mini-blitz. I went out with a pair of plastic bags and filled them, one with the duff from under a nearby pine tree, the other with assorted cones dropped in the vicinity. And inside, warm and dry, and with good lighting, I examined my haul.

There were a dozen Douglas fir cones, and a few tiny cedar cones. I was surprised not to find any cones under the pine tree; last year they were plentiful. I think the squirrels have been harvesting them, because I did find quite a few individual seeds, broken off the cones.

Douglas fir.

And the duff, about two double handfuls: It looked good, brown and rich and fragrant. Just the stuff for acid-loving plants and insects looking for a warm place to winter. Sorting through it, I found:

• pine needles and seeds - the bulk of the duff
  
• dying ivy leaves
• skeletons of deciduous leaves
• tendrils of assorted mosses
• broken twigs
• tiny cedar cones

All well and good. But there were also:

• a ball of fibers, seemingly scrapings from a plastic rope
• strips of transparent plastic
• a couple of chunks of styrofoam
• shreds of treated lumber from a recent roof job.

Not so good.

A sampler of duff ingredients.

Both the bags, duff and cones, were crawling with assorted beasties, the same general mix in both.


Pillbugs were everywhere.




So were springtails.

These little guys were really hard to pin down for photographs; they would be right in front of the lens as I pressed the shutter, and by the time it had clicked, they were several inches away. I never saw them go, they bounced so quickly.

Here's the mechanism:


A long spring attachment that folds under, then releases with a snap. (This guy had been inadvertently squished; I think that's brains leaking out the top end. It's the only way he would have lain still for a photo.)

I tried to capture a springtail by floating them in water; it worked before with the little white ones. Not these; they sprung off the water just as merrily as on solid ground.

But:


Here they are, on water, directly under my lamp. They come in all sizes; some of the tiny specks are also springtails. Note those little round critters; I'll get back to them in a minute.


Detail of the previous photo. See how the springtail's feet make deep depressions in the water surface? And yes, that is just plain water.

And here's another of those little round things:


I've seen these before; they're barely visible to the naked eye. (If you know where they are, and they're on a white background, you can see a tiny dot moving.) Under a hand microscope, they're semi-spherical, reddish-black; no features visible except for toe-tips. And they're tough; I've sandwiched them between strips of Scotch tape, and watched them crawl (slowly but steadily) through the glue and out to freedom.

I don't know what they are. I've got some more Googling and BugGuiding to do.

This one was easier:




Isn't he cute? He's on the tip of my microscope tool, about as thick as a sewing-machine needle. And below him is a snail, not much bigger than he.


The snail. I don't know what species this is; I've never seen a beehive-shaped one here before.


And another snail, a bit smaller. This one is our common grove snail, I think.

There were a few of these white springtails. They scuttle in and out of crevices, always busy, never stopping...

One last photo. I am wondering about this one.


Just another pillbug. But see, down at the bottom, that black and white strip? What is that? It almost looks like another of the western conifer seed bugs, except that there are too many sections, and it is too small.

I was surprised to find no slugs, nor centipedes. A few metres away the soil is full of them. And I think I saw one tiny earthworm, but it slid out of sight into a fir cone before I could be sure.

The other half of the Bioblitz project entails identifying the finds. My eyes are burning already.
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Working late

I've been bioblitzing. And now I have a bunch of critters to identify. I'll post some of them tomorrow.

For now, here's a root and a creeper of some sort from next door.

See you tomorrow!
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It's been too long ...

... far too long, since we were on a beach.

But we should have a car, finally, by Sunday. And then, the first day it's not pouring rain, we'll be here:

Boundary Bay

I think I can hold out that long.
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Embarrassing!

Is there such a thing as foot-in-keyboard disease? 'Cause I think I've got it.

Yesterday I typed out a description of my new guests, the Western Conifer Seed Bugs, dutifully changing every "bug" for "beetle," assuming that "bug" in this case was a misnomer. I thought of double-checking with BugGuide, but, no, I was too tired for that, I decided.

