Wanderin' Weeta (With Waterfowl and Weeds)

What the wind brought in

2012-01-28T02:18:00.001-08:00

For the second day in a row, the sun shone, although the wind was biting. In mid-afternoon, our planned activity for the day finished already, we took a quick run down to Crescent Beach.

Even from our sheltered parking spot, I could hear the wind howling in the treetops. The gulls, dressed as they are from head to tail in feathers lined with down, were playing high overhead, shouting gleefully. Not us; on the shore, the wind went right through our heavy jackets, and after a quick foray out onto the flat sand, we returned, to hug the relative shelter of the bush and cliff face.

Here, we were surprised to find fresh, still damp, piles of eelgrass and bull kelp, several meters inland from the normal high tide mark, tossed there by recent storms. The eelgrass was twined around the roots of rose bushes and trees; the wind had even picked up clam shells and tossed them into the bush.

This clam shell was still rocking on the broken branch of an old stump, where the storm had snagged it. It has an eelgrass tail, barely visible as it whipped back and forth. And yes, that's a piece of plastic candy wrapper on the stones.

Alder sprig, broken off, caught on a dead blackberry cane.

The eelgrass hadn't arrived alone. It was wrapped and tied around pieces of wood, branches, plastic, a lost glove, broken glass, many clam shells. Here and there, we found unexpected casualties.

Several dead starfish, far from their usual haunts.

I saw five kelp crabs. Someone had placed these two on a rock.

Kelp crabs live in areas which are continually under water. They congregate on pilings under wharves, or in the kelp and eelgrass of the intertidal zone, moving down as the tide recedes. On the wide, flat expanses of Crescent Beach, their habitat is far out into the bay; the tide races out too rapidly for them to survive closer to shore. These unfortunates had been swept up, past the sand flats, past the bare rocks, past the upper beach trail, to the roots of the hill, where they died.

This large crab was freshly dead, still wet and with all his limbs intact.

I'd never seen the underside; it turned out to be a brilliant red. Around the open abdominal plate, a few flies are beginning to feed.

And then the wind blew us back to the car and down the road to a toasty coffee shop.

Hopeful beginnings

2012-01-27T02:51:00.001-08:00

The sun came out! And out shopping, we saw a flower bed covered with new shoots. We went to Home Depot and looked at mini-greenhouses, and bought more paving stones for the garden walk. It felt so good!

And then I came home and glued myself to the computer, trying out all the buttons and boxes in Element. I worked on 3 photos, one with a hard colour adjustment, one noisy squirrel, and one easy crop-and-sharpen job. The squirrel photo proved hopeless, but here are the other two.

Miniature harvestman. This had a distinct orange cast; Element took it out nicely. The background colour now matches the original piece of wood.

An older photo; the sky reflected in a corner beside the Ladner docks.

I used auto-adjust on the reflections photo. This almost never works in Picasa or Picnik, but with Element it did, at least on this photo. I don't like their sharpening tool, though; it's too small to control properly.

A Skywatch post.

Good software, buggy photos.

2012-01-26T02:11:00.000-08:00

I've spent the day, since it's still raining, stumbling through the learning process on Photoshop Element 10, mostly by trial and error. So far, the help menu has been less than useful.

This unidentified bug has served as my first serious test subject.

Found in wet, cold mud in a flowerpot. 6 mm. long, very active.

Face view of a dead companion. Much more tranquil. I like his "eyelashes".

I have the feeling that I should recognize this critter, but the memory is elusive, and I don't see it in my books or on BugGuide. I have submitted photos there. (Update: Ken W., at BugGuide says it's a rove beetle of some sort. Update #2: In the genus Tachyporus.)

And I'm happy with the results of the editing process. It took about 4 times as long as it does in Picnik, but that will improve with practice.

Red Queen's Race

2012-01-25T04:12:00.001-08:00

Since the photo editing program I have been using, Picnik, is going down soon, I've been looking into and trying out alternates. I finally bought Elements 10, and have spent all night tonight downloading, installing, and learning the basics. I like it, so far, although some things don't seem logical at the moment.

I need to figure out how to get the best quality in a tiny size for BugGuide; I've got several new critters to send in.

Meanwhile, here's a vintage photo I scanned and cleaned up in Picnik. It was scratched, wrinkled, and faded; I'm pleased with the job Picnik did. I've got a whole album of these to fix, so I hope Element isn't too terribly slow.

1950s photo; the weekly mail, Esperanza inlet, Vancouver Island.

Baby blue eyes

2012-01-24T02:43:00.003-08:00

It doesn't make sense to grumble about the weather, does it? Instead, I'm keeping busy discovering what creepy crawlies are still active in my garden. A great crowd, I discovered, mostly very small. I've found some critters I'd never seen before, and solved an old mystery, to boot. So now there's a ton of work to do, identifying them, taking and sorting photos.

For now, isn't this the cutest baby spiderling?

She's about 2 mm. long.

A chubby-cheeked, fat, and furry infant.

Let it rain!

A rainy season grumble

2012-01-23T02:52:00.000-08:00

Weather! A BC winter, at it's nastiest. Rain on Friday washed away most of our snow, left the lawn full of slush. Saturday was windy and far too cold for poking around the beach. Sunday, it poured rain. They're promising us more rain for the next week, and there's a wind warning for the Vancouver area for today.

We're getting cabin fever already.

And to think; just a week ago, these were our skies:

An eagle basking in the sunshine. White Rock beach.

Crows, rocks, paddleboarders under fluffy clouds. White Rock.

There's ice on the water, but the sun warms us. Cougar Creek.

Reflections of bare alders, blue and white sky. Cougar Creek.

I'm hoping the weather people got it wrong again. Another week of rain, and I'll start to mildew.

A Skywatch post.

Beavers never give up.

2012-01-22T02:16:00.000-08:00

Two months ago, I wrote about the ongoing feud between a beaver family and the city of Surrey (three years and more!), over the optimum use of the creek and lagoon. The beavers were winning at the moment; they'd enlarged the upper creek area, turning a muddy trickle into a duck pond. I commented, later, "The strange thing is that in all this time, I have never seen a beaver here. Just the dams and the felled trees."

The battle continues. The human residents have been trying new tactics. Where the beavers cut fresh trees, men went in with chain saws and cleared the banks, opening more land up to the sunlight. And they've removed a couple of dams; the new pond is gone again.

Not that the beavers seem to mind this; they're taking advantage of the newly felled timber to feed on fresh, green inner bark.

Alders are weed trees; they grow quickly in wet land, and the bark of the young tree is tender and juicy.

Beaver-felled alder.

They had cut some of the new timber into shorter lengths, which they can haul away to make new lodges. Quite a few of the branches are already piled in the quieter end of the lagoon, a start on the next community lodge.

And we saw ~~beavers, finally~~: (Looks like we didn't; that's an otter. I didn't expect that!)

Resting between patches of ice, against reflections of still-standing trees.

There were at least two, probably three, adults, swimming back and forth across the lagoon, ducking under the ice, occasionally coming close to the edge to rest.

The beavers will have to hurry with the building program; it is breeding season now, and a warm nest area will soon be needed. Although their kits from last year will still be with them for another year or so, the next litter will be born around April. The yearlings will help with babysitting, and probably with dam construction.

*Update: Annie, in the comments says he looks more like an otter. He does. This is entirely confusing to me. Can a tiny lagoon in a muddy creek support both otters and beaver? What do you think?

Update #2: Others agree; it's an otter. Post corrected.

Wakey-wakey, little ones!

2012-01-21T02:07:00.001-08:00

While I was looking for springtails, I rousted a bunch of other animals out of their cold-weather naps. There were slugs, of course; dozens of them. Sleepy sowbugs by the handful. And a few unexpected critters:

On the dry back of an old, crumbling planter box, this small spider was out hunting, still awake in spite of the below-zero weather.

~~She's another to identify~~. Ozyptila, a crab spider. Notice the interesting dotted lines on the sides of her thorax.

It was hard to imagine this delicate creature wandering around in the cold.

A lizard bark louse nymph, about 2mm. long, with undeveloped wings. The adult's will be longer than the body. I love the glassy legs.

Here's one on the rotten wood of the bottom of the box.

Blaniulus millipedes. Update: I forgot to add this: look for the tiny white critter at center left. I didn't see that until I was cropping the photo.

These were sound asleep, but as soon as they warmed up a bit, they uncoiled themselves and started to explore.

Every deep crack sheltered a few of these beetle mites.

I have to add at least one sowbug. Check out the antennae; they look as if they're made of metal pipes!

The cold snap has ended. It is now raining hard on top of the snow. The slugs will be waking up, hungry enough to eat the remains of my garden, in the morning.

Bushtits vs. squirrels; who will win?

2012-01-20T02:21:00.000-08:00

The squirrels stole my suet cage. I had it tied on a branch with good steel wire; it didn't deter them. They were welcome to snack on the suet, but not to take it away, cage and all.

I got another cage, and more suet, and double-wired it. They stole that one.

I found a third torn off the tree, abandoned half-way down the lawn. Empty, of course. They managed to steal that one for good, with its suet refill, a bit later.

I've been looking for a new cage since the weather turned cold. Everywhere, they've been sold out; I think all the local squirrels have been busy.

Finally, two days ago, I found one in the supermarket. This one came with a heavier chain than the previous three; I've hung it from the chain, and added new wire.

A flock of bushtits found the suet by the next morning. I love to watch how they all swoop in, as if blown by the wind, swarm over the cage, hanging from all sides and the bottom for a couple of minutes, and then blow down and away, like little grey leaves.

I count 17 here.

"Wait for me!"

I wonder how long this one will last.

Dressed in scarlet, for the cold

2012-01-19T01:51:00.000-08:00

For this house finch, a snack of black oil sunflower seeds goes down nicely on a chilly afternoon.

"And now, I must be off. Thanks!"

Christmas stocking animal

2012-01-18T13:42:00.000-08:00

"In the blink of an eye..." The phrase is used to suggest speed, and with reason; the human eye can complete a blink in 0.15 seconds, or 150 milliseconds. Fast enough; anything that happens faster than that, we fail to notice.

A springtail's response time is about one tenth of that. In 18 milliseconds, less than 0.02 seconds, he has disappeared from here and landed over there, up to 100 times his body length away. And he arrives in the new location primed and ready to leap again, should the situation not be to his liking; he has no steering mechanism and has to take potluck. His continued survival depends on being able to move on instantly.

He has no wings. His legs are slender and used for walking. For those high jumps, he uses a spring and lock system on the underside of his abdomen. The furca, visible as he jumps, is a pronged, clawed fork, hinged near the tail. Usually, this is carried folded up, ending just under his chin, and secured by a locking mechanism, the retinaculum. When the lock is released, the fork snaps back like the drawn string of a bow and arrow, flinging the owner into the air with great force.

Globular springtail, caught mid-leap.

Quite simple, really. Easily understood. Except that it takes considerable energy either to leap, or to re-set the spring. So I looked closely at the underbelly of the springtail walking up the glass wall of the spider box.

View from the tail end.

Yesterday's photo, again.

The spring is that long V up the center. Between the two prongs, about mid-way up, there is a small button; this is the lock. But what are all those other contraptions?

I found a couple of very helpful photos on Flickr, here and here, annotated by Frans Janssens, the go-to Collembola expert. The large round organs on either side of the base of the furca are torsion bars, the spring mechanism. (I had to look this up; it's been a while since I studied these.

A spring can be defined to be an elastic member which exerts a resisting force when its shape is changed due to an applied force and returns to its original shape when the force is let off. ... when one side is fixed to an immovable object and the other is twisted, torque is applied. The torsion bar resists this torque and like any other spring it returns to its original position when the torque is let off. From a GM truck site.)

The bars are powered by large muscles in this abdominal segment.

Slender springtail, showing the furca and torsion bars.

