Saturday, July 31, 2010

Raccoons? NIMBY!

At 10:30 tonight there was a "clunk" outside. I had the camera on (I was taking macros of worms), so I had it in my hand when I went to the back door to see what was out there.

It was a raccoon. He had turned over my bird bath, an arrangement of two large clay pots with the tray on top. Clunk!


I love these fiery eyes!

While I took photo after photo, aiming blind at the shadows, another raccoon arrived. And then another, a larger one; the mother. She stayed back, almost out of sight, while her pups checked out the water they'd spilled.


Still thirsty.

Then another, and another, and a fifth youngster.


Five masked bandits.

I had opened the door by now, for clearer photos. I thought this would scare them away. No. They stopped and looked at me, and went back to their nosing around.


I didn't dare step outside; mother raccoons can be agressive. But I shouted at them. They're terribly cute, but I don't want them here every night, thirsty or not. The birds need that bath!

They ignored me. Even the mother did.

My gardening shoes were beside the door; they're soft. I threw them at the nearest cubs. My aim is lousy, and the shoes are now in the hedge. But the raccoon family took the hint. They ambled off into the night, not in a hurry.

I hope they found water eventually (somewhere else); it's been a hot day.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Mitey slug killers

Warning: If you're squeamish, you'd probably be happier to go away and come back tomorrow.

I don't know why this shocked me. I know that almost anywhere you look, there are mites.
"Mites are among the most diverse and successful of all the invertebrate groups. They have exploited an incredible array of habitats, and because of their small size (most are microscopic) go largely unnoticed. Many live freely in the soil or water, but there are also a large number of species that live as parasites on plants, animals, and some that feed on mold. It is estimated that 48,200 species of mites have been described.[2] Scientists believe that we have only found 5% of the total diversity of mites." From Wikipedia.
If an estimated 5% adds up to 48,200, the number of species could be up to 964,000. 

Mites are found almost everywhere. They feed on birds, on dust, on fabric, on mammals, on plants and beetles and butterflies and cheese. They swarm in our carpets and hang on our eyelashes. (I've seen these, under the microscope, on mine; I wanted to sterilize my eyes. But I got over it.)

But this didn't seem right, somehow:


Sick grey slug.

I found this small slug (1 1/2 inches) a couple of days ago, lying inert under our drying beach shoes. He wasn't moving, and I was about to toss him on the compost, when I saw the white dots running around on his back and belly. If you squint, you can see a group here, about mid-point underneath him.

I brought him inside for a closer look. He was still alive, but barely. The mites were very much alive, racing back and forth, pausing ever so often to take a bite of slug. (Ewww!)


Three mites on the head.


Mite along the side.


Zooming in on that mite.

The slug was exuding quantities of mucus, possibly in an attempt to rid himself of the pests. It didn't seem to slow them down.

I thought maybe I could trap one to get a better photo. I washed the slug several times in clean water, until he was free of them. Then I examined the water, trying to catch one with an eyedropper.

I couldn't see even one. Not on the slug, not in the water, not in the eyedropper, not on a slide that I smeared mucus onto, not when I added stain to the water. Nothing moved, even under my hand microscope. Where did they go? Curious.

Rid of the mites, the slug perked up a little, moved as if to crawl, gave up. In the morning, he was dead. There were no mites on or around him.

So I'm left with questions. Where did the mites disappear to? Did they kill the slug? Or were they just an accessory?

One thing I learned; slugs and snails are the usual hosts for these mites. I found them on BugGuide, on a slug just across the border in Washington. They're slug mites, possibly Riccardoella limacum.
"Slug mites are very small (less than 0.5 mm in length), white, and can be seen to move very rapidly over the surface of their host, particularly under the shell rim and near the pulmonary aperture. While once thought to be benign mucophages, more recent studies have shown that they actually subsist on the host's blood,[2][3] and may bore into the host's body to feed." Wikipedia
A couple of websites mention that they can be found inside the gill, entering by the pneumostome, the breathing hole visible in the third photo above. So my poor slug could have been infested even after I thought he was clean. As few as 6 mites are enough to seriously weaken a slug, leaving it open to infection by other parasites.
This is from a German site, a Google translation, I think. "After our own observations however already 6 mites are sufficient, in order to make from a before life-glad and lively snail a appetiteless and apathetic misery, which goes into few weeks to reason."
I don't quite understand the translation, but "apathetic misery" describes my dying slug perfectly. I washed myself and my working equipment down with alcohol after I was done with the mites. They gave me the heebie-jeebies.