So, this afternoon there is a comment from Christopher Taylor; "Ummm.... that's not a beetle." Oh. It's a bug. I looked it up; he's right. And I knew that; I'd studied the BugGuide page last year. Dumb!

(The blogosphere is a wonderful place; so many, many helpful people live in it!)

So I've gone back and made a few corrections. And I've done my homework, re-read the BugGuide page and Googled for more info.

Bug One and Bug Two are Leaffooted Bugs, Leptoglossus occidentalis. Which translates as "Western thin tongue", as far as I can make out. They're "leaffooted" because of the flattened section of the hind leg; it's like a narrow leaf, spine in the centre and all.

Here's the classification, from BugGuide:

Order Hemiptera (True Bugs, Cicadas, Hoppers, Aphids and Allies)
Suborder Heteroptera (True Bugs)
Family Coreidae (Leaffooted Bugs)
Genus Leptoglossus
Species occidentalis (Western Conifer Seed Bug)

They live on Douglas fir and pine trees, and "can be a pest". (U. of Guelph fact sheet) This is why I won't put them outside; the first ones we found, last year, were on Laurie's dying conifers. BugGuide says,

"Nymphs and adults use their piercing-sucking mouthparts to feed on sap from green cones, twigs, seed pulp, and sometimes needles of several species of pine, plus hemlock, spruce, and Douglas-fir."

And that book, "Care and Feeding of Seed Bugs as Pets," that I was looking for? I don't think I need it, after all. When the weather turns cold (about now), they burrow down into leaf litter or move into human houses to spend the winter. They do not breed indoors; they're here to sleep. In the spring, they will look for fresh Douglas fir needles to lay eggs on. Maybe I'll be able to provide some. In captivity, of course. I don't want their babies eating our trees.

Meanwhile, Bugs One and Two are not sleeping; they're wandering around their container, mostly staying close together. They wave their antennae at me when I check on them.

Off-topic. My neighbour's garden, yesterday.

Another thing I had forgotten; in all the hustle and bustle of the last month or so, I wasn't checking on the dates for the Annual Bloggers' Bioblitz. I found out Sunday that it is this week, Sunday to Sunday. So I think I'll do a mini-bioblitz this weekend. I do hope it's not pouring rain.
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Matchmaker, matchmaker

It's been over a week since Laurie brought me that Western conifer seed bug. ** And it spent most of the week sitting alone in a plastic container, with only a few twigs off my evergreens for comfort. It was looking pretty sad, when I checked up on it last Saturday; lethargic, uninterested in life (barely twitching an antenna when I tickled it with a paintbrush).

That has changed.

Sunday morning, back in Strathcona, I noticed another bug on the floor under my daughter's window. I brushed it into a plastic bag, bundled it into my backpack and brought it home. I dropped it into the first bug's new home, with a handy pine cone for a perch.

"Aha! A companion! A new best friend!"

Immediate result; a whole lot of grooming going on. Every time I looked, one or the other beetle was busy scrubbing hands, scraping back legs, or smoothing its forewings (elytra). Antennae waved wildly, capturing data. Bug # 2 roamed about. By Monday evening, # 1 was following suit.



These are interesting bugs; intelligent, as bugs go, brave and inquisitive. They seem to have no fear of my camera lens, a bare centimetre away from their faces. They neither run away nor play dead, but instead wave their antennae at the camera; "Hi, all my fans!" One kept following the lens around, as I tried to position it where the light was good.

They wear a brick-red formal jacket trimmed with a large garnet, opening to reveal an inset of luxurious chocolate-brown silk, a red and black shirt-front with checkered trim and a thin, red tie.

Jacket. (Hemelytra or front wings)

Shirt-front, with tie. (Mouth parts, actually.)

And around the shoulders, they wear a feathery collar, with jester's corners and cream lace inserts:

"Handsome, aren't I?"