Now, look at the photo of the leaping springtail again. (Re-inserted below, to save scrolling.) See that thick, protruding bar just below the second set of legs? That's the collophore, or ventral tube, another unique springtail piece of equipment. This is what gives the springtails their scientific name, Collembola, from colla, glue, and embolon, a plug.

Globular springtail, caught mid-leap.

All Collembola have a ventral tube. From this tube they can everse two 'sacs'. In Symphypleona, (the globular springtails) these sacs are evolved into long tubes. These eversible tubes are multifunctional organs. They are used to regulate the internal osmotic pressure by taking up water with the tips of the eversed sacs/tubes. They are also used as an aid to adhere themselves on a smooth substrate surface .... In Symphypleona the long eversible tubes are also used for grooming. (Frans Janssens)

The BugGuide page where I found this shows another use for the tubes; a springtail turned belly-up is trying to use the tubes to right himself. Frans comments, "This is a trick only Collembola can perform."

And how about this one? Here's a photo of a springtail using an eversible tube to drink the dew off his own back! (Collembolas, Jan van Duinen)

We're not done yet! Springtails are full of surprises; Christmas stockings, all lumpy and bumpy with mysterious packages.

Beautiful patterns, no two alike. I love this "Southwestern blanket" one.

Look at the shape of the eyes. Well, not exactly eyes; they're irregluarly shaped eye patches. Each one is dotted with up to 8 "ocelli", simple eye, not joined to each other, and of different sizes. (Image) These are not like the compound eyes of insects and instead, are called "composed eyes". The internal workings are not the same, and the individual eyes never touch each other.

One last photo; Smiley!

Cheerful little jumper, isn't he?

Update: in the comments, "Don't Bug Me" added a pair of links to YouTube clips from a David Attenborough series, "Life in the Undergrowth", showing some great footage of springtails. In the first, as the animals leap, if you watch carefully, you'll see the furca folding back into place while the animal somersaults through the air. The second shows a head-butting mating dance. Thanks, DBM!

Update #2: I just found this video; a BBC team catching and photographing a jumping springtail. Check it out!

Popcorn critters on ice

2012-01-17T02:57:00.000-08:00

I knocked the snow and ice off a baby holly tree in a pot and brought it inside to look for a springtail. Within minutes, hopping specks of life were taking over my desk, and I was trying to trap them with plastic bottles before they got in the computer.

A BC winter is ideal for springtails. They love the cold and need the moisture. When the insects and spiders go into hiding, the springtails are just getting going. In my yard, they're on the shrubbery (shake a branch over a bowl, and they fall in), they're in the flower pots, under the planters, in the moss, on rotting wood and soggy soil. And in the birdhouse. But they're not limited to our mild climate; anywhere there is air and moisture, there are springtails, even deep in caves and on glaciers, even in salt water. Their fossils are

... among the oldest known records of terrestrial animals. (Bellinger, P.F., Christiansen, K.A. & Janssens, F. 1996-2011)

They're not insects, although they have six legs like insects. They're probably more related to crustaceans like shrimp and copepods (Janssens), and started out in an aquatic environment. Some still live in the water; all are equipped to walk on water. If you're looking at a moving reddish dot, not taking your eyes off it for even a moment; maybe you've got the camera focused on it; and then suddenly it's not there - you didn't see it go, it just ceased to exist in that spot - and then you find it a few inches away, calmly scratching its nose or taking a drink, you've found a springtail. They don't need the wings they never have; they've got a faster means of propulsion.

Within a dozen steps from my back door, I can find at least four species of springtails.

Globular springtail, ~~Dicyrtomina ornata~~ Orchesella cincta. Thanks, Frans!.

Slender springtail, Entomobrya nivalis, I think.

A green E. nivalis, on frozen, rotting bark.

Dicyrtomina minuta forma ornata comes in a variety of patterns and colours.

Entomobrya clitellaria, forma albocinta. I found this one almost 2 years ago, but its relatives are still living on the birdhouse.

(Not pictured; the blind white springtails that live in the wettest part of my garden. They love half-frozen muck; I don't. Not enough to dig about in it looking for them, when I have an excuse to sit at my desk in the warmth and look at their more accessible cousins.)

I was watching Hoppy the spider snacking on a carpet beetle larva, when a fat springtail walked up the glass in front of me. What a good chance to examine his spring mechanism! I grabbed the camera and clicked away, through the steamy glass.

I see the spring, but what are those round things? (See comments.)

And that started me on a quest to make some sense out of springtail anatomy. And the more I read, the more fascinating it turned out to be. I'll explain tomorrow.

Updated, with corrections supplied by Frans Janssens in comments.

Oooooh ... shiny!

2012-01-16T02:24:00.000-08:00

I was looking for one final springtail, willing (or constrained) to pose for an action photo. With the snow and ice, my usual sources were no longer productive, so I checked out the birdhouse/feeder.

And got distracted by these beauties:

Miniature lamps, the size of a small grain of sand. Slime mold fruiting bodies on stalks.

White specks, under a strong lens, turned out to be cup fungi.

There is another slime on the wet wood, a few clumps of glassy spikes, visible to the naked eye only as a fuzzy white coating. The photos didn't turn out, and my battery is empty. I'll try to capture the spikes tomorrow.

(And now I need still another springtail; the one I found on the birdhouse is of a different species.)

Another popcorn critter

2012-01-15T01:56:00.001-08:00

I'm still working on springtail anatomy. There's a lot to learn.

And these guys are seriously cute.

This was a very small globular springtail; a youngster.

Tomorrow, I'll flip these beasties belly up, and discuss the "spring".

Snow!

2012-01-14T01:46:00.003-08:00

It's about time.

Just getting started.

My long-suffering wood heron getting a beak full.

Popcorn mimics

2012-01-13T03:02:00.002-08:00

I have been busy sorting out the anatomy of a collection of various species of springtails; difficult primarily because of their springiness. I never see them leap; they're just not where they were an instant ago. Half my photos are of empty spaces.

So here I am, well past bedtime, with a new batch of photos of springtail bellies to examine. But not now; tomorrow.

For now, here's one that stopped to investigate something for a second or two.

I think this one is Entomobrya nivalis, one of the "slender" springtails. Between leaps, it is usually running. About 1.5 mm long.

And now, goodnight!

Of chewed wood, rock stencils, and walking on water

2012-01-12T02:36:00.000-08:00

Our last trip to Crescent Beach was so productive that we went again this Sunday, in expectation of more great finds. Unfortunately, the tide was nearing its peak, and the remaining beach was lifeless. So was the water surface; nary a bird to be seen.

So we looked at rocks and logs, instead.

Empty sea, empty sky. On the left, the steps from 24th street, at the top of the cliffs, drop down to beach level.

Most logs float in without much damage, but every so often one looks as if it had been chewed.

Black rot or burn marks on a stump.

Beach rocks often incorporate chunks from various sources, creating interesting patterns, good imagination boosters. Laurie says these look like footprints; I see the whole section as a fish stencil.

And this is a pair of animals hiding behind a stump and keeping a watch out left and right.

Ok, now I'll be sensible. Is this a fossil of some kind? The rest of the rock is plain, smooth stone.

Something alive on shore; orange jellies on a blackened, rotting log.

Something alive on the water, after all; a man on a paddle board.

I grew up in boats, playing in skiffs and canoes. I'm fascinated by these paddle boards; it's almost like walking on water. I see people off on the horizon, standing on what looks like nothing at all, or skimming along silently, approaching those distant rafts of diving ducks, and I envy them.

I just looked up the price of one; over a thousand bucks. And I'd never get Laurie on one, anyhow. I'll contain my envy.

A Skywatch post.

A grey day on Reifel Island

2012-01-11T02:04:00.000-08:00

We had a young relative from Guadalajara, Mexico, with us for the day. "If it doesn't rain, we'll take you to Reifel Island," I promised. And though the clouds hung low overhead, the rain hadn't returned by noon; we made sure she had a thick, warm, wool sweater and a tuque, and went to Reifel.

The lagoons were quiet, even empty in some places. In the absence of sunshine, all the colours were muted. .

First lagoon, around 2 PM.

The highlight of the afternoon was finding a barred owl sleeping in a tree not far from the trail.

Eagle watching the horizon.

Bufflehead, the brightest sight of the day.

Mallards sleeping on a background of swirly shadows.

Ah! Stained-glass colours. All they need is a ray of sunlight.

The male wood duck was happy to pose. His mate, not so much.

A timid towhee dashes out for a seed, then hides in the underbrush again.

A bit of warm colour, mini suns on a mossy log.

In the parking lot, I made our visitor wear that warm sweater. "I'm fine," she said, but I insisted. We compromised on the tuque: it could stay in the car. An hour later, walking in a stiff breeze on the outer trail, she admitted, reluctantly, that she was beginning to feel the cold. We headed back, and I walked her into the warm sanctuary store to recover.

Much later, after I'd posted her photos on Facebook, she commented. "Ohhhh my God, it was freezing!!!"

It's all in what you're used to. I have been complaining that it's too warm. Maybe I need to adjust my expectations.

A confusion of snow geese

2012-01-10T02:46:00.000-08:00

Several hundred snow geese were resting peacefully in a field on Westham Island beside a little-used lane. Then a car went by:

A honking, flapping, scrambling panic attack, seen through blackberry canes.

A more conventional view, after Laurie had fought his way through the blackberries.

Lichen on a fence

2012-01-09T00:26:00.000-08:00

Lipstick cladonia, Cladonia macilenta, in Crescent Beach.

The fence is built of tall, upright boards, rotting away from the top down. The clubs grow out of the grain at the top, like a row of protective spikes.

Bright, lipstick-red fruiting bodies at the tips.

Fantasmagorical shapes

This was another of those times when a photo opportunity entices us into odd behaviour. The fence was too tall, and I had to stand on tiptoe on a log, clutching the rotting boards for support, holding the camera at forehead height. At any moment, I expected the home owner to come rampaging out; "What are you doing, taking photos of my house and yard?" He didn't notice, though, and I got away safely.

A Pollyanna-ish* post.

2012-01-08T01:57:00.001-08:00

One week into January, and it's still warm and raining, all up and down the coast. If the snow doesn't start building up on the mountains soon, we will have a dry, dry summer. And more forest fires.

One good thing about the weather, though. (Always look on the bright side, they say.) I bought this plant in April, last spring:

Bacopa sutera

It's still flowering.

*Pollyanna

The game consists of finding something to be glad about in every situation.

Yes, I read this when I was a kid.

Untangling a crumpled fly

2012-01-07T02:38:00.000-08:00

Laurie brought me a miniature fly that he found in the sink. It was difficult to capture, and didn't survive. By the time I got it, it was all crumpled up, and shedding bits.

I've spent the better part of two afternoons and nights preparing photos for BugGuide; shooting, sorting, selecting, cleaning up, resizing, renaming. And then deciding they're not good enough, and starting another shooting session. My eyes are burnt out, and applying for personal time off.

I soaked the fly in hand sanitizer to soften it*, and photographed it between two sheets of glass in the goop. Most of the photos were totally unusable, but by putting the light behind it, and off to the side, I got a few shots passable for identification purposes. I hope.

It was just too bad that all my sheets of available glass were so badly scratched; I spent hours removing scratches and pretty bubbles of air stuck in the goop from the background. I left the ones in and between the legs of the fly itself.

This photo is the only one of hundreds that showed the halteres clearly. They're a different shape than I expected.

Silhouette, showing venation of the wings. The fly is 4.5 mm long.

And now I'm too tired to finish the job by filling in the BugGuide forms. I'm going to bed. There's always tomorrow.

*I used a variation of Dragonfly Woman's method. I didn't heat the sanitizer long enough, hence the air bubbles visible inside the legs and the ones I had to remove from the background.

I sometimes wonder

2012-01-06T02:16:00.001-08:00

... how it is that we derive so much pleasure from what are almost random configurations of water vapour and air. On our way to Crescent Beach, the other day, Laurie took these from the car window as I drove.

