Determined? Persistent? Or just plain stubborn?

Summer has arrived in Cougar Creek Park. The early waterfowl are gone, except for a few mallards, the trees are completely leafed out, and the water is high.

That's the edge of a beaver dam at the bottom of the photo. Laurie climbed under the bridge to look at it from the downstream side:

"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; 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.

Now, someone has devised a new strategy: wire netting, with scrap wood jammed in to give the beavers something to chew on without damaging the tree.

I don't know who will win this argument; neither side seems inclined to compromise. But the lake does look lovely, with the water now covering the muddy banks.

Green, green, and green. Even the duck.

The beavers aren't the only busy ones in the park:

Bee on wild rose.

Very pale, big-eyed bee on white thimbleberry blossoms.

The first salmonberries of the season. Not quite ripe, but tasty enough.

Chickadee hanging upside-down, feeding from the willow catkins.

Cedar waxwing.

The tall evergreens were a-flitter with tiny birds we never got close enough to identify, a robin pair sang in a small cedar, finches and crows kept up a lively conversation. A clump of cattails has taken root along the edge of the beavers' widened creek, yellow irises bloom where the heron fishes, ninebark and Indian plum are flowering.

And on the tame side, a variegated lilac leans over a back fence.


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Such fun!

We bought a new camera yesterday, a Nikon CoolPix P90. I'm still in the process of setting it up to Laurie's and my preferences*, but I took a few quick shots of a humongous (and frantic) ant that crossed my path. I took them again with the old Olympus (SP55OUZ), for comparison.

This one is from the Olympus:

And this is from the Nikon:

The colour seems better with the new one, and it gives me more detail. And I had a better ratio of acceptable shots to lousy ones with the Nikon, too.

I think I'm going to go redo all my carpet beetle and spider photos. The other thing we're hoping for with this camera, is a better zoom on distant birds. We'll do some experiments on that, tomorrow.

*Reading manuals and doing setups is my job; I actually enjoy it.

Oh, and the ant has been set free to continue her journey.

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The case of the pregnant mummies

"Aphid mummy." I never would have thought to Google that phrase on my own.

Fellow bloggers are so helpful! In my previous post, I was stymied and asking for help; within a couple of hours, Christopher, then Seabrooke and Neil were there with information and ideas on where to find more. (Thanks!)

So I Googled and examined my tree, and looked at photos on BugGuide. Here's what I've found out, so far.

First, the mummies. (I love that concept; mummies in my maple tree!) A small wasp lays one egg in a live aphid. The aphid continues to develop, fattening up as the wasp larva matures (almost as if it were pregnant). It changes colour, becoming silvery-brown. When the wasp pupates, the aphid dies; later, the adult wasp cuts a hole through the mummy's back. These are the holes I saw.

I examined all the branches that I could reach on my maple tree. I found no more mummies, but plenty of aphids:

Brown aphid on maple flower.

This aphid has the same pattern of hairy studs that the mummies had; two lines of studs on the back, one on each lower edge. Here's that photo of a mummy, again:


BugGuide has a photo of a mummy colony, and one showing the hole with a sort of trapdoor lid. These are not the same species of aphid; they were found on bamboo, and have no studs.

Next, the parasite: Google (and Neil's hint) gave me Aphidiinae, small black wasps that lay eggs in unfortunate aphids, and a photo that almost matches the ones I found.


One of the mummies in my tin seemed to have something dark in the abdomen, even though the hole had been cut through. I wondered if maybe the wasp was still inside, so I replaced the lid and waited. Sure enough, in the morning, this wasp had emerged. He has a narrow wasp waist, a sharply-pointed rear end, and those kinky antennae Christopher had noticed. I found several others like him on the tree.

"Each aphid parasite species attacks only a few aphid species and they will not attack any other (nonaphid) group of pests." From Illinois Natural History Survey.

There were a couple of green spitbugs on the maple. It looks like they don't have to worry about the wasps.