By Monday night, both bugs were alert and busy; they kept opening and closing their wings, and occasionally attempting a short flight. I caught a glimpse of a back, yellow and black, like a wasp.

It took a while, but I got a photo:

Three layers: hemelytra (forewings). Gauzy, transparent flight wings underneath. And below that, the upper abdomen.

I don't know how to tell if they are male or female. Or when, or whether they will be interested in breeding if they are opposite sexes. Something to look up. And I'll keep an eye on them for mating and/or fighting.

I'm keeping them both in the plastic container. I don't dare let them go; they, or their young, destroy our evergreens. Nor can I "put them down", not after I've been watching them for a week. So I'll have to provide a home for them, I guess.

I wonder if there are books on the Care and Feeding of Seed Bugs as Pets.

**Corrections made after input from Christopher (see comment #1). Thanks, Christopher!
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Eight legs, two boxing gloves

Tiny spider, on a plastic container:


This guy has been hanging around on the cabinet beside my favourite chair for quite a while. This is the first time he sat for his portrait.

Those fat "boxing gloves" are the pedipalps, male edition.
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Mossy Wall

Moss and leaves on a cement wall, Strathcona:

Top of the wall

Side and end.

These really should be seen full-size. Check out the Flickr pages, here and here.
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Graffiti in the sky with diamonds

I am becoming enamoured of night photography. Here are a few of the ones I took on the trip to Strathcona Friday night.

From the first bus:

OPEN. A good place to start an album.

From the SkyTrain, the bumping, jerking, swinging, all-over-the-place SkyTrain. The camera was anchored. The sky graffiti is entirely the work of the train:

Down arrows. And a bridge over the Fraser.

Office building, MetroTown.

Ghosts of giraffes over New Westminster.

Leaving a station. With reflections of the train ceiling. This photo, especially in full size (click on it) draws me in, then makes me dizzy.

A pair of light-worms heads into town for a night of celebration.

Sign on the dotted line.

Almost there. On foot, now:

Jewel tones on Hastings, at my bus stop.

The lights fading: Lamp over a door at the corner.

Had to provide my own lights here.

And tomorrow, I'll be back to a daylit world. I like that one, too.
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The fast-retreating past

At the end of a long, long day (Laurie had his second cataract surgery), I travelled across town to house-sit in Strathcona.

I kept myself awake on the SkyTrain by sitting in the rear and taking photos of the receding tracks:

In between, I got some interesting shots of the city. I'll post a few tomorrow. 

And now, goodnight!

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Fungus, Spore, and Anvil

This is just so cool!

The firing of spores from fungi, set to operatic music. Carl Zimmer has the video. Go watch.

Tomorrow's a busy day; I'm off to get a few hours sleep before the alarm starts its infernal racket.
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What Ike left behind

Before and after photos:


That's Bolivar Peninsula, the companion to Galveston.

Words fail me.

From USGS. More photos there.

Hat tip to Sheril, at The Intersection.
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Smarter than I realized!

I already knew the chickadees were intelligent, but this ... !

Background data:

• I am not a morning person. I tend to sleep in, if at all possible. (I once had a T-shirt/nightdress with the legend, "I don't do mornings." I wore it until it disintegrated into witches' lace; it was "me".)
• The chickadee feeder hangs outside my bedroom window, about a foot away, and maybe four feet from the head of my bed.
  
• I sleep with the window open.
• The chickadees are "morning persons". They are at the feeder at first light.

Sometimes, the feeder is low on seed, and by the time the chickadees have had breakfast, it has dropped below the level where their tiny beaks can reach. But they have devised a strategy for getting it filled again; they drum on the feeder until I wake up. "Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap, tap." And again, "Tap, tap, tap, ..." For a tiny bird, and a plastic bottle, the noise produced is surprising; as loud as an upholstery hammer with old-fashioned tacks. After a while, the tapping enters my dreams and I struggle to the surface, realize that I am guilty, yet again, of grave derelection of my duty, and creak out to fill a replacement feeder and hang it for them.

