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Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Watching where we step
On a mile-wide, featureless, sandy beach, what is there to see, besides sand and sky? Plenty. But it's mostly in hiding. I've been having fun blowing up our photos of Sunday's walk to full size, to see what we missed.
Sea lettuce and a mudflat snail, Batillaria attramentaria. No telling what's underneath.
Brown seaweed, probably a dulse. Eelgrass and roots.
So far, so good. Eelgrass and seaweed are easy to see. But look again! See those little yellowish dots on the eelgrass? They're egg cases, possibly of the Black Dog Whelk, Illyanasa obsoleta*.
Here are some more, doing their best to blend in with the bubbles.
Brown tuft, navel-lint algae. With eelgrass and snail eggs.
The snails are even better at hiding; they burrow right under the wet sand. I dug a few out; mostly Black Turbans, and a whelk or two. One on the upper left, below, looks like a mudflat snail, going by the shape.
In a photo of seaweeds and eelgrass, I found this tiny collection:
White tube discarded by a worm. And what looks like whelk eggs. (Nucella sp.)
If I had seen this at the time, I would have taken a close-up. But they were so small, I missed them even on the first two examinations of the photo.
This tangle of weeds and -- something -- is intriguing:
What is that red, segmented, tentacled thing? Worm or weed?
A close-up of the end, with "tentacles". Some kind of spaghetti worm? **
This is a worm, at least. We found it writhing in an inch of water. It's about 6 inches long.
Red-banded Bamboo worm, Axiothella rubrocincta. The red rings are bristled. (Barely visible.)
Clear view of the tail end. The head is already back under the sand, and digging fast.
Their tubes were scattered here and there around this area of the beach, mostly poking just an inch or so above ground. The worms stay in these tubes; I wonder why this one was on the surface.
On the opposite side of the bay, at Boundary Bay Beach (and this is all Boundary Bay, but this side is Crescent Beach), the sand is dotted with the fecal castings of lugworms. On the Crescent Beach side, the coils of worm poop are less frequent, smaller, and finer. Look for them around these geoducks:
Pacific geoduck, Panopea abrupta. Up to 9 inches across the shell, and 20 lbs. Lifespan: 168 years!
When I touched this geoduck (pronounced gooey duck) with a toe, it retracted itself back under the sand, squirting at me as it went.
A horse clam, covered with algae and seaweed, and accompanied by grey mounds of worm poop.
(Update: I had identified this as a geoduck. I was wrong. Looking more closely at the siphon mouth, I realized that the edge of the mantle is tentacled; this identifies it as the gaper, or horse clam, Tresus nutalli. (The tentacles are green, which distinguish it from T. capax, where they are gold. I still think, though I could be wrong, that the first one is a geoduck. Neither it, nor one other similar one that we photographed show any sign of tentacles, and the other one has the characteristic one siphon, two openings of the geoduck.)
Look in front of the clam siphon; that brown coil is not lugworm poop; it looks more like a ribbon worm of some kind.
Mouth of the gaper clam.
One last critter. There were quite a few of these. But we never saw them unless we were about to step on them; then they shot out of the sand, sped a few feet away, and -- disappeared, even though we were looking right at them. One moment they were swimming, the next, there was not a trace of them.
Can you see the tidepool sculpin here? I have increased the contrast to make him stand out.
Tidepool sculpin, Oligocottus maculosus. Supremely camouflaged.
So many new things! So much to learn! What fun!
* Photo in Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest, MC198, p.228. Also, see my last year's post, No boots, no bags, some goodies anyhow, for macro photos.
** It's really an eelgrass root, with its rootlet "tentacles".
.
Sea lettuce and a mudflat snail, Batillaria attramentaria. No telling what's underneath.
Brown seaweed, probably a dulse. Eelgrass and roots.
So far, so good. Eelgrass and seaweed are easy to see. But look again! See those little yellowish dots on the eelgrass? They're egg cases, possibly of the Black Dog Whelk, Illyanasa obsoleta*.
Here are some more, doing their best to blend in with the bubbles.
Brown tuft, navel-lint algae. With eelgrass and snail eggs.
The snails are even better at hiding; they burrow right under the wet sand. I dug a few out; mostly Black Turbans, and a whelk or two. One on the upper left, below, looks like a mudflat snail, going by the shape.
In a photo of seaweeds and eelgrass, I found this tiny collection:
White tube discarded by a worm. And what looks like whelk eggs. (Nucella sp.)
If I had seen this at the time, I would have taken a close-up. But they were so small, I missed them even on the first two examinations of the photo.
This tangle of weeds and -- something -- is intriguing:
What is that red, segmented, tentacled thing? Worm or weed?
A close-up of the end, with "tentacles". Some kind of spaghetti worm? **
This is a worm, at least. We found it writhing in an inch of water. It's about 6 inches long.
Red-banded Bamboo worm, Axiothella rubrocincta. The red rings are bristled. (Barely visible.)
Clear view of the tail end. The head is already back under the sand, and digging fast.
Their tubes were scattered here and there around this area of the beach, mostly poking just an inch or so above ground. The worms stay in these tubes; I wonder why this one was on the surface.
On the opposite side of the bay, at Boundary Bay Beach (and this is all Boundary Bay, but this side is Crescent Beach), the sand is dotted with the fecal castings of lugworms. On the Crescent Beach side, the coils of worm poop are less frequent, smaller, and finer. Look for them around these geoducks:
Pacific geoduck, Panopea abrupta. Up to 9 inches across the shell, and 20 lbs. Lifespan: 168 years!
When I touched this geoduck (pronounced gooey duck) with a toe, it retracted itself back under the sand, squirting at me as it went.
A horse clam, covered with algae and seaweed, and accompanied by grey mounds of worm poop.