Thursday, July 29, 2010

Another bud on the ever-branching tree

(Vacation series, #  umpteen and one)

This is a grainy hand hermit crab:


Pagurus granosimanus, Saratoga beach, Vancouver Island

He has olive-brown legs and claws, with bluish bumps, and orange-red antennae.

Here's my unfortunate Boy Blue*, with his mate, in my aquarium this spring:


Lighter olive-brown legs and claws, blue bumps, orange-red antennae.

These hermits are common; we saw many on Vancouver Island, and also here at home. Yesterday I picked up three or four in Boundary Bay.

But look at this one:


Unidentified hermit, Ocean Grove, Vancouver Island

He has the same brown claw with blue warts. The antennae, not visible in this photo, are a bright orange-red. But the legs are yellow.

Here's another, from "our" beach at the Edgewater motel:


Yellow-legged hermit

The legs are a plain yellow, with slightly darker tips. So are the claws, with just a hint of blue spots. But the upper parts of the legs and the eyestalks and mouthparts are a deep, purplish red. And the carapace, the upper body, is grey with pinkish splotches.

We saw a fair number of these, on several Island beaches, all very small.


Unidentified.

I have looked through my Encyclopedia and all my other marine life books, several times. I've browsed through photos on the web. I don't see this hermit anywhere. Is it a separate species? A colour morph? An invader?

The salt chuck is full of mysteries.

*Boy Blue and Rex, the hairy hermit, succumbed to indoor heat at the aquarium-sitter's while I was away. I miss them.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Mud shrimp, crab and coconut

I'm getting 'way behind on what I want to blog about; I still have critters left over from our vacation, birds from Reifel Island, beetles and mites and a sad slug. I'm going to have to double up, or resign myself to be blogging the summer months while the snow falls in January. (If it does.)

And today, to top things off, I'm just going to tie up a couple of loose ends from previous posts, which doesn't get me any further ahead. Ah, well ...

1. Nebalia pugettensis, the "Blue-eyed beach critter". A couple of weeks ago, I posted two photos of the live nebalia, almost invisible in the water. This Sunday, I brought home a small handful of sea lettuce and eelgrass washed up with the tide, as a treat for the hermits and crabs in my aquarium. When I washed it, as I always do, a couple of almost transparent animals floated to the top, dead. I scooped them out, and left them in alcohol to preserve them. Yesterday, I dried them out and took their photos. They were no longer transparent:


Nebalia pugettensis, the Hooded mud shrimp.

These are the strangest of all the shrimpy, crabby animals on our shores, I think. They look like they're put together out of spare parts.

The "hood", or carapace, is not fused to the body like a crab's is, but loosely attached with a muscle. It has a long, sharp spine at the top back. And that thing is tough! I accidentally touched it with a finger, and it jabbed in like a cactus spine, and stuck. Another, shorter spine aims forward from the hinged cap between the eyes. This is not a beast to be tangled with; imagine being a fish who grabs for a nice mouthful and gets those spines, front and rear!

And the tail looks like it belongs to another animal altogether.


If the spines on the carapace are strong, the tail has to be different; it finishes off with a soft, feathery plume, extremely fragile.

And this one's eyes are neither red nor blue.

The other animal turned out to be a small helmet crab moult:


Both critters were about 9 mm. long (nebalia) or wide (crab).

2. The coconut. I washed it and dried it thoroughly. Tonight, we cracked it open. We got about a cup of clear coconut liquid; the meat was white and solid. But some sea water had seeped in between the shell and the meat; on the outside, it was covered with green slime that washed off easily.

The juice smells good, if slightly alcoholic. It reminds me of a tepachería in Coyoacán, Mexico, a place where they used to sell tepache and other mildly alcoholic fruit drinks; even across the plaza, the fruity, sweet, nutty aroma competed with the scent of flowers and fresh bread.

My kitchen, however, smells like a coconut-oil soap factory.

Laurie says the birds will like the meat. I know the squirrels will. I'm wondering about the juice. If I put it out for them, will they get drunk on it?


Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Life's a beach.

What do you do on a hot Sunday afternoon in July, when the sun blazes down from a cloudless sky? In the Lower Mainland, everybody (well, almost everybody) heads for the beach.