(I've posted this photo before. But it shows the structure of the feeder.)

I thought this was incredibly smart of these chickadees. I haven't seen others do that, in other places. Somehow, they have caught on to the fact that I am in hearing distance and will eventually respond. And they've taught the next generation to do it, too.

But I also thought that inventing the trick was probably a matter of accident: they were probably (I imagined) knocking on the bottle to shake the seeds into a position where the birds could reach them, and waking me up was just a side effect.

I may have to revise that opinion.

This morning, the tapping woke me up again. But I stood looking out the window for a few minutes before I dragged myself into the kitchen. And watched a chickadee tapping. He doesn't drum on the plastic at all; he turns himself around, and pecks at the end of the stick that goes right through the bottle, turning the whole thing into an echo chamber.

I tried it out, later (after I'd hung a refill). Tapping the bottle itself produces a muffled, "soft" sound. Tapping the perch is better. But to get the true wake-up call, you have to bang at the flat end of the stick, the one facing you in the photo above.

I find it hard to imagine them coming up with that by accident. What do you think?
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At the SkyTrain station

Noon:

Waiting for the 319 bus


Not waiting

Evening:

Skyline from the platform


And SkyTrain line from below.

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Don't bring me chocolates!

Laurie biked down to Home Depot to look for some tools today. On the way back, he picked up a gift for me:

Western conifer seed bug.

I am so fortunate!

(Really. He knows what I like.)
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Ribbit!

Blind as a bat. And a great, lumbering, noisy disturber of the peace, to boot. That's what I must be.

Saturday afternoon, we walked down to Cougar Creek Park again. We came in the back way, from behind the protecting belt of trees.

Cougar Creek lagoon

The beaver had been hard at work, opening up the view. I threaded my way down the bank to see what could be seen on the pond. As soon as I stepped out from the shade, a half-dozen or so frogs plopped into the water. I stopped there, and looked for more, but there was nothing but mud and slimes.

Can you see a frog there? I don't see a frog.

I took another step; another contingent of frogs hit the water. I stood stock still and surveyed the mud more closely. No more frogs.

Another step, another batch of plops. More, this time, farther afield. I aimed the camera at a patch of mud which obviously had no frogs on it, took a tiny step, and ... plop! plop! plop! And I didn't even see them go; just the empty widening circles in the water.

Laurie joined me, and we both looked. We saw no frogs, although we managed to startle another dozen or so. I tried to sneak up on them, farther down the bank. No luck; they saw me or heard me. I didn't see them.

Nor did they show up in any of my photos. Either they were invisible frogs, or they're masters at camouflage.

We rested our eyes, looking at things that actually could be seen:

Assorted ducks, mallards, wigeons and cross-breeds.


Widening circle. With duck.


Deep blues, green greens. Sleepy ducks.


Dying leaves.


Rose hips, fattening up for winter.


Reflection on the water. Frame it, and it's a painting.

We walked home, well content. But next time, I'm tiptoeing down that bank.
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Beached whale

A week ago, out looking for handy rocks for Rock Flipping Day, I came across a large broken mirror, discarded on one of the gravel piles.


Looks like an old mirrored headboard. A heavy thing; I wonder why anyone would lug it all the way to the centre of the lot to discard it. People are strange, sometimes.

Laurie loves reflective surfaces, even one like this, facing the empty sky. I went home to get him, and then we crawled all over the gravel pile, looking at the mirror. (We're strange, too.)

It was no longer a mirror. It was a beached whale:

An orca, far, far from the sea.


Live orcas, not beached, for comparison. (From Wikipedia)

No, it was a large scenic photograph:

Tall trees, somewhere else. Not near the gravel pile, anyhow.

No, it was a placid pond, surrounded by pink-petalled flowers:


Or a creek with a tangled bank:


And then again, it was just an old dirty mirror, reflecting a cloudy sky.