Passing Mud Bay, following the coast. The highway goes West to East here.

Still looking south/

Mud Bay Station parking lot just visible at lower right.

On my side of the car, I watch for clouds of starlings (early afternoon) or gulls (sunset), more cloud formations, and the ever-changing light on Mount Baker. But I don't take photos: I'm driving.

A Skywatch post.

Just the place to hang your (miniature) hat!

2012-01-05T02:34:00.000-08:00

I'm always on the lookout for spiders around the house and yard. This winter, the ones I find are usually tiny, sometimes mere specks. (See Dusty.) And as often as not, they're another species I haven't seen before.

This one showed up on my desk.

Another running speck, maybe 1 mm., fangs to spinnerets.

She has a shield-shaped thorax, skinny pedipalps (identifying her as juvenile or female), and very impressive fangs for her size.

And she had all eight legs when I first saw her, but trying to keep her from getting into my computer with a small piece of paper, I damaged two and broke one off completely. She was that tiny and fragile. I eventually managed to move her to a flowerpot without doing any more damage, I think.

Another one for BugGuide. And this one, I'm calling the valet spider, for now, because of the pattern on her back; a throwback to more formal times.

A "gentleman's valet" with the coat hanger on the far side. Image from Wikipedia.

The earth is a hollow sphere

2012-01-04T01:45:00.001-08:00

... with us on the inside. Or so I've heard. From people who think they know*.

Now I have positive proof. See:

See that horizon? It's bending upwards, like a bowl. Not downwards, as it would be if we were on the outside of a sphere**.

That was looking north from near Kwomais Point. Here's the view looking south:

Hmmm... It looks as though it were slightly raised in the center.

Maybe the hypothesis needs a little work.

More weirdness:

Why do eagles so often sit on the most uncomfortable and treacherous part of a snag?

Yellowlegs in deep water (for him). Can't wait for the tide to go down to catch a worm.

A normal view of Crescent Beach, with gulls and the North Shore mountains. Just because I always love this scene.

* Filed under Crackpottery.
** Or near-sphere.

Now that's a proper live beach!

2012-01-03T03:35:00.001-08:00

The tide was high when we arrived at Crescent Beach on New Year's Day, so we walked along the shore watching the birds: gulls, an eagle, a flock of chattering yellowlegs, and further out, rafts of ducks, pintails, we think. The birds close to shore were feasting; we caught one yellowlegs on camera running along with something floppy and red dangling from his beak, and another bird in hot pursuit. And in our few photos (too far, too bright to take very many), I counted 10 gulls with a beak full of clam or snail.

By the shape of it, this looks like a snail.

We walked almost to the point. By then, the water had gone down enough to expose the upper intertidal zone, so I went down to the edge to flip rocks. Every stone and rock I turned exposed a mob scene, crabs and hermits, snails, isopods, amphipods, all piled higgledy-piggledy.

A pretty orange clam, burying himself as quickly as possible.

Crabs upon crabs. There are a half-dozen crabs visible in this photo. Can you see them?

At least half of the snail shells here are occupied by hermit crabs, mostly greenmarks, the tiny ones with orange marks on their legs and pincers. (I haven't seen any green marks on them yet.) But there is a larger hairy hermit near the centre, mostly hidden. The snails and snail shells are Asian mud snails (the long, striped one) and Sitka periwinkles (round, fat coils); these last always live close to the high water mark. A couple of snail shells are from Nassas. In the upper left, you can see a large rockweed isopod.

Hermits upon hermits

The large one in the center is a hairy hermit, identifiable by the black and white striped antennae. On the upper left is one of the Eastern mud snails so common lower down on this beach, and there's a pretty green Nassa at the bottom.

Isopods upon isopods

On the underside of the rocks, the animals weren't quite as crowded as on the ground underneath. These isopods are distinguishable from the eelgrass isopod, about the same size, up to 2 inches, by the rounded tail end. The eelgrass 'pod's has a concave bite cut out of it.

Splotchy isopod

The isopods come in various shades, including this mottled green, black and grey pattern. The brown, bubbly snail on its left is an oriental cecina. It likes the extreme high tide level.

Isopod, greenmark hermit, and several limpets.

The limpets belong to two different species; the larger, ridged, black and grey patterned ones, and a small orange speckled limpet, with two spiral tube worms attached. There were quite a few of these; this was the largest I saw.

The crab photo again, cropped to center on the hiding hairy hermit. The shell and eyes are well buried under other animals.

Greenmark hermit in a checkered periwinkle shell. I think the shell just above it is a wrinkled amphissa.

Not all the snail shells contain hermits; these still house the original owners.

A small starfish, about 2 inches across, has cleared an area on a stone, either by eating everything, or by scaring it away.

Blob

I don't know what this is. There is a shell similar to this in the hermit photo (scroll up three photos), but this doesn't look like a shell. It showed up in three photos from different angles; in each, it just looked like a blob. No snails in the Encyclopedia match it. Help wanted!

I made a list of the different animals found in a few minutes:

One whelk, one polychaete worm, one sand dollar, not shown,
small acorn barnacles, assorted amphipods, red encrusting sponge, shown but not mentioned,
orange limpets, black ridged limpets, green shore crabs, greenmark and hairy hermits, rockweed isopods, mud snails (Batillaria), Sitka and checkered periwinkles, amphissa snail, Nassa snails, Oriental cecinas, Eastern mud snails, clams, spiral tubeworms, a starfish, and the "Blob".

I was looking for flatworms, but didn't see any. I'm sure they were there, too.

2012: so far, so good.

2012-01-02T01:31:00.001-08:00

We stood at the window, around noon, pondering: "Will the sun come out? Does it look more like rain? Will it, won't it ...?"

We decided to risk it, and drove down to Crescent Beach. And the sun came out!

Facing into the sun, the camera rebels. But this silvery sea is the result.

The rest of the photos will wait for tomorrow.

(If I believed in omens, I would say this presages a good year in 2012. But maybe it at least hints at the possibility of sun tomorrow, too. One can hope.)

Well, look what Father Time brought me!

2012-01-01T02:25:00.000-08:00

A whole, brand-new, unused, not even test-driven, sparkling-fresh year to play with! Wonderful!

And here's a brand-new hermit, to go with. He`s just molted and is hardening up before he goes hunting for a new shell.
A favourite from January of last year.

Now what shall we do with it? (The year, that is.)

That's it? 2011 is over?

2011-12-31T01:53:00.001-08:00

Where did the time go?

"Amazing!" he says; "I'm gobsmacked!"
(This is the strangest chickadee photo I have ever seen.)

Happy New Year, everyone! May it bring more joys than troubles, may your new wrinkles be laugh lines, and your store of good memories be overflowing!

A remedy for the grumpies

2011-12-30T03:00:00.000-08:00

"Still raining!" This is the common greeting around here, these days. Yesterday was the eighth straight day of the stuff. Drizzly, cold, constant rain. And the weather people are promising us another two weeks of it before the first sunny day. In which I no longer believe. It is going to rain all winter, every single day; I'm sure it is. Bah!

That's the greyness speaking. Snow, at least, reflects and whitens the light; rain drowns it. At three in the afternoon, it was too dark to read outside. And we couldn't see the red colouring on the finches; all the birds looked drab grey and muddy black.

I needed to remind myself of sunshine; it exists, even here, even at the tail end of the year. Really. These photos, from the White Rock beach, barely nine days ago, prove it.

Orange dog carefully walking a log.

Common goldeneye male.

Hello!

Mount Baker, reflecting the light. Look for the two eagles.

Robin's heart on a rock

By the railroad track two rabbits hid in the wild rose thicket until we had passed.

Red canoe and pink sky

Bare branches with crow's nest, turned red-brown by the sinking sun.

The rose hips are plentiful this year.

Folds in a sandstone rock.

Laurie sees a face in this log; I see a sleek otter curled up to sleep inside the scar.

A Skywatch post.

Three questions and four lousy photos

2011-12-29T03:54:00.002-08:00

I love unanswered questions; the search for answers leads down so many interesting paths. Hoppy, my so-far unidentified spider, is proving to be a good source of intriging mysteries.

She hadn't been moving much for a few days, and there were no more fruit flies in her cage. I decided to do a bit of cleaning for her, and see if her cousin was still there. (Maybe she wasn't moving because she's been digesting a good-sized relative.)

So I took off the lid under a good light, and removed her pine branches. She had been sitting on one, but when I looked, she was nowhere to be found. I examined each twig and needle under a lens; she can blend into the surroundings, but her legs always give her away. I couldn't find her.

I cleaned the box, brushed it out, wiped down the sides, turned it upside-down and shook it, brushed again. I even took a paintbrush to tiny crevices around the edge. No Hoppy. I did find two really tiny jumping spiders, on a Douglas fir twig. Hoppy's cousin wasn't anywhere to be seen.

So she was lost. I didn't understand how; I'd been so careful.

May as well put the pine and fir twigs back, with the jumping spiders. I'd find them some food tomorrow.

The greenery was arranged, and the jumpers deposited on top. I was just about to put on the lid (a sheet of plastic wrap), when there was Hoppy, sitting on the rim, in plain sight. Where she had been, I have no idea. (Mystery # 1) I chased her inside, and wrapped the top securely.

Mystery # 2: Besides the spiders, I have added, as food, two carpet beetle larvae, and a dozen or so fruit flies. A few springtails and a red mite came in with fresh pine twigs. Nothing else. So why, when I cleaned out the box, did I find a half-dozen tiny carcasses with fragile, spotted wings? (1b) How did they get in? And (2b) what are they?

Big-eyed skeleton, with spotty wings and the remainder of spider webs.

The head and thorax look complete, but the abdomen is sadly shrunken, sucked dry.

Pretty patterns, big eyes, humped thorax.

They're about the size of the fruit flies, but seem to have 4 wings. Flies have only 2. The antennae look short and stubby, like those of fruit flies, but they seem to be broken off. Nose to wing-tip, they're just slightly more than 2 1/2 millimeters long, under a tenth of an inch. I've spent a few hours on BugGuide, without finding a match.

Mystery # 3: I just looked up from the computer and saw Hoppy out hunting. She's hungry, I see. And while I watched, a couple of live flying critters ran up the walls and across the top. Where did they come from? I just cleaned that place and examined everything that's in there!

Definitely 4 wings. And long antennae.

So what are these? Wasps, maybe? Were they hiding in the pine bark or buds? What do you think?

The photos are not good, but I'll send them in to BugGuide, anyhow. At least the wing pattern is fairly clear.

UPDATE: Thanks for all the good tips you sent me (in the comments, and via Twitter). These are barklice, probably Ectopsocus californicus, of the order Psocodea. According to Wikipedia, they live in dead leaves on tree branches and leaf litter. On Bugguide, some plants were named: oak, willow, holly. Mine were found on live twigs of pine or Douglas fir, probably the fir.

An excellent pair of photos is here, on BugGuide.

How I love the web! I get to pick the brains of the best of the best!

Back-door diner

2011-12-28T03:00:00.000-08:00

It's been raining steadily since Sunday, and it will keep it up all week, according to the weather people. It was too wet to feed my birds on their usual tray. They don't appear to mind, but to me, it doesn't seem right to pile seed in a puddle, so I put a couple of handfuls of sunflower seed on a broken chair by the door and the small stuff around it on the dry ground.

Then I stood a couple of feet away, at the door, with a camera.

The juncos, assorted sparrows, and towhees didn't appreciate this; they stayed out on the lawn until I'd given up. But chickadees are supremely self-confident; they sized up the situation, decided I was inoffensive enough (anyhow, they were quicker than any lumbering old human) and then went to work hauling the goodies out to the cedars to be shelled and eaten.

Dropping in

"Hello up there!"

"What's for dinner?"

"This one's a good size."

"Thanks! Bye, now!"

You're welcome, little one.

His heart's in the right place

2011-12-27T00:12:00.001-08:00

'Tis the season to be wacky ...