Also on the tree, confusing the issue, were many tiny black flying critters, about the same size as the wasps (1/8 inch, more or less, not counting that extra-long wing):


It turns out that they are the winged form of the aphids; I found a photo here. They are Periphyllus, or maple aphids, as Neil had suggested.

I've collected a fresh batch of maple leaves, and shut them up in the aquarium. They came with a batch of aphids, and at least one wasp. I hope there are more. I want to see if I can catch them laying eggs.

At least one website calls these wasps "beneficial". It all depends on your point of view. If you are a gardener, they're great; not so much if you're an aphid.

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Two for the price of one

Last week, while I was harvesting fresh maple flowers for my carpet beetles, I noticed a couple of silvery-brown lumps on the underside of a leaf, so I cut that, too. They turned out to be tiny fat beetle-like insects, decorated with four neat rows of studs, each with its own blond hair. They were stuck firmly to the middle vein of the leaf, and didn't respond to tickling with a paintbrush. Dead, dormant, or in the middle of some buggy process? I couldn't tell.


I put the piece of leaf into my little viewing tin, where I could watch and see what happened next. Later on, I had a better idea, and looked over the tree until I found two more leaves with the sleeping bugs; these leaves I harvested with stems, and put them in water in a small aquarium with a good lid.


These "beetles," like the first two, were also lined up on the central vein of their respective leaves.

I've been watching all week; nothing changed until tonight, when I noticed that one of the tinned bugs had a big hole in the rear abdomen:

Evacuated bug on a drying leaf.

A tiny fly was flitting around in the tin. I checked the aquarium; sure enough, both bugs had holes in more or less the same location. And a tiny fly raced up and down the walls.

And another on a still-fresh leaf.

The flies were very small, very fast. I managed to photograph one:

Black fly on a vintage cats-eye marble.

The other, the one in the tin, I trapped (it took me a while) and dumped in a container where a lame spider was resting; he woke up and caught it in less than a minute.

"Just what the doctor ordered!"

So what has been happening? Were these bugs parasitized by the flies before they settled on the leaves, or afterwards? Or are they a previous stage of the flies themselves? (This doesn't seem possible, but I keep running into "impossible" things.)

Help! I don't even know where to start looking for these. Any and all hints, suggestions, wild ideas are welcome.

*Update: see comments for answers, also the follow-up post, The Case of the Pregnant Mummies.

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Wordless Wednesday

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It's that time of year again ...

Every river has its feathered babies.

On the bank of the Little Campbell River, Semiahmoo Reserve, this mallard led her brood through the grass:

Three little heads

They jumped off the edge, to join Daddy in the river ...

... got themselves organized, and swam off upstream.

With mallards, there's always a straggler.

And on the shores of the Nicomekl River, ten obedient little goslings stayed close to their parents:

Ten babies.

I love those big, floppy feet!

A cutie.

Under the parent's watchful eye.

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Flicker nest

In an alder and blackberry strip of bush, in Semiahmoo Reserve, looking down on us from a fungus-ridden snag:

A flicker, on the nest.

It was very curious, and never took its eyes off us. Otherwise, it barely moved. We'd never have seen it, except that we were checking out the fungus, a bit greyer than our usual bracket fungus.

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Very bad, very blurry, wonderful photos

I'm not very good with binoculars. I get lost; I go branch to branch on the tree where I just saw that bird, always on the wrong branch. And when I find the target and start to zoom in on it, my hand shakes and ... I begin again.

Once I discovered the auto-focus mode of my first digital camera, the bins got left at home. Now I zoom in, watching the whole scene on my screen, then halfway depress the shutter button, and -- Aha! A cormorant! Or another crow having an argument with an eagle!

Sometimes, though, I zoom as far as the camera will go, focus, and say, "I don't know. A seagull, maybe. Or a fishing boat float?" If I'm curious enough, I'll take the photo anyway, and see if I can clear it up at home.

I delete zillions of photos of unidentifiable birds. Or maybe fishing boat floats.