Hey! Where did those clouds come from?

What fun!
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Update on Ike

Well, so far, so good. Hurricane Ike has come and gone, and though it flattened and/or shredded or set on fire much property, so far only 4 deaths have been reported. More may be discovered later; tens of thousands of people are still stranded in unreachable homes.

But for now, there is a cautious optimism.

I'm relieved.
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Pushing water

I've been keeping an eye on the news coverage of Hurricane Ike all day and night. And I'm too dismayed to attempt the light-hearted post I had planned. The news is good, in a way, for me; my brother is in Corpus Christi, under the shadow of the storm, but out of the main path; he will probably be fine. But the others, a bit to the north? They're my kin, too, if a bit more distant, aren't they?

It seems that the various agencies and authorities have been doing their best to prevent loss of life and health in Ike's path, but the hurricane will still take an enormous toll, in lives and property.

Part of this is due to the "weirdness" of this storm; it hasn't followed the patterns of previous hurricanes. Even though it is still only a Category 2 hurricane, it may be as deadly as a Cat. 4, partly because it is spread so widely, 600 miles across, that it throws up a much higher surge than a "normal", tight hurricane. The surge is expected to reach up to 20 feet at Galveston, where the eye will be hitting tonight.

Galveston (pop. 60,000), like all of Texas in that area, is low-lying and flat. It lies on an island or spit that is more like a large sand-bar. It is protected by a seawall 1/3 the length of the city's shore, and 17 feet high.

20 feet of surge vs. 17 feet of seawall. There's a problem here.

The other half of this looming disaster may be owing to that rating, too. Cat. 2. The residents of the area have lived through hurricanes before. Many times. That's Texas. And a Cat. 2 is no big deal. It blows and rains, and blows away. So many of the residents, admonished to flee, stayed home, boarded up their windows, and prepared to wait it out. 40% of them are still on the island.

The water is starting to rise already. A fire at the marina blazed unfought, because the road to it was under 8 feet of water. Emergency rescues are underway, too late. The tide is coming in.

The sandspit(s) provide a low breakwater for Galveston Bay, which reaches back towards Houston, ending about 20 miles from city center. The storm surge should reach there with the dawn. (I lived at the end of the bay, in Baytown, for about 6 months, long ago. My first son was born there. I remember it well; the flat, featureless land, the heat and bugs, the desperate poverty in the shadow of a great, rich city.)

From the Galveston County Daily News;

The storm also could force water up the seven bayous that thread through Houston, swamping neighborhoods so flood-prone that they get inundated during ordinary rainstorms.

Firefighters, medical personnel, search-and-rescue crews, sandbaggers, etc., are working around the clock. From "outside", government agencies and individual people are rallying to their aid, sending food, equipment and helpers, taking in escapees. And here in BC, I can only wait and read, and read some more. And hope for the best. I think a donation to the Red Cross may be in order, too.

This summer, wandering Strathcona's alleys, we came across these shoes, somebody's cast-offs.

Ready to wear

The uppers were cracked and worn, but the soles were intact. The previous owner had carefully polished them, added new, neatly tied laces, and placed them side by side, atop a low curb, for the use of someone a little less fortunate than he.

And the sun will be shining here tomorrow, the skies will be blue. We'll probably go birding in a peaceful park. But I'll be remembering the families struggling through waist-deep water in Galveston.
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I'm still here

... haven't blown away yet.

Thistle fluff

We've been out and about, and have taken oodles of photos, now in the process of loading to Flickr.

Laurie saw the ophthalmologist yesterday. His eye was pronounced "fine", and the next one will be done a week tomorrow. Another 5 weeks of eye dropping, and we're done! (I never realized how much time a simple schedule of eye drops could take up. But 3 drops, 5 minutes apart, 4 times a day, 7 days a week, adds up to one full working day per week. Do the math.)

Tomorrow: some reflections on abandoned "stuff."
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Visiting a shut-in

Hi, there!