Ginger Santa

Found beltless, hatless, and beardless in the bin at the supermarket. He begged to come home with me. Would have held out his arms to me, if he'd had any.

For Clytie; look for the heart, where it's supposed to be.

Under a summery blue sky

2011-12-26T01:55:00.000-08:00

Bare branches ...

Reflected in the ice on the birdbath:

This was a few mornings ago; now it's warm and rainy. I foretold it correctly - a grey-green Christmas.

But green is good, right?

A Skywatch post.

It's not easy, being little

2011-12-25T01:46:00.000-08:00

Thirty people in a small house that's crowded with a dozen, all ages from toddlers to great-grandparents, all talking at once in three or four languages, mountains of gifts, a half-dozen musical instruments all in use (but separate tunes), the traditional groaning board: it all adds up to a great Christmas Eve family party. But there are a few difficulties along the way.

Lost in a forest of legs.

Past her bedtime.

Mine, too. Goodnight, all! I hope your festivities are as happy-making!

Feliz Navidad!

2011-12-23T03:16:00.001-08:00

Two more days until Christmas! Somehow I missed the solstice, and the days are getting longer already! (Well, by a minute or so.) I may not get a chance to log on in the next day or two, so I'll take this opportunity to wish you all; family, friends, fellow bloggers, readers:

The very merriest Christmas ever!

"I want that one!" Christmas, 2009

May your celebrations be full of loving people and happy surprises!

Empty beach

2011-12-22T03:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning dawned clear and cold; there was ice on the birdbath again, but by noon the sun had banished it and the breeze was warm. A perfect day to go to the beach.

We hadn't been to White Rock since the day after the storm, back in November, the day I had collected the water that I believed had poisoned my aquarium. It was time to put unhappy memories behind us. We went to our usual spot on the White Rock beach.

A calm, sunny day. Setting sun warms the brown goldenrod heads.

We watched the train go by, I fed another bag of dry bread to shrieking gulls, we watched a kayaker or two. Then I went to the spot where I'd collected the last bottle of water, and started flipping rocks just below the high tide line. I wanted to either discard or confirm my conclusion about the water. Had the animals here suffered the same fate as mine at home?

There were no crabs under any of the rocks I flipped. No hermit crabs. No snails. No limpets. No worms. A few of the higher intertidal amphipods that always swarm on the bottom of these rocks. Just a few.

I walked west, flipping a few more rocks after every couple of steps. Nothing was alive but the amphipods.

I had covered about 150 metres when I found one tiny limpet and an anemone. A bit farther on, there were two limpets, one mussel, and a very small snail, small enough to have washed in after the tides had cleaned the area.

After this, the population of amphipods was denser. Then I found three more limpets, and one miniature hermit. No crabs, though.

Just before the 300 metre mark (measured on Google, at home), one of the stones sheltered a handful of baby crabs, about 1/4 inch across the back. That was reassuring. And a couple of dozen steps further on, I up-ended a large rock, and startled a crowd; too many crabs to count before they scuttled off, a half-dozen small hermits, a mediium periwinkle snail, and a number of black "pinhead" snails, like crawling grains of coarse sand, and under, over and around them all, a mass of slithering amphipods. Yay!

From here on west, just off-shore, a flock of goldeneyes were diving for supper. There had been no birds near the dead zone, except the gulls that mobbed me for my bread, and left as soon as the bag was empty.

So it seems that I was correct: something in the water was probably the culprit. Next time, I'll search in the opposite direction, to see if I can estimate the size of the affected area.

Rocks at the shore, and Common goldeneye.

A comfortable moth

2011-12-21T05:44:00.000-08:00

In a discussion on The Bug Geek's blog, about our attempts to photograph lively insects, sometimes "cheating" by cooling them in the fridge or with ice packs to slow them down (which I resort to almost always), Ted MacRae wrote, "I’ve yet to take (or see) a photo of an insect that has been cooled (by whatever means) that doesn’t somehow look “off.”"

I've been thinking about that. So when Laurie brought me another small moth, I decided to keep it comfortable at room temperature.

Found in a bag of bird seed.

The moth was very small, smaller than the usual bird seed moths I see, a dull greyish tan, with brown and yellowish accents. I left him loose on my desk, after a brief resting period under a pill bottle to calm him down. As he walked around, slowly, spending a bit of time grooming himself, I followed with the camera. He didn't seem to notice, but after a bit, he wandered off to the edge and flew away.

The colour seems different depending on the angle of the light.

I was surprised by the photos; his colours show up much more vividly than I had expected. Was it because he is warm enough? Does a cold insect get pale, like we would do?

Quite a shiny little critter.

The discussion also touched on the substrate; a natural substrate may work better, both as a natural background, and as a way to keep the insect feeling comfortable. I had used the white cloth to set my camera's white balance, and the moth walked onto it from my desk, so we went with that. Next time, maybe I'll use a layer of bird seed for these moths, since that's where they show up.

And patience. Or "brutal persistence," as Ted put it. Very important. I can do that, usually. But an unfettered insect, with the use of his wings; can he be patient? Not this guy: it was barely three minutes from the time I took the first photo before he'd had enough, and flew away.

2011-12-19T23:32:00.001-08:00

Sorry; no post yesterday nor today. I was attacked by a monstrous migraine. It's gone now, but I am very slee...

py. Nodded off, there. I'm going to bed. Good night!

Heartless

2011-12-18T03:47:00.001-08:00

All spiders make silk, but not all make webs. And of the web-builders, not all use the webs for catching prey. I've been watching Hopalong and her friend, the small yellowish spiders that came in on pine tips, to see what she does with her silk. They hide out among the pine needles during the day, then start wandering around in late evening, mostly going up one needle, down the next, back and forth, sometimes venturing out to the glass of their container. I can't see any signs of a web, just individual strands here and there. Pathways or glued traplines? I couldn't tell.

I have provided fruit flies for their meals, which get eaten, but I have not seen how they were captured. Some spiders wait until the prey gets caught in a web, then harvest it at their leisure. Some dash out at the first tug and leap on the insect before it escapes. These spiders depend on their sense of touch to identify the vibration caused by the struggles of their captives; their eyesight isn't necessarily sharp, or may not even be used.

Some build traps or funnels and catch insects and other prey that fall in; again, eyesight is not too important for this.

Hunting spiders use their eyes. They either lay in wait or wander about, leaping on prey that they have seen.

So which method does the Hopalong tribe use? They're wanderers, but they don't seem to be all that visually oriented. I have watched a fruit fly walk right in front of one, without the spider even turning to watch, as a jumping spider would.

Yesterday, I brought in a couple of fresh pine tips, hopefully carrying assorted springtails for snacks. I put them in the container quickly, then examined them through the glass. Something moved. Springtail? No; another spider, then another, very tiny. I left them where they were; the two already there seem to be getting along fine. Two more shouldn't be a problem.

Tonight, Hoppy (#1 or 2) was wandering about on the glass, crossing paths with fruit flies and a red mite, without reacting to them. The largest of the two new spiders turned a corner and met her almost face to face. Nothing happened. Then, as they passed each other, the tips of their legs touched briefly. Instantly, Hoppy wheeled and leapt on the smaller spider; the struggle was brief, and she settled down to eat.

Hopalong has Junior for supper.

The smaller spider is the same species.

So there are two questions answered; these spiders are leapers, not trappers. And they hunt by feel, not by sight.

And they have no inhibitions about eating their relatives.

And this is for Clytie: the shield that joins the legs is shaped like a heart.

A sad post

2011-12-17T03:09:00.000-08:00

I've been putting off writing this post, procrastinating in the futile hope that it will go away. It never works, does it?

November 26, three weeks ago: In the aftermath of the storm system that blew over most of BC, we went down to White Rock beach to see what had blown in. Just logs and broken plastic, it seemed. I wrote about it here.

I collected some fresh seawater for my critters in the tank at home; only about one litre, since I'd forgotten my regular 2 litre bottle. The water was dirty, with bits of eelgrass, wood chips, sand and muck, all whipped up by the crashing waves. It didn't matter; at home, as I have done before, I filtered it well, then let it sit for a few days for the fine silt to settle out.

The next week, as usual, I replaced 2 l. of the old water in the tank with new, including the latest beach collection.

All seemed well for a day or two. Then one morning, I noticed that my female crab was having difficulties. She stood on her head, with the hind legs swaying in the water, spread out. It took her a long time to right herself, but then she seemed ok. Until the next time I checked on her, when I found her caught upside-down in some seaweed. Something was wrong. (And she was in berry after their recent mating!)

The other two crabs seemed fine. But the big anemone was writhing and contracting oddly, making himself into a series of balls, then flat, then one ball with a pin-head tip, then a wide tip balanced on a pointed base, never opening tentacles to feed. A smaller anemone had disappeared entirely; so had the eelgrass isopods. I couldn't see any limpets, nor any pairs of amphipods waiting to mate. And the snails, those indestructible nasas and mud snails, were lying about, half out of their shells.

I hurried to change as much of the water as I could for freshly-prepared artificial seawater, adjusted for just-right salinity and temperature.

The next day, the anemone was worse; only a few snails were moving. Three clams were holding their siphons well out of the sand, about an inch high. I've never seen them do that before. And the big male crab was lying paralyzed, with legs stretched out and up, towards the back. The female was upside-down more often than not. The little male had disappeared.

I did what I could; removed everything to a "hospital" container with fresh water and clean stones, twice; watched and hoped. For a while, it looked as though the male would recover, but no, he relapsed. The snails died.

When the little male (that I had raised from crab babyhood) floated belly-up, too, I gave up. I drained off the water and replaced it with alcohol. They died quickly.

The baby, with anemone, in happier days.

What had happened? I have gone over and over each step of those days; the only source of whatever killed my tank would have been the water from the White Rock beach, where I have always collected water. And the only difference there would have been the after-effects of the storm. Was it contaminated rainwater from the city on the hill above the beach? Or something brought in by the wind and waves? I don't know.

(My previous die-off, not as complete, was caused by local pollution, blown in from next door. There was no sign of that this time, and the symptoms and species attacked were different.)

We have seen, on occasion, areas of the beaches we visit where large numbers of dead animals lie half-buried in the sand. (May, 2008, baby sand dollars, for example.) There are spots where dying clams lie thick on stinking mud; patches where we find no live animals at all, no matter how many rocks I flip, or how much sand I filter through. Sure, the areas recover, often, at least in part. Or become hosts to new forms of life, like the invasive mud snails that now cover much of the Boundary Bay beach on the Tsawwassen side. Sometimes they don't; years ago, Mom used to tell me of a beach on Vancouver Island where she could not find anything alive. It seemed impossible, back then; now not so much.

I have emptied and cleaned the tank and all the equipment, and hidden them away. I moved the furniture around so that the gap where they were doesn't show. I dumped everything previously alive in the garbage; I would normally bury it in the garden, as fertilizer, but I can't take the risk of poisoning the many animals that live in my soil. The sand will be spread, well washed first, in the most gravelly, polluted area of the vacant lot.

In the spring, I'll probably have the courage to start again. For now, I'm grieving.

I originally started bringing home beach invertebrates to learn something from them. More than just how to identify them, I wanted to know how they lived, how they interacted with other animals. I was even privileged to learn something about how they think, to see them show a reciprocal curiosity, watching me through the glass, responding to what I was doing. What kills them, how they suffer and die (that anemone's tortured contortions still break my heart!) is also something I have unhappily begun to learn.

It has made me very aware of what I buy, what I use and discard; it all enters the environment; it has the potential to do much damage. We can't turn back the clock; we've fouled our nest already, but at least I can keep from adding more poison to it.

A few more birds at sunset

2011-12-16T02:24:00.000-08:00

Coot with a blond streak

Low, reddish light wreaks havoc with body shapes and feather tones.

Mallard on ice, with reflected office building.

Reifel Island, December 9th.