And occasionally, I discover a bird I had seen, and yet not seen. A lifer, even. This past week, there were two. And one that didn't show up.

Far away, at water's edge off Semiahmoo Reserve, (White Rock area), we saw a line of black and white specks; they turned out to be (probably) Caspian terns. First time I'd seen these and knew it.

Sterna caspia

They are definitely terns, but conceivably could be another species. The Caspians are occasional visitors to this area, are about the size of a medium seagull, have a black cap and large red bill. The photo in my Audubon Field Guide shows black legs; other terns have orange legs. And the Caspian has a slight crest on the head; in my photo, the "caps" often seem peaked towards the back. The Audubon's photo shows a black tip on the bill, but the write-up does not mention it. I can't see one on any of these birds.

At the western end of the White Rock beach, near Kwomais Point, three bumps slept on a rock. They turned out to be Harlequin ducks.

Harlequins, two males and one female.

At this distance, the colours (slate blue and chestnut) are almost gone, but we identified them by the white markings; the faces are hidden under the wings, but the strong "V" at the neck is plainly visible, as is the bold stripe across the shoulder area. Another first for me.

By the way, their Latin name is Histrionicus histrionicus. Meaning a double show-off?

The Harlequin Duck takes its name from Arlecchino, Harlequin in French, a colourfully dressed character in Commedia dell'arte. The species name comes from the Latin word "histrio", "actor". Wikipedia

This next was not a stranger, nor a surprise; we heard him calling long before we saw him. But all we could see was a silhouette against the sky. A very odd silhouette.

A kingfisher, Ceryle alcyon.

Bad hair day.

And last, a sparrow. Another silhouette, lightened up and cleared of a rainbow effect from shooting directly into the sunlight. He was singing so beautifully that he deserved his 15 minutes of fame.


He can stand in for the flock of swallows we were trying to photograph. Impossible! They were in a narrow ravine, cutting down the cliff by Kwomais point, and had made burrows in a tall clay cliff. We could see the holes that they went into and out of, the swallows swooping around, up, down, across the ravine, zipping into the holes again. It was a good place for them; protected, out of reach of all but the most ambitious teenagers (who had carved their initials into the lower part of the cliff), and, with a trickling stream at the bottom, home to a cloud of gnats.

We took many photos of the cliff face. No swallows appeared in them, not even shadows of swallows. And the nest holes were indistinguishable from the dents and flakes on the wall.

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Weevil's evening out

Black vine weevil:

Otiorhynchus sulcatus. Look at the pretty antennae; like a chain with a golden pendant.

Wearing her best jewelled shoes in lieu of earrings, since she has no ears.

Dressed in her finest threads.

Ready to go partying!

Lights, music, -- dance!

Kick up those heels!

(The pink wall is a synthetic ice pack; I brought it out to slow the overactive weevil down, but instead, it went crazy trying to climb up the side.)

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In shallow waters

We had arrived at Boundary Bay shortly after high tide. The beach was a network of sand and ankle-deep rivers. We decided to wade out to the last sandbar.

Off Maple Bay. That's the Canada/US boundary marker out in the water.

But when we reached that last sandbar, there was a new one beyond it, risen from the waves.


And one beyond that, again.


And another; they kept appearing from where, moments before, there had been nothing but water.


And even more, farther out...


And we never got even knee-deep in water.

We had to wade carefully; I had open-toed sandals, and the crabs were out in force. Can you see this one?


Here's a little green one:


And a pair. I think the small one may be dead. The other was very much alive.


And this one was big; at least six inches across the shell.


A clump of dead eelgrass. But, careful!


I watched a big crab scuttle under a tangle of seaweed. I waited for it to come out the other side, and when it didn't appear, I kicked the clump away. There was no sign of the crab. It must have buried itself under the sand. After that, I avoided anything that could have been a hideout.

(Why is it, I wonder, that I have never minded crabs pinching my fingers, but the idea of them pinching my toes gives me the shudders?)

On the way back, of course, the water was shallower -- warmer -- shallower -- and gone. So were the crabs.

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