I've been very busy, chasing down an error message on my computer. No time for gallivanting, no time for reading, no time, even, for posting.

So it was considerate of a family of Steller's jays to come to my door and entertain me while I waited for updates to download. (What silly words those are!)

Waiting his turn at the feed bucket.

I took these from my desk, through the closed door, so there are some extraneous items; reflections from inside.

I love having a desk jammed up to a window!
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Yellow

Show-offs:

Tall sunflower


Huge squash blossoms


Fading beauty.

Found in my son's garden, yesterday.
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A tough lot

Somebody must have been to the vacant lot before me:

... and burnt out his camera.

Mine held up.

The lot across the street from us has been lying vacant for at least as long as I've been here. Someday it will turn into housing or a mall; for now, the lower third (about a block square) is a dumping and storing ground for construction and demolition materials. Piles of gravel appear here and there, sit for a few months, and disappear. Slabs of broken cement jut out of the ground. Deep tractor ruts dig through older truck tracks. Nothing stays put for very long. A disturbed site. Very disturbed.

One of the tidier corners of the lot.

The weeds strive mightily to reclaim the land for themselves. No rockpile or abandoned piece of machinery escapes their notice; they sprout, bloom and go to seed even on new sandpiles. Thistles, mallows, hawkweed, hardhack, clover and grasses, daisies, mustard, bitterweed, bindweed, tansy and goldenrod, plantain ... I saw all of these, and more, here this week.

Meadow checker-mallow, with dew

Where there is so much plant diversity, there must be a thriving beastly population. I went looking for it, under the rocks.

First rock: a spider that scuttled out of sight before I could press the shutter. And something so tiny that I could only see that it moved. I took a photo, anyhow. Nothing turned up on it.

Second rock: more of the same. A pink tip of an earthworm that sucked itself down under the soil when the sunlight reached it. Third and fourth and more: ditto. An occasional tiny brown slug.

Eventually, a tiny spider paused to look before he ran:

Checking me out.

It wasn't that there was no animal life; it was all around. Above ground. Wasps and flies and ladybugs, grasshoppers (3 kinds), cabbage white butterflies. And some cute yellow caterpillars in the tansy. Just not much at ground level.

Maybe it was too hot and dry; I forced my way through a new thicket of alders to the old creek bed. It was damper down there, even though the creek no longer runs down it.

Creek bed. The boards were part of a kids' walkway, back when the creek held water.

Rock in the creek bed. Looks promising.

And here I struck pay dirt.

Spider web, with dew.

Beautifully spotted leopard slug.

Photogenic isopod.

And an earthworm all coiled up in a knot.

Every rock I flipped down here harboured repeats of these, plus assorted tiny spiders.

Time to head home. I took the long route, across the hill that separates this area from the north two-thirds, and along a treacherous path through the blackberry patch. I had a couple of bags with me, and picked a pint of blackberries, ripe and sweet, on the way.

Goldfinch, pretending to be a leaf.

On the far side of the blackberries, 6-foot-tall grasses dominate. Laurie plowed his way through these a couple of days ago, but on my own, I stuck to the trail, across the boggy patch. Under a rock there, I saw a bare shimmer of something wet-looking.

Barely there.

Only in the full-size photo could I recognize it; a whitish spider.

Further on, under a board. (That was cheating. Sorry.)

And the last rock, back across the street, on my way home. A circle of rocks around a drain sheltered a tribe of ants. (Two sizes of all-black ants, small and large mixed together.) They were hard at work under one of them, doing a spot of butchering:


I wonder; had they killed this wasp themselves, or just scavenged it?

When I flipped the biggest of these rocks, a large spider ran around frantically, zigging and zagging all over before she finally escaped into the weeds. On the underside of the rock, caught in her web, I found this:

I don't know what it is. Prey, all wrapped up? Two or three blobs of eggs? It's about an inch long, as thick as my little finger. If it's eggs, I don't want to break it open, so I've saved it to see what happens.