Catching the red eye

2011-12-15T01:50:00.000-08:00

This black crowned night heron was sleeping soundly in a tree by the Reifel Island warming shed, but I made too much racket, and he opened a bloodshot eye to glare at me.

Sorry about that. I'll go away quietly now.

His scientific name, Nycticorax nycticorax, translates as "Night raven night raven"; repeated twice, emphasizing that he really, really appreciates being left to sleep in the daytime. He works the night shift, hunting the same grounds as our great blue herons do in daylight, catching frogs, fish, crustaceans and other small animals.

He's not a raven, but got the name, doubled, because his call is like a crow's. Listen to it here. (Cornell "All about Birds")

From Cornell's "Cool Facts":

Young Black-crowned Night-Herons often disgorge their stomach contents when disturbed. This habit makes it easy to study its diet. ...
Adult Black-crowned Night-Herons apparently do not distinguish between their own young and those from other nests, and will brood chicks not their own.

Brainy dust

2011-12-14T01:44:00.000-08:00

I was sweeping the kitchen floor, when a speck of dust escaped from under my broom and ran for cover. Not fast enough; I was faster.

"Dusty", running still, under glass. She's about 1 to 1.5 mm long, not counting legs. It's hard to measure a critter that won't stop running.

Smithsonian Science posted an article yesterday, entitled "Brains of tiny spiders fill their body cavities and legs, Smithsonian researchers discover." They measured the brains of nine species of spiders, of all sizes, giant to pinhead size, like Dusty, here.

As the spiders get smaller, their brains get proportionally larger, filling up more and more of their body cavities. ... “The smaller the animal, the more it has to invest in its brain, which means even very tiny spiders are able to weave a web and perform other fairly complex behaviors,” said William Wcislo, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. “We discovered that the central nervous systems of the smallest spiders fill up almost 80 percent of their total body cavity, including about 25 percent of their legs.”

I am amazed, but this does help to explain the ability of such a tiny bit of life to hunt, build webs, and escape dangers like my broom. I'm trying to imagine these legs, full of brains down to the knees. And brain surrounding the heart and lungs, the digestive system and muscles.

When she lost half a leg, did she lose IQ points?

Until I had time to photograph the spider, I kept her in a plastic container, 1 inch tall by 1 inch diameter. She spent her time building a messy web; when I opened the container, I found her hanging upside-down in the center, hoping to catch some lunch, no doubt.

I moved her, took photos, and released her to go back to work patrolling corners for dust mites and other invisible (to me) beasts.

A while later, I found a carpet beetle near the bedroom window, and dropped it into the same container without thinking. (I may not be as smart as a spider.) When I went to look at it, I found the poor beetle all tangled up in sticky web.

Carpet beetle, cleaned up. He's almost 3 mm. long.

Walking on the bottom of a leaf. Note the hooked claw.

Holes in the water

2011-12-13T02:43:00.001-08:00

We stopped on a shady curve in the trail at Reifel Island, where a mixed flock of ducks, dabblers and divers together, rested in a shallow, muddy little bay. I tossed in duck seed, and they splashed, up-ended, dived, collided, and occasionally fought, each after his preference.

Northern pintail, coot, and mallards.

I was surprised at how well the water seemed to hold its shape, sometimes bubbly, sometimes in a slow upwards splash, sometimes leaving depressions and outright holes in the surface, even after the ducks had moved on to the next handful of seed. Could the mud content and the temperature, just this side of freezing, have anything to do with it? Or were our cameras faster than usual? Or have I just not been noticing?

Scaups and mallard rear ends.

When the divers went down, they carved out a hole for their head and made another for the feet, rolling from one to the other. (Look closely at the duck in the middle, above.) In our photos, several of these double holes show up with no diver visible at all.

I'll have to watch the water more closely next time; maybe that's the way it always is, and I've been distracted by the ducks themselves.

Mute swan, on water, on paper

2011-12-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

Last month, I posted a photo of a mute swan at the Westham Island bridge:

One of my readers, the artist Elva Paulson (Elva Field Notes), loved his pose, and did a painting based on it, which she posted on 100 Paintings Challenge. We (Laurie and I) love it!

Isn't he beautiful?

To see more of Elva's sketches and paintings, visit her blog, or the Challenge blog. (8 other artists post there, too. The challenge refers to the goal of posting 100 paintings in a year. Elva is on her second 100.)

Talking sandhills

2011-12-11T02:04:00.001-08:00

One of the hoped-for highlights of any visit to Reifel Island is meeting some of the sandhill cranes. This Friday, we found five, three together on the office lawn, and two near the outer edge of the Sanctuary.

In the shade of the office building. Probably the year-round resident pair.

The Reifel Island website has a helpful, up-to-date page on the sandhills.

If there are just three birds, there is a very high probability you are looking at our resident pair and this year's young.

Laurie took this next photo between the rails of the fence:

This would be the youngster, or colt, born last May. His forehead is showing some red now, but it is still spotty. Compare it to October's photo.

By the outer path, we found another two small cranes, but these have the full red adult forehead. The young adults congregate with groups of other 1 to 5 year-olds, until it is time to find a mate.

"Is that a bag of food I see?"

By November, numbers generally drop to just our resident pair plus a select small group of visiting birds (less than 10 usually) that then spend the winter together. In the spring our pair chases out all other cranes, including their own young from the previous year, and defend the 300 hectare Sanctuary as their territory.

"It is! Gimme!"

These two cranes were more talkative than any I have met before. Every minute or so, one or the other would open a wide beak and let loose with a long, rattly squawk, sounding rather like a heavy barn door with very rusty hinges.

"Thank you! More, please!"

Listen to the call. (All About Birds, Cornell.) The youngsters' voices were not quite so resonant as this.

Sunset over Reifel Island

2011-12-10T02:56:00.001-08:00

We started out for our afternoon walk late, delayed by conversation with neighbours, and slowed, once on the road, by the fast-dropping sun in my eyes as we drove west. We arrived at Reifel Island about the time we normally would be leaving, with less than an hour before they started closing the gates.

I'm glad; otherwise, we would have missed this.

A hot orange sun slips over the horizon,

painting dried grasses with warm light,

and highlighting the red-brown of a hooded merganser.

The sun drops out of sight, but the orange light spreads upward,

tinting even the sky opposite.

The moon rises in the east, over pink mountain peaks. It will turn red towards morning, so another visitor tells me.

A Skywatch post.

Wishing for ice

2011-12-08T02:41:00.001-08:00

I have been tidying up my storage disk, reviewing and deleting old photos, sorting and renaming. I was surprised to realize I had been wearing my down jacket last November; here it is December, this year, and I'm still wearing my summer rain jacket. Either I've gotten younger (unlikely), or it's been unseasonably warm.

With that in mind, I checked over the November/December 2010 photos more carefully. It was definitely colder:

November 23, 2010. The lagoons at Reifel Island were frozen solid.

Looking down from the warming shed onto the frozen pond.

Aside: coots are even more ridiculous on ice than they are on land or water. Ducks walk, carefully but neatly; only when they come in for a landing do they skid on their bellies far beyond where they planned. But coots ...! They try to run, as if they were running on water, but it doesn't work, and they scramble across the ice flapping their wings madly, squalling, skidding from side to side. They can't stop, either, without belly-flopping, feet one way, wings the other. I'd like to see them on snow, though. They may be quite proficient at that: they're wearing snowshoes, after all.

December, Centennial Beach duck pond. Thin ice, even down here in the "banana belt".

All the ice we've gotten this year. An inch deep, in the birdbath one morning, gone by noon.

December, 2010, Boundary Bay. The north shore mountains are snow-capped.

If I put my rain jacket in storage, will the weather co-operate and freeze? Or will that just guarantee another two weeks of rain? Should I be dreaming of a grey-green Christmas?

Hopalong, how you've grown!

2011-12-07T02:50:00.001-08:00

Two months ago, Laurie brought me a spider on a tip of a pine branch. It was so small, so nearly transparent, and so active that it took two weeks to get a photo; it must have been about 4 millimetres long by then.

Hopalong, on a pine needle.

I kept it, and a second like it, in a jar for a month, then transferred them to an old, scratched-up aquarium with a fresh batch of pine tips and the latest crop of fruit flies from my trap in the kitchen. They've been hard to see, hiding among the needles, mostly.

Hopalong, not hiding too well at the moment.

But yesterday, one was out on the side wall. She had just molted, and was resting above the abandoned exoskeleton, stretching herself out into her fresh skin, still soft.

Growing up.

The old molt. She splits the body, then shucks it like a coat, pulling the 8 legs out last.*

And now she measures about 8 mm fangs to spinnerets.

(I had to photograph her through the scratchy glass; she's just as excitable and hoppy as ever. I edited out most of the scratches, but didn't touch her in the photo.)

*I found this YouTube time-lapse sequence of a tarantula molting. This can take from an hour up to 12 hours, including the drying time, when the spider is too soft even to right itself.

Bow wave

2011-12-06T01:37:00.001-08:00

Mallard on Cougar Creek lagoon

Lunch on the balcony

2011-12-05T02:04:00.001-08:00

At the Old Birdhouse Inn

A beakful of sunflower seed.

Tiny big cone community

2011-12-04T02:27:00.001-08:00

I had a hankering for snails; it's been a while since I've been nose to nose with one. I poked around the garden, and found none. No slugs, either.

So I brought in an old cone from a big cone pine tree, and shook it out to see what it was hiding. One small milliipede, two miniscule earthworms, three infant slugs, four mini pill bugs; those were the bigger critters snuggled cosily under the scales.

Then there were the really teeny-tinies, starting with the snails at 2 millimetres long (Yes! I found some!), and going down from there.

"Hmm ... What's down there, I wonder?"

"I'll just slither down and see."

Pair of beetle mites*, about 1 mm. long, covered with bristles and droplets of water.

Mite, dried off, the bristles barely visible. He has a passenger, at the tail end.

Springtail, about as long as a mite, but a lot skinnier. And bouncier.

A different springtail, also about 1 mm. long.

And half their length, a variegated globular springtail. Extremely boingy.

*Thank you, Christopher!

Gulls don't beg

2011-12-03T02:28:00.001-08:00

They demand.

"Well? I'm waiting. Give!"

White Rock beach, November

Now you see me ...

2011-12-02T03:31:00.001-08:00

Wednesday had been such a bright, summery day, and we'd spent it in traffic and malls. But we got home with maybe half an hour before the sun set and the chill returned, so I dashed across the street to the vacant lot, to get at least a taste of wildness into the day.

It had been raining off and on for days, so the ground was soggy and puddly. The plants, except for a dandelion and two fading daisies, were all dry stems and crumbled brown leaves. Only the goldenrods held some shape. I picked a handful and headed home; the sun had already dropped behind the evergreens to the west, and the wind was cold.

When I spread out the goldenrods at home, two spiders and a black stick that wriggled dropped out.

I posted the tiny jumping spider yesterday; here is the second:

Hunting spider, blending in to the shapes and colours of the goldenrod.

I tried to photograph the spider on the table; she wasn't interested, so I caught her and replaced her on the plants. Then I spent a good part of the evening looking for her. She was so perfectly camouflaged that I could look straight at her and not see her until she moved.

She's somewhere in here, but I can't see her. A few seconds after I took the photo, there she was, in plain sight.

Goldenrod flowerhead, now fluff, and seed with parachute.

The tiny stick that wriggled was about the size and colour of the seeds. Worse; it was clinging to a bit of the fluff, which made it look even more like a seed. But it was moving, slowly. I brought out the lens.

Bagworm moth larva, 5mm long, with only head showing.

It's a bagworm, the second I've seen. (Dahlica triquetrella, on a wall.) This one doesn't look like the same species, however; the body pattern is different, and instead of sand, it has chosen bits of the goldenrod to make its case.

Head end.

Bagworm moths live all or almost all their lives in these cases. Some species are parthenogenic; there are no males, and the females lay their eggs without needing fertilization. These females never leave their cases. Males of other species do, but only to find a female and mate; then they die.