We're no different. We joined the mob on White Rock beach.


Crowd on the beach, the pier, the promenade. Can't see the mass of shoppers and snack-seekers across the street. And snowy Mount Baker to create an illusion of coolness.


There are tide pools to dance in,


Sand castles to make.

I stopped to watch the waves lick at the base of this kid's pile of sand and eelgrass. "The tide's going to wash it away," I said.

"I know," he answered, slapping on another handful of sand.

His brother came up with another load. "Can't give up now!" We all laughed, and the boys bent back to their task.

Later on, we passed them again, farther up the beach:


"This one is going to last!" big brother said. "And look! Our other pile is still there!"

Sure enough, it was. Deep in a tide pool, slimmed down to a hand's width, and a few inches above the water, true. But it was still standing.

Some people headed, for coolness maybe, or for solitude, out to the blue water.


Sparkles


Lift that sail!


This guy's set up his three-room homestead. With a drydock.


Sails on the horizon.


Two lone waders. And a long, slow slope.


Blowing up the furniture.

This couple had a pair of comfortable seats that joined together to make a short sofa. The white object is a floating cooler for drinks, with drink holders in the lid.


Moving in.*


Two's company.

For beachcombers like us, there is always something to find:


A green-eyed gull.


A clowning gull, dancing from foot to foot. (Really just scratching his neck. Both sides.)

This gull found his own treasure. Pudding in a plastic cup. I wanted to remove it; I hate to see plastic left on the beach, but the gull objected. I left him to it, eventually.


"Mmmm, vanilla!"


A little red crab moult.


Coconut. We must be in the tropics!

This is the third coconut I've found in piles of seaweed cast up by the tides. Where do they come from? They sure don't grow here.

I say Hawaii, Laurie says, "Impossible!" But where else?

The milk inside the coconut sloshes back and forth. I take it home and wash it. When it's completely dry, I'll open it up to see if it's still fresh.


Umbrella, chair, magazine. She needs a coconut with rum to make it perfect.

*Faces altered and blurred, in case of privacy issues.

Monday, July 26, 2010

That's no bee!

This bee mimic was foraging on tiny thistles in the Reifel Island bird sanctuary.


A syrphid fly, probably*.

It's cheating: to simulate bees' antennae, it holds two legs out in front of its head. And it's about the size of a bee, and furry; any bird that skips bees will pass this one by, too.

A bee has four wings. A fly, like this one, has two. Birds aren't supposed to notice this.

Bees have nicely rounded abdomens; syrphid flies' bellies are so thin they look squashed. This one curves downward at the back, so it looks fat from a bird's eye view. From the side, however, the fakery is exposed; that belly is flat!


Notice the unusual shape of the wings; scalloped at the rear end.

I was fooled, too, at least until I got home and looked at the photos. I have advantages a bird doesn't, even with their superior eyes.

* A similar one, from Ontario is here, on BugGuide. Ours is probably in the same Subfamily, Eristalinae.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

The daily bath

We have a family of six or seven chickadees frequenting our backyard this summer. Only last week, the youngsters were learning about bathing. We watched four of them sitting on the edge of the bird bath, hopping from one spot to another, flying up and dropping towards the water, then changing their minds mid-flight and returning to the rim. Finally one tiptoed gingerly in. (The water was barely half an inch deep.) He splashed about happily, while the others watched. After a while, they joined him, one by one.

Now they're old hands:


They always check the area first, from the shelter of the rhododendron.


Hey! This thing's a mirror!


Not any more, it isn't.


Small bird, big splash. (There's a reflected ring because I was taking these from my desk, through two window panes.)


Drying off in the sunlight. This one's for Clytie; I think she'll like the heart.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Watery Whack-A-Mole

On Reifel Island, we stopped at the warming room to watch the ducks below the deck:


Serene mother duck


One circling duckling

I dropped a handful of bird seed over the railing to encourage the ducks to stay close. It worked. A handful of adults swam over, and up-ended for a seed or two. But the ducklings - youngsters are always hungry - went wild, diving and surfacing and diving again, playing a splashing game of Whack-a-Mole.

We tried to get another photo, but we are such slowpokes:


Missed him.


Too late again!


Almost got two, there. Almost.


On the way down again.


And again.


Two!

Score: ducklings - a couple dozen; Laurie and I - two. That round goes to the ducks.

Friday, July 23, 2010

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