I put everything else back carefully, the way I found it.

And that's it, for flipping rocks. But we discovered more in that vacant lot, which will have to wait for a future post. For now, I'm off to bed.

As soon as I've read these, that is.

Rock-Flipping Day Reports

Pohanginapete (Pohangina Valley, Aotearoa/New Zealand)
Blaugustine (London, England)
Nature Remains (Ohio, USA)
Pensacola Daily Photo (Florida, USA)
KatDoc’s World (Ohio, USA)
Notes from the Cloud Messenger (Ontario, Canada)
Brittle Road (Texas [?])
Sherry Chandler (Kentucky, USA)
osage + orange (Illinois, USA)
Rock Paper Lizard (British Columbia, Canada)
The Crafty H (Virginia, USA)
Chicken Spaghetti (Connecticut, USA)
A Passion for Nature (New York, USA)
The Dog Geek (Virginia, USA)
Blue Ridge blog (North Carolina, USA)
Bug Girl’s Blog (Midwestern US)
chatoyance (Austin, Texas)
Riverside Rambles (Missouri, USA)
Pines Above Snow(Maryland, USA)
Beth’s stories (Maine, USA)
A Honey of an Anklet (Virginia, USA)

List copied from RockFlipping HQ. Check back later; Dave will be posting links for a couple more days.

'night, all!
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Just a reminder.

It's tomorrow!


Rock Flipping Day, that is. Have you chosen your rock(s) yet?

I've been keeping an eye on the vacant lot across the street. Last year, I Bioblitzed it, and then flipped rocks there. I think I will be able to find a good rock or two there again this year.

Like these ones, maybe. Or then again, maybe not. Just a bit too big.


That slab looks interesting. Still pretty heavy, though.


Maybe on the back side of this gravel pile...

If you missed this last year, now's your chance! Dave Bonta explains the "rules":

“You don’t have to be a blogger to participate. We encourage everyone with a Flickr account to join the International Rock-Flipping Day Group and post photos or sketches to the photo pool. Those who would prefer not to join Flickr can send images to Bev (bev AT magickcanoe DOT com) for posting in a gallery on her site….

Any and all forms of documentation are welcome: still photos, video, sketches, prose, or poetry. We encourage those of a scientific bent to try and identify everything they find, but we’re also open to purely lyrical or impressionistic responses. Our coveted, if wholly imaginary, Grand Prizes this year will go to: 1) whoever identifies the most species under a single rock; and 2) anyone who appears to have a genuine epiphany as a result of flipping rocks.”

Most importantly:

“The point is simply to have fun, and hopefully learn something at the same time.”

And, please, be careful out there. Remember the snake from last year? Wear gloves, just in case of disgruntled spiders, too.

And put the rock back when you're done. It's somebody's roof, after all.

Maybe mine.

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Dessert fit for a queen!

Marshmallow-white, icing sugar-white, hibiscus:


With strawberry jam and whipped-cream centres.


Party time! I'm so there!


La dolce vita!


Some of the bees feasting on this shrub were white themselves, covered head to tail with pollen.
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A "green" housing development

Not too long ago, Delta was essentially a farming community. Much of the flat land of the Delta proper is still part of the Agricultural Land Reserve, but even up here on the urban hills of North Delta, where we live, we still see traces of the old rural lifestyle; a pasture here (sometimes with a cow or two), a crumbling farmhouse there, a few abandoned fruit trees dropping wormy apples and mushy plums into the weeds, a moldering old barn or shed. The old house at the end of a short lane a block away is one such remnant.

Fixer-upper.

There is no street access to the house; a deep ditch and a row of trees hide it from view. The only way in is from the end of the lane, but even there, we wade through waist-high weeds to reach the forgotten garden area.

A couple of weeks ago, I went out for a quick turn around the block, and ended up deep in those weeds, hoping for a good photo of the sunlight on the ancient walls. I found something else; a large anthill. I took a few pictures, but the shadows were long and I had to use the flash.