Larvae hatch from eggs inside the mother's case, leave and immediately start building their own case, using materials and patterns specific to their species. The case has two openings; the head end, where the larva stretches out to walk about and to eat, and the tail, which allows the worm to excrete waste materials.

Some cling to walls or stone, where they eat lichen. Some hang from evergreen trees and eat the needles; a large infestation can seriously damage the tree. This one probably eats goldenrod leaves, and it seemed, watching it, that it was also eating the fluffy parachutes of the seeds. The leaves are dry and brown by now, anyhow. When it has eaten enough, it will pupate and wait out the winter in that state.

Making the case out of local material, in this case goldenrod fiber, helps to protect the moth by making it blend in to the background. Once I had replaced the bagworm on top of the goldenrod, and looked to see how it was managing, I couldn't see it at all.

I shook out a lot of the fluff and examined it, shaking it and blowing it about for a while, until I found a second larva.

4mm. Much more timid; by the time I'd brushed the seeds away from it, it had retreated into the case and refused to come out.

One last critter showed up in the pile of sorted fluff; a small ladybug, the eleven-spotted lady beetle, seemingly dormant. When I moistened the cloth she stood on, she woke, took a drink, groomed herself, struggled past the clinging seeds, and flew away.

Coccinella unidecimpuntata, 5 mm. long. Not camouflaged at all.

Big, scary monster. Not.

2011-12-01T02:38:00.001-08:00

I brought home a bouquet of dead goldenrods, long gone to seed. Two spiders hopped out as soon as I put them down; this one was a mere running speck.

Jumping spider, about 2 mm., toe to toe.

For a few years, after a bad experience, (here: "Sleeping with tarantulas") I was afraid of spiders. That has long passed, but a ridiculous residual effect remains; when a jumper jumps in my direction, I recoil. I can't seem to control it. Even with this little critter; I'd get him in focus, and then he'd jump. He is so small that one of his leaps took him only an inch or two, and even if he "got" me, he couldn't do any damage, but still, I'd shy away. Once I even dropped my lens on the floor. He finally jumped back into the goldenrod fluff, and I let him be.

I'll post the other spider, and what else I found, tomorrow.

Afternoon walk

2011-11-30T01:58:00.001-08:00

Laurie was playing/experimenting with odd camera angles at White Rock, and this was one result; a couple walking along the railroad track, against the muted colours of late fall vegetation. To me, it looks like an impressionist painting.

Untitled

I did nothing to this, other than resizing it for the blog.

Tidewrack

2011-11-29T01:48:00.001-08:00

A fall storm hit much of our coast over last Friday and Saturday; some ferries were cancelled, power lines down. Nothing major. The wind died down by Sunday morning, but not until it had driven most of our cloud cover away. We went down to White Rock to see what the storm had brought in.

Mostly logs.

The waves were still high, making a continual roaring sound, punctuated by rolling pebbles as each wave retreated. Diving ducks bob up and down in the distance.

Logs piled on the beach, more coming in with each wave.

Log-rolling competitors, waiting for the starting gun?

Big log coming straight in, advancing a few inches with each wave. (It's perfectly straight; if it looks bent to you, it's an optical illusion.)

Wood chewed up by repeated slamming against a stony beach.

Drying out, bashed and stained, draped with black eelgrass.

After the logs, and surpassing them for number and variety, were the plastics. With every step I took, I had to pick up another piece or two. In one small stretch, I collected a full grocery bag of bits and pieces, from broken toys to bags to bottles and containers. Plastic objects (a metre-long drainage pipe, for example) too large to carry along with my bags, I carted up to the blackberry bushes above the tide line; at least they won't slide back down to the beach to be broken up and become gull food. I wished I had more time. I wished I had an army of volunteers with me, all provided with big bags.

I was surprised to see no styrofoam. I wonder why.

As cold as it looks

2011-11-28T02:12:00.001-08:00

Sunday afternoon near the mouth of the Nicomekl River; cold and clear, with just a hint of wind. A heron fluffs out his feathers, curls his neck close to his body, and stands on one leg, to preserve a bit of warmth.

Looking downstream. The posts anchor a muddy bank, covered at high tide.

Laurie's favourite photo. The heron has seen movement; a fish, a frog? Whatever it was, it saw the danger and vanished.

My favourite. I love the bands of light and shadow on the feathers, sunlight reflected from the water. And that little patch of rust brown on his epaulettes. (Check it out full-size.)

A quick game of hide and seek

2011-11-27T01:55:00.001-08:00

Laurie found an earwig for me. I chilled her* in the fridge, and photographed her on an ice pack. Not good enough.

First photo, while she was still sleepy.

A few seconds later, awake and cleaning her antennae, preparing to run.

A couple of stretches, and she took off running, out of sight in a second. I couldn't find her anywhere, so I put away the camera, the lights, and the ice pack. When that was done, she sauntered out from under the computer. Grrrrr!

I put her in a flat plastic container and tried again.

A brief pause to look at the camera. Then back to running, taking shelter under scratches on the plastic.

I gave up. She's been sent out to play in the rain.

*The forceps (cerci) are unequal in length in the males. Earwig female forceps are (more or less) straight-sided, whereas male forceps are strongly curved (caliper-like) and larger. (From here. My addition, in italics.)

Green, fading to black

2011-11-26T00:34:00.001-08:00

One of the pleasures of summer along our shores is to wade at the low, low tides, knee-deep in the eelgrass beds, watching the swirl of the deep green blades reaching up to the surface and floating there. We watch our step carefully; among the stalks, good-sized, maybe toe-pinching crabs scuttle. On the long leaves, if we look closely, we can see large green isopods and small snails. Sculpins and other small fish dart away at our approach, no matter how stealthily we tiptoe.

Most of what lives in these green forests, though, we don't see. Kozloff, in his chapter on sandy beaches, lists, among the inhabitants:

On the leaves: the tinies; diatoms and other microscopic plants, invisible alone, but in mass, forming a brownish "fur" or long threads; bacteria, protozoa, algae, microscopic worms, crustaceans, copepods.
The small critters: amphipods, including skeleton shrimp, hydroids, flatworms, ribbon worms, jellyfish, anemones, chink snails, sea slugs, including Melibe leonina, two species of isopods.
On the mud, sand, roots: bubble shell snail, clams, sea stars, sea cucumbers, five crabs; Dungeness, red, two spider crabs, and helmet crabs.

Another list adds sponges, bryozoans, spiral tube worms. I would add the limpets and their cargo. There are many more, and we must not forget the fish.

So important is Zostera's role in this food cycle that estimates reveal that more than 20 species of commercially valuable fish species feed in these eelgrass meadows at some point in their lives. (R.I. Sea Grant Fact Sheet)

That's the summer.

Summer eelgrass, waiting for the return of the tide.

In the fall, the eelgrass begins to die back. Stormy seas rip up the plants by their roots, and propel them toward the shore. The waves, coming and going, roll them up in dense masses, metre-long tough leaves wound and knotted around each other, and push them onto the beaches. There, they gradually die and blacken, always pushed further up the beach by the next tide's eelgrass roll-up, until they form great mounds of black, sharp-smelling gunk.

Drying eelgrass, caught on driftwood log. Boundary Bay.

But their useful life isn't over yet! First, while they are drifting ashore, Canada geese congregate to eat the green stems that they usually can't reach.

Geese and gulls, watching the eelgrass come in. White Rock.

I collect handfuls for my aquarium critters from the fresh rolls, disentangling the greenest, the ones with bits of root still attached. In the winter, the low tides usually fall well after dark; I can't wade out to what's left of the eel-grass beds. I'm glad it comes to me, instead.

In summer, any eelgrass I harvest is well checked over for other life. I always find limpets, usually quite a few snails, occasionally an eel-grass isopod or two. There may be amphipods along the leaves, often polychaete worms in the roots, and always the fuzzy diatom communities.

In the fall and winter, the eelgrass looks bare until I run a finger down a leaf; then I notice the hard, raspy bryozoan communities, the thickening where a cryptic limpet is attached, and maybe an isopod will transfer his clingy feet to my finger. All of these go into the aquarium where I plant the eelgrass.

I don't bring home the black stuff. Some people do; I have seen gardeners with wheelbarrows and big barrels on the shores of Crescent Beach and Boundary Bay, filling their containers (once a pickup truck bed!) with nutritious mulch for the winter garden.

But I do roll it over, to watch hundreds of beach-hoppers leap every which way. (I remember, back when Laurie didn't know me quite so well, I called him over to see. "Look!" I said, and turned over a heap of dead eelgrass. He wasn't prepared; the hoppers ended up on his legs, and he jumped back, annoyed. He got over it, and now is as enthusiastic as I am. Sometimes more.)

Inside that rotting mass, worms, fungi and bacteria work at reducing it to fine dust, which will sift slowly out to sea, returning the nutrients to their source for another round. In the meantime, tiny black flies swarm over the surface, feeding and breeding in the relative warmth from the decomposing grass. Nothing ever gets wasted.

Bryozoan colony on dying eelgrass.

In my aquarium, fall eelgrass only lasts a couple of weeks before it dies and turns black. I doesn't look good, and eventually will disintegrate and clog the filters, so I remove it. But first, I make sure I'm not removing live animals. Most of the limpets have moved on to greener pastures; so have the isopods and amphipods. But there are still patches of bryozoans and hydroids.

I wondered, the other day, whether the bryozoan colonies were still alive, so I brought them out to a tray of shallow water and examined them under a microscope. All the tiny, glassy barrel shells were empty; the makers were gone.

Each little tube was the home of one zooid.

If you were seeing these photos live, you would also see tiny specks of light moving between the shells, barely visible transparent threads weaving back and forth, white dots that seem to have legs scuttling across the green spaces. The bryozoans have died, but the colony is still very much alive. And the spiral tube worms are still busy catching the specks and threads for supper.

Bryozoan colony with feeding tubeworm.

I replaced the eelgrass in the aquarium. These industrious hunters and gatherers deserve their full life span.

Delectable rotten eelgrass

2011-11-25T02:12:00.001-08:00

Laurie keeps taking photos of rotten eelgrass mounds and I keep deleting them, because the stuff is just not photogenic. I had to go back to 2007 to get these two:

October, 2007. Rotten eelgrass on the shore of Boundary Bay.

Driftwood "statue" tied up in old eelgrass.

Wonderful stuff! Really. I'll explain why, tomorrow.

Not a cherry root mushroom

2011-11-24T02:40:00.001-08:00

Just around the corner from yesterday's big brown mushrooms, in Laurie's evergreen shrub garden, similar mushrooms grow. He brought a couple in for me.

Smooth, round cap, brown stalk. The biggest are about 4 inches across the cap. They're dense and heavy for their size.

White gills, separated from stalk.

As they age, the gills shrink and blend together, the cap broadens out.

These are growing where Laurie put down steer manure, and probably came from the pasture where the cattle fed. Even though this mushroom almost matches yesterday's at first, it never achieves the uninhibited twistiness of the cherry tree root 'shrooms.

Searching through my Guide, and on the web, I see many similar, none exactly like these. I won't try tasting these, either.

Cherry root mushroom

2011-11-23T02:20:00.001-08:00

At the base of an old cherry tree outside our building, these outlandish mushrooms have pushed their way through the landscaping gravel:

Group of three. They're up to about 8 inches across.

Another trio. These start out "normal", like the small round one at the far right.

Tough-skinned, shiny under all the dust, raggedly gilled.

I can't identify these. One of our neighbours says his mother used to cook them back in the "Old Country", in Eastern Europe. She boiled them with a silver spoon; if it tarnished, they were poisonous, he says. It's not a test I would trust.

I think I'll wait for an expert's opinion, a spore print, a DNA test, a test for pesticide contamination, and after all that, someone braver than I to play guinea pig.