Logging slash?

We went back in this Tuesday, earlier in the day. And the hill was higher, the ant population more crowded:


The hill is formed of cut grass stems, dry and brown. At ant's level, they look almost like logs; an ant's log house. Some of these "logs" are about 6 inches long, and they are piled about a foot deep. An impressive amount of work has gone into the construction.

Another photo, just because I'm so amazed at their prowess:


It's silly, perhaps, but somehow I feel obligated to thank the critters I ask to pose for me, maybe by making a small donation. The first time I saw the ants, I had nothing to offer but a half-eaten after-dinner mint. I dropped it onto the hill.


The ants swarmed over it instantly. And within less than a minute, that mint was moving. The ants were under and around it, tugging and pushing. While I watched, they hauled it down towards a tunnel entrance.

The second time round, I had one of those wormy green apples with me; I bit off an over-ripe spot, and put it on the hill.

Yum!

And since they had seemed to like the mint, I dug through my bag and found another.

Christmas in September.

The signs are up a block south of here; a backhoe is scraping at another fragment of pasture. A housing development will be going up soon. This block, where the anthill is, will probably be next.

I hope the ants move on before then.
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And it's for sale, too!

Old house, ready for demolition:




What we found in the back yard, next post.

Meanwhile, go on over to Wren's place to join her in celebration of the Joy of Birds. (I & the Bird #83). It includes a link to a couple of definitions of a blog carnival, I&tB included. One of them may be a trifle biased:

"A blog carnival is a rotating ego trip that inexplicably always rejects my comprehensive collection of guano jokes."

Go see!
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When the world is sick

Another offering by Strathcona's mad poet without a blog:

When the world is sick can't no one be well-
but I dreamt we were so beautiful and free~

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Fitness routine

Cougar Creek Park, three weeks ago:

Mamma duck, looking mighty pleased with herself.


And with good reason; two fine strapping young ducklings to show off. And they're well-trained, too; here they are, assiduously attending to their grooming chores.


A bit of yoga to finish off; flex that neck and s-t-r-e-t-c-h that leg. A few deep bends in the wing, to limber it up for when the grown-up feathers appear, and they're ready!


And off they go for a dip and a turn around the pond before supper.

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A trio of crane flies.

Long ago, I used to think of crane flies as just very big mosquitos. Big, gangly, clumsy mosquitos. A beast to be swatted, or at least to be shooed outside as quickly as possible.

That was before I looked closely at one.

Up close, they have an understated elegance. Smooth bodies, polished legs, each feature held separate to display its contours and colours; no confusion here. And the wings! The shimmery, translucent, stained-glass, shot-silk wings! Ever-changing mood-ring wings, wings to turn a butterfly green with envy!

Look:


This fly was on my door yesterday morning. The transparent wings captured the light from my lamp and transformed it, and themselves, into rich wood tones.


Another crane fly, from last September. Natural light; the spun-sugar wings pick up the green from the distant hedge and trim it with pink highlights.


This one is from June of last year. The light (daylight) is coming from the far side; now all that's visible is the delicate tracery of veins. Two of the panes on either wing are slightly tinted. The resulting dark spots are there on the first two photos, if you look closely enough.

I've been comparing these three flies.

The wings are the same, though they look different. The vein patterns match, in all three. But look at this:


This morning's crane fly. The wings are about as long as the abdomen, which ends in a rounded, up-turned tip, with a padded "shoe" beneath.


Last June's fly: wings about as long as the abdomen, which now ends in a swollen club, with two curved "claws".


And September: the wings are only about 2/3 the length of the abdomen. And it ends in a long, tapered point. (It always reminds me of one of those pen-nibs on an old fountain pen -- remember them?)

I would guess that the long, pointed one is an ovipositor, and therefore its possessor is female. But why the other two don't match, I have no idea. Looks like I've got some more Googling to do.
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