Ice and flowers

2011-11-22T01:58:00.001-08:00

November 22. One month to go to the winter solstice. Dawn to dusk, 9 1/2 hours. One more month of shortening days and unpredictable weather.

Yesterday, the temperature had dropped to minus 4° (Celsius) overnight. The bird bath froze solid, and it took four kettles of hot water to thaw it out. My begonias all died. (The stems leak beet-red juice as they thaw. I didn't know that before.)

Today, it rained and blew all day, clearing all the remaining leaves off the maples. The temperature now, in the middle of the night, is up to 8°C (46°F). The wind is howling down the kitchen stove vent.

They promise us occasional sunshine and warming temperatures for tomorrow.

Just a typical Lower Mainland November.

Last Saturday, three days ago, we went to the school a block away to vote in the morning. In the schoolyard, the grass was green where the sun shone. Children had rolled the snow off it, making large snowballs, several feet in diameter, hopeful snowmen or snowforts. On the gravel and pavement, ice made intriguing patterns in the puddles.

Friday construction materials, gone by Monday.

Ehecatl, Aztec God of the Winds, as he is sometimes pictured.

Duck on ice.

What do you see here?

The ice man.

And then, since the sun had come out, we went down to White Rock, where flowers were blooming among the weeds.

Very small umbellifer.

Gumweed, still budding optimistically.

End of the season for this one.

Patterned sepals. (Click for full size.)

Ice and flowers; that's November in BC.

Guessing game

2011-11-21T01:48:00.001-08:00

This was an experiment that didn't quite work out, but it gave us a laugh.

Now I'll settle down and do some real work.

Silhouettes on blue

2011-11-20T02:22:00.001-08:00

After a dark, wet, windy, and sometimes snowy week, a sunny Saturday was a treat. For us, the ducks, the gulls, and a couple of kayaking crabbers.

Bringing home the catch.

And I have two videos to put together, so I'll be busy for a couple of days.

A Skywatch post.

Pink jellies

2011-11-19T02:02:00.001-08:00

On the felled trunks beside the new beaver pond at Cougar Creek Park, we found this pink jelly fungus:

Popping through cracks in rotting alder.

They come in all shapes, from cups to tongues to buttons to blobs.

The tiny red dots in the wood at the top are more of the same.

This one is more fan-shaped; behind it is a tongue and a button.

I stepped over this rotting stick and missed the tiny candlesnuff fungus. Good thing Laurie saw it.

Housing project

2011-11-18T01:42:00.001-08:00

I've got a lot of catching up to do. This post goes back to November 3, two weeks ago.

For the past three years, I have been watching as a family of beavers fight the city of Surrey. In the spring of 2009, I wrote:

"The Canadian Beaver is Canada’s national symbol. ... (It) is symbolic of independence, creativity, and determination ..." (From ArticleClick.com)

The beavers have plans for this small lake (Cougar Creek Park); they've been building dams and enlarging the waterways since before people decided to turn it into a park. Their ideas conflict with the city's pretty schemes, and the two parties are feuding. The beavers build dams; someone clears away the piles and removes felled trees. The beavers build again.

The city (Surrey) trapped and killed a male about this time last year; in family-raising time. The female raised her brood, and during the winter, they dammed the creek leading into the pond, widening the creek and gathering enough water to wash away the trash that littered its bed. The dam, and much of the topsoil was stripped away. The beavers felled more trees, and started over. Wire fences went up around the biggest tree trunks. The beavers chopped down a row of new alders and dammed the outlet.

And here's a photo from January of 2008:

Extending the present lagoon.

They are at it again. They have more or less succeeded at enlarging the lagoon; the mouth of the creek that feeds into it is now a pond. But that wasn't enough for them; there are two families now, and they need more territory, so they have annexed the bush on the far side of the bridge. What was up until now a narrow, sluggish, muddy stream, meandering through the bush and alongside another stretch of lawn, is now a wide, calm pool.

The blue shape shows the area now underwater.

This time, they have a larger construction crew; they have built dams higher than any of their previous attempts, and two at once, each raising the water level behind it about three feet.

One of the dams. A trickle below, going on to fill the next pool, a still pond above.

As the beaver families have gained workers, they have also become more ambitious; the trees they fell these days are much larger than any of the previous year's material.

Mallards rest on a small remaining patch of grass.

Lumberjacks at work. The trees they're cutting now are around 8 to 10 inches at the base.

Smaller alders with their feet and reflections in the new pool

Reflections and fallen leaves on the banks of the creek going under the bridge, swollen as it enters the second new pool.

We talked to a neighbour; he was quite incensed by the "depredations" of the beavers, and hopes that the city will get rid of them. I must admit, my sympathies are with the beavers. After all, our human housing developments are spreading into all the vacant land around the creek, with ever bigger houses, more fences, more streets. Turn about's fair play.

In the last bit of third-growth timber, a stone's throw from the edge of the park, we saw a coyote. A sign at the street, "KEEP OUT", claims this piece for some new housing scheme.

The coyote can't read, so he's not worrying. Yet.

Living in glass houses

2011-11-17T02:14:00.001-08:00

...you don't get no privacy.

It was 10 PM, so I went to turn off the aquarium lights. As usual, I looked in to see how things were going; everybody happy? No disasters, no panics? All was calm.

But in the back, half-hidden beside the pump, a pair of crabs were getting ready to mate. I went for the camera.

A tangle of legs. Ma Crab's back. He's underneath her.

It's hard to mate when you're encased in a rigid shell. Crabs have to wait until the female molts; when her new outfit is still soft and pliable, there's a brief window of opportunity, not to be wasted. Her consort, finding her in the process of opening up, grabs her, belly to belly, and holds on until she backs out of the old shell. This may take several hours, or even days. He may even help her with the process; mainly, though, he's making sure he's at hand when the moment comes, and that no other male gets her. (Not a problem for him in the aquarium; there's only one other male, still too young, but he's not taking risks.)

Since his last molt, Pa Crab has been ready, swaggering about with full-size pincers, often frightening the smaller female. Not today; this morning she was hanging around near him. Now, she has allowed him to embrace her tightly. In the photo above, you can see his legs, the striped ones, (hers are spotted) hugging her. Both of them hold their pincers up and away from the body, claws open. They move about, slowly, getting comfortable. After a bit, they squirm down underneath the pump, where they are more private.

I don't know how long it will be until they mate.

Sculpted curves and "teeth" of the female's carapace. Two of her pincers, one of his.

Our daily art, Part Three

2011-11-15T04:23:00.001-08:00

Part One, Part Two

The story continues:

Reading over the letters from F, I decided that hecan tell the story much better than I could; who better than the onewho lived it? So this will be a guest post, taken from his messagesand chat sessions, with his permission. My comments in italics.

The story starts in mid-October. He and about 100other artisans had been moved to an alley near the Plaza Tapatia and the Degollado Theatre, leavingthe main plaza open. Guadalajara would be hosting the PanAmericangames, starting the 14^th of October, andcontinuing for 2 weeks. The city was in a celebratory mood, but therewere still a few last details to be taken care of before she showedher face to the world.

Thursday, Oct. 10, 2011

Ate breakfast, and then spent what money I had onmaterials, and went to work. Sales were snail-slow, but it was only12:30, and afternoons are when most of the fish bite.

“Huele a lluvia” (It smells like rain.) I told myneighbour, Pipa*.

”Si, va a llover”.

There were no clouds, and the minutes passed.Thunder, and then, without enough time to cover our stands withplastic, black clouds surround us and from the sky flows a torrentialriver of rain. Plastics now covering our stands, we take shelterwherever we can. And it rains, and the minutes pass and they becomehours and the rain never stops. And then as suddenly as it began, itends, the clouds have disappeared and the sky is clear in the fadinglight of dusk.

All of the possible clients have now gone, and allour stuff is wet.

That night, I lay out all my stand on the bed to letthings dry. I´ve managed to sell about 30 pesos and buy myself a lightmeal and a ½ litre of milk.

Friday, Oct. 11, 2001

I wake up hungry, and a little late. Everything isdry so I pack it up and go to work. It rained again during the night,but the pavement is bone dry and the sun is glaring.

When I arrive at the plaza, pushing my little dolly,it is empty, save a few passers-by. And an army of civil servants inred shirts, with groups of police in strategic locations. With theirsteely glares, they tell me that it doesn’t matter if I’m hungry,I’m no longer allowed to work.

I begin to look for the others in the most likelyspots, and find them lined up at the side of the Teatro Degollado,with small white plastic sheets on the pavement. So I join them inline.

70 families of Artesanos had been given a place tosell, and as we were a few blocks from the Plaza Tapatia, we had beentold we would not be disturbed during the PanAmerican games.Obviously, someone had not told us the truth. Someone had decidedthat we would be seen by tourists, and that was not the image theywant of their shiny new PanAmerican Guadalajara. Funny thing is,tourists, as well as the locals, want to see us. If not, they wouldnot be our clients.

We were offered no alternative except to go findanother way to make money for the next month. We could talk once thecity was not crawling with international press, but until then, wewere not able to work.

(They try, anyhow.)

It is around 1.30 pm. We place some merchandise onour white plastic sheets. Not very much, because we know it can betaken away. And we wait. Some of us manage to sell a bit. I manageto get enough for breakfast. Not all were lucky that day.

And then 3:00. They come. The army of red shirts, anda platoon of bicycle cops.

A few months ago, a few days before I came with my 7diaries, there had been violence and more than a dozen of ourcompañeros had been beaten and jailed.

We are nervous and tense. We make a barrier infront of our plastic sheets. Some hold hands. Tension. We want noviolence, but we will not back down. They have taken away our rightto earn our food and keep.

We began to chant: “¿Quienessomos? Artesanos. ¿Que queremos? Trabajar. ¿Como nos tratan? Comodelinquentes.” (Who are we? Artisans. What do we want? To work. Howdo they treat us? Like criminals.)

Fortunately, the press has arrived, and most of thepublic, local and international, are on our side. We are fighting fora just cause. There will be no violence. At least not today.

The civil servants stand in front of our stands,blocking the public from our make-shift stands. And the bicycle copswatch in small groups off to the side.

At first, it is fun. The public loves us and joins inour chants. Drummers come. It feels more like a party than a protest. We are hungry. We are fighting a just war. We will not back down.

But the days have worn on. And the violence hascome. We are tired and hungry. And our stands have been diminished.On the 21^st,we protested with drums and whistles in front of the Presidencia. Weare fighting a just war. We will not back down.

We have finally been given a place to sell within thePlaza Tapatia but it is somewhat hidden and has been used as publicbathroom for quite some time. We are cramped, three people to astand. But at last, we have a cease fire. We sell enough to barelysurvive.

We do not want hand outs.

All we want is to be able to work, as we had beendoing, and at least have the opportunity to have our families wellfed, and to struggle with dignity for whatever dreams we may have. Weare fighting a just war. We are Artesanos. We will not back down.

(Somehow, they hang on.)

November 5, 2010

Yesterday, from 11:30 til 7:00, I sold 10 pesos. Can’t even buy a coffee with that. Around 4:00 PM, I find a guy that owes me some money, and get enough out of him to buy me breakfast. I share it with Lupe, a good loyal friend, and Estela; it is their breakfast, too. They have not sold anything yet, either.

At 7:30 PM. I am in the Plaza Liberación, with my mochillas in a line with other artesanos. There’s a group of inspectors, we all chat, and at 8:00, their shift is up, and they begin to leave. Down go the mantas, and we begin to display our wares. There are many artesanos and sales are slow. I sell 40 pesos worth. At 11:30, I buy two hot dogs and a cup of coffee, and go home to write; I am dead tired and just fall asleep instead.

Today, I have been displaying my stuff since 11:00 am; it is 3:00 pm. Still haven’t sold anything yet. Paco is off drawing on the pavement and playing marbles with the kids and he is happy. He asks me when I’m going to eat, because he’s hungry. “When I sell something.”

“And if you don’t sell?”

“I don’t eat.”

Estela has sold 30 pesos and comes with some tacos around 3:30. Paco also brings some. Under a puesto, sitting in a circle on the pavement, Estela, Lupe, Paco and I share breakfast together. At the end of the day, between us, we have sold 40 pesos. I go off to Liberacion, and stand in line. Paco has gone. Between the 3 of us, we manage to sell 200. Tonight, we will eat. I get home at 12:30.
...

A couple of weeks ago, Consuelo asked me “¿Como te va?” (How's it going?”)

”So-so. How about you?”

“I haven't sold anything. Nor has my grandma.”

Its 5:30 PM.”¿Have you eaten?

“No”

I reach into my pockets and buy her breakfast. Consuelo is Mixteca, from Oaxaca. She is 10 years old. That night, I was hungry, but I think that there is justice in that.

The hunger is real. Poverty is an extreme form of violence.
...

Usually, this is not our reality. Before 10/11, we were doing quite well. We were rarely hungry, our stands were growing and in our pockets there was usually a little more than enough to meet our simple needs.
...

It has been a long 2 weeks. My stand is half the size it was and except for my efforts, I have no way to invest in material. The weight I had gained is now gone and when I reach in my pockets, I find them empty.

Artesanos, since time immemorial, have worked in the plazas of Mexico’s cities. That is one of Mexico’s “charms”. If we try to sell artesanías in stores, or markets, we can't pay the rent. People don’t buy artesanías in stores; they buy them in city plazas. That’s how it always has been done here in Mexico.

We draw people, and the business that are in the area,are usually very happy that we are there. The only one that seems to be having a problem with that is City Hall. And they gave us 10/11.

We don’t sell now for the following reasons:

We are hidden behind trees, away from the flow of passers-by, cramped beside an abandoned building under the archways, where there is still a residual aroma of human urine.
We have all just received a three week sh*t kicking that has left us battered and exhausted. We are hungry and our puestos are decimated.

Personally speaking, my puesto before 10/11 was worth more than 35,000 pesos. I had built that from an initial investment of 3000 pesos only 2 months ago. I had just had an order that would earn me 2000 pesos in 3 days work. If I felt hungry, I ate. There was always enough money for that.

Now,I’d be lucky to get 3000 pesos for my puesto if I sold it all. I have material. But I don’t have the essentials. I can’t work my material without the essentials.

My puesto is visually not appealing. It’s been through a war. It has been trampled on and bleached by the sun. It needs lustre. It needs the essentials.

The order that would earn me 2000 in 3 days went out the window because it was from a compañero who had wanted diaries and today, he’s just as jodido as I am.

Please remember us in your prayers. I am not a religious man, but i do believe that there is a power in prayer.
Thank you.

There's more. What's more, there's hope. Continued, soon.

*Names have been changed to protect the vendors and their children.

Our daily art, Part Two

2011-11-15T03:59:00.001-08:00

Part One, Taxco, 1990s.

Part 2: Fast-forward to another time and place:Guadalajara, Jalisco, summer of 2011.

Guadalajara! Pearl of the West,Mexicans call her. She is the second cultural centre of Mexico, wheremodern architectural wonders rub shoulders with impressive colonialbuildings housing museums, theatres (Teatro Degollado, for example), universities,and cathedrals surrounded by parks and plazas. It is home to mariachimusic, colorful costumes, dance. I'm sure you've heard of the MexicanHat Dance, the Jarabe Tapatío; it comes from Guadalajara.

And, of course, there is folk art andhandcrafts, traditional and modern. I collect pottery from Tonalá, once a village, now part of the expanding city. At the various markets, you may find leather work, huaraches, blown glass, embroidered textiles, baskets (of course); objects in clay, wool, corn husks, wood, stone, metal. I remember being entranced by delicate, tiny baskets and bowls made of woven gum, the chicle that chewing gum is based on.

Turtle, from Tonalá, Guadalajara

Along Devil's Alley, beside the Plaza Tapatía, (photo, with artisans) a small group of wanderingartisans set up their humble stands. Their customers are the busy throngs that pass that way coming and going from the Cathedral, the subway, the shops and offices around the plaza. They have been selling on these streets for as long as anyone can remember.

Let me tell you of the life of the artisans in their own words:

One sunny morning about 2 months ago (August), when the sun sparkled on the wet pavement after an earlymorning rain, I arrived at the Plaza de los Dos Templos. On top of asmall wooden crate, I placed 7 amate diaries I had made the nightbefore. I took out a box of crayons and a marker, and I was ready tobegin. That day, my job was easy. All I had to do was draw flowers and butterflies and a lot of stars.

It was the first day of an artisan market near the heart of the downtown core. I drew fairiesand cats. An hour passed, and two 6-year-old girls came to my stand and asked me why I spoke funny and why my finger was crooked, and about a thousand questions more. And then, they sat down on the sidewalk. Between them, the little basket where my crayons were. Their intentions were obvious.

But it was a good omen. Ifkids stop to look at what you make, it means good fortune to come. Atthe end of the day, there were about 12 kids drawing and making paperairplanes and I only had 1 diary left. And that night I made 15 more.

And, yes, good fortunesdid come.

I worked day andnight, and my stand grew and so did my stomach. And everytime Ireached into my pocket, there was always enough for my simple needs.

And the weeks passed ...andthen ...

Business was good, therewas promise of better; Guadalajara was expecting an influx of about 1million tourists for the PanAmerican games in October. The smallprofits from daily sales could be safely invested in materials forfuture work; the simple box “puesto” could be enlarged andbeautified. One could dream.

But, as F. says, “...and then...”

To be continued tomorrow.

Patiently waiting

2011-11-15T03:33:00.001-08:00

I'm waiting for the continuation of yesterday's post to be fact-checked, and permission given for a quote.

Meanwhile, here's a gull, also waiting.

"Well? Where are the treats?"

Our daily art

2011-11-14T00:50:00.001-08:00

Something different ...

Years ago, on the narrow stone and mudsteps that make up many of the “streets” of Taxco, in Mexico, Imet a little girl, about 9 or 10 years old. She was sitting at theedge of one of the drier and wider steps, painting on sheets of bark paper, amate, that she kept on the step above her. Finished paintings were storedby her feet on the next step down.

She showed me her work, glowing withpleasure and pride; street scenes, as she saw them. She followed nopattern. Each painting was unique, although certain motifs were inall of them; the people she knew, doing the work she was familiarwith, the flowers that overhang every roof and fill every emptycorner, the blazing sun above everything.

Taxqueña's Mexico. Paint and crayon on bark.

Detail. Men with vegetables for market, straw-thatched adobe houses.

I bought one; so did the other peoplewith me. Ten pesos I paid, if I remember correctly. I should havepaid more, but that is what she asked, and I didn't bargain, atleast.

Is this art? Primitive art, maybe? Somewould say yes; that little girl wouldn't recognize the term. Shepainted. That was how she brought home money that would buy herfamily that day's supper. But there's no doubt but that she lovedwhat she did, that she put her whole being into it, that it expressedthe colour, bustle and beauty of her home town.

Taxco is a tourist town. Many of theroofless artisans, the ones without the funds for a shop, sell theirwork around the public plaza in front of the cathedral. But downtowards the market under a roof made of cotton sheets and rope, down,down, down all those steep, slippery steps, where the people of thetown buy their daily food, these handicrafts, these “artesanías”are needed, too. There are the clay pots, mugs and bowls; the paperhangings to celebrate family and national occasions; the baskets (Ibought one of these, big enough to pack the bean and rice pots I alsotook home); the hand-woven rebosos; the stick and reed chairs,painted in cheerful colours; and yes, the occasional small paintingto decorate the walls.

Men come to market with heavy bundles ofpots on their backs, or tied onto burros dwarfed by the load. Womencarry smaller loads, but all, even the children, come burdened. All of them are involved in the production of their stock. Staying alive is serious business.

Every town in Mexico has itsequivalent, a handful or a small crowd of artisan/sellers with theirwares spread out on boxes or cloths in some convenient place wherepeople pass by. If you've been a tourist, you've seen them, maybebought something pretty to take home at what seemed like aridiculously low price.

I have a story to tell about a group ofartesanos caught in one of our modern dilemmas.

To be continued, tomorrow ...

Bloggers in the rain

2011-11-13T02:17:00.001-08:00

Let it rain! Who cares?

We were to meet Margy, who blogs at Powell River Books Blog, at Steveston, whatever the weather. When we set out, it was pouring; the highway was treacherous, with deep puddles on the curves, but by the time we got to Richmond, the rain was just a drizzle, though the wind was chilly.

The coffee shop where we met was crowded. The people all looked like locals, casually dressed, relaxing, waiting out the rain like us. We drank coffee and refills, chatting as if we'd known each other for a long time. Which we had, via our respective blogs.

Margy told us a wonderful story about collecting water (foul-smelling!) from the bottom of Powell Lake, untouched since before the last ice age. She has blogged about it, here, but missed out the best part. Which I'm not going to tell; it may be in her husband's book, "Up the Strait". Or not; in which case, I hope Margy blogs about it. I haven't read this book, yet. I have another, "Up the Lake", on Kindle, and I'll be ordering more.

The rain eased off and the cafe emptied. We bundled up and ventured out into a fine sprinkle of rain, and went shopping; the marine store down a block, and a tea and gift shop half a block further. Then, the rain having almost stopped, we wandered down to the pier to look at the boats. There was a juvenile swan right by the wharf, begging for food; an unusual sight. And further down, a loon swam placidly until I brought out the camera. Then he dived, and came up, first in the almost-black shade of a boat, then far out in the water.

Just a hint of colour in a grey scene on a grey day. The loon is underwater.

Margy's a comfortable sort, easy to be with, patient as we dawdled buying teas, cheerful even when the rain started up again and the wind was bitter. I was the one who finally wimped out; I'd forgotten to bring gloves and my fingers had gone numb. We completed the circuit back to the cars, and said our goodbyes, hopefully not for long.

Detail of the harbour. The loon is in the dark shadow of the black boat.

On the way home, it was raining so hard that twice I missed my turn, not seeing the street signs. So we ended up coming home via Westminster Highway, narrow and slow, but mercifully free of pools and flying spray.

A Skywatch post.

Red and gold, with blue mountains

2011-11-12T00:51:00.001-08:00

(This is a repost of Thursday's post that I deleted, fixing the blog.)

Fall colour in Vancouver.

I took this through the window todayfrom Laurie's doctor's office, 9 floors above the street. We'relooking northwest. Granville Street Bridge is straight ahead,Granville Island in front of and beneath it, the edge of the downtowncore on the right across False Creek. The Cypress Mountain ski slopesare just visible under the clouds. And out in English Bay, ahalf-dozen ships are waiting to load or off-load.

Frazzled nerves

2011-11-10T23:43:00.001-08:00

What a day! Last night, Google put a big red warning sign on the blog; it had been infected with malware. I've spent the night and all day today, trying to find and eradicate the source of the problem. I think I must have got it, because Google now says they do not detect any malware. (Big sigh of relief!)

A hawk named Google? (Vacant lot, this summer)

In the process, however, I deleted several widgets, most of my blogroll, most of the blogs I follow, all my followers, and a few links in specific posts. Somewhere in all of it, the deceptive link got removed; I stopped deleting then, but I'd lost most of the blogs I love to read. I'll re-load the blogroll, with the few links I still have.

Could I ask you a favour? If you don't show up on the blogroll, and you know you should, could you please drop me a line here in the comments, or by e-mail (wanderinweeta at gmail dot com)? Thanks!

I've enabled moderation for comments for now. Sorry about that, but I just want to insure against re-infection. I'll figure out how to killfile the offender as soon as I can, and then I can go back to normal.

Sad remains.

I should be thanking Google, too. I would hate to have gone on merrily handing out copies of whatever bug I'd contracted. Thanks for warning me, Google! And thanks to you people for your screen shots and suggestions.

Now, off to install widgets again ...