(Update: I had identified this as a geoduck. I was wrong. Looking more closely at the siphon mouth, I realized that the edge of the mantle is tentacled; this identifies it as the gaper, or horse clam, Tresus nutalli. (The tentacles are green, which distinguish it from T. capax, where they are gold. I still think, though I could be wrong, that the first one is a geoduck. Neither it, nor one other similar one that we photographed show any sign of tentacles, and the other one has the characteristic one siphon, two openings of the geoduck.)
Look in front of the clam siphon; that brown coil is not lugworm poop; it looks more like a ribbon worm of some kind.
Mouth of the gaper clam.
One last critter. There were quite a few of these. But we never saw them unless we were about to step on them; then they shot out of the sand, sped a few feet away, and -- disappeared, even though we were looking right at them. One moment they were swimming, the next, there was not a trace of them.
Can you see the tidepool sculpin here? I have increased the contrast to make him stand out.
Tidepool sculpin, Oligocottus maculosus. Supremely camouflaged.
So many new things! So much to learn! What fun!
* Photo in Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest, MC198, p.228. Also, see my last year's post, No boots, no bags, some goodies anyhow, for macro photos.
** It's really an eelgrass root, with its rootlet "tentacles".
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Clouds of sandpipers
We could have almost walked across Boundary Bay. Almost. If we were as light as birds, and could jump a couple of rivers, we probably could have.
On Sunday, the tide was the lowest I've seen it at Crescent Beach. We walked right out to water's edge, probably about a mile out; the beach had been flat all the way out, but there, it dropped off sharply into deep water.
The Google satellite view shows the intertidal zone; we started at the "B" on Crescent Beach, and walked straight out to the tip of the green triangle. It's about 10 kilometres over to the Boundary Bay beach on the other side of the bay. All that greenish-blue, stripy, finny sea-monster thingy on the northeast is mud flat, also exposed at low tide.
From about half-way out, looking South. Shallow pools, less than ankle-deep. The point of land at the far right is the tip of Point Roberts, across the border.
Looking straight across the mud flats to South Delta farmland.
Southwest; the hills on the left are in the US.
It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, and the water in the tide pools was warm. The sand steamed. A mist rose up, about waist-deep, all across the upper intertidal zone. It made distant figures shimmer and break up; many appeared to be walking on air. Our photos turned out vague and greyed, but that is what we were seeing, too.
Steam, walkers, and something in the distance that looks like a sailing ship. It isn't.
Looking back towards the shore, and the hills of Ocean Park. (Imaginative name, eh?)
A couple and their dog, far ahead.
More ghostly walkers.
But look closely; see the sandpipers? Far out in the bay, several flocks played an elaborate game of follow-the-leader, skimming the surface, then soaring, wheeling, drifting as if wind-blown, or suddenly reversing direction. They were barely visible, just a dancing greyness in the mist.
Runner and sandpipers. With a probable heron or two.
What we found in and on the sand, next post.
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On Sunday, the tide was the lowest I've seen it at Crescent Beach. We walked right out to water's edge, probably about a mile out; the beach had been flat all the way out, but there, it dropped off sharply into deep water.
The Google satellite view shows the intertidal zone; we started at the "B" on Crescent Beach, and walked straight out to the tip of the green triangle. It's about 10 kilometres over to the Boundary Bay beach on the other side of the bay. All that greenish-blue, stripy, finny sea-monster thingy on the northeast is mud flat, also exposed at low tide.
From about half-way out, looking South. Shallow pools, less than ankle-deep. The point of land at the far right is the tip of Point Roberts, across the border.
Looking straight across the mud flats to South Delta farmland.
Southwest; the hills on the left are in the US.
It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, and the water in the tide pools was warm. The sand steamed. A mist rose up, about waist-deep, all across the upper intertidal zone. It made distant figures shimmer and break up; many appeared to be walking on air. Our photos turned out vague and greyed, but that is what we were seeing, too.
Steam, walkers, and something in the distance that looks like a sailing ship. It isn't.
Looking back towards the shore, and the hills of Ocean Park. (Imaginative name, eh?)
A couple and their dog, far ahead.
More ghostly walkers.
But look closely; see the sandpipers? Far out in the bay, several flocks played an elaborate game of follow-the-leader, skimming the surface, then soaring, wheeling, drifting as if wind-blown, or suddenly reversing direction. They were barely visible, just a dancing greyness in the mist.
Runner and sandpipers. With a probable heron or two.
What we found in and on the sand, next post.
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Monday, April 27, 2009
Steller's Jay
Crescent Beach, yesterday:
"Private Parking," the sign says. The Jays agreed. They tolerated a few photos, then ducked behind the fence and yelled at us. "No Parking!"
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"Private Parking," the sign says. The Jays agreed. They tolerated a few photos, then ducked behind the fence and yelled at us. "No Parking!"
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Sunday, April 26, 2009
"Mr. Bumpy"
I found a little beetle, so that Beetle was his name,
Weevil, Otiorhynchus sulcatus.
And I called him "Mr. Bumpy" and he answered just the same ...
But someone let my beetle out --
Yes, someone let my beetle out --
And Beetle ran away.
(Apolgies to A. A. Milne)
More on these weevils, later.
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Weevil, Otiorhynchus sulcatus.
And I called him "Mr. Bumpy" and he answered just the same ...
But someone let my beetle out --
Yes, someone let my beetle out --
And Beetle ran away.
(Apolgies to A. A. Milne)
More on these weevils, later.
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Saturday, April 25, 2009
The long winter has ended!
All winter long, my garden sleeps in sunless shade. Sometime in the first week of April, the first rays of sunshine glance off the lawn, a few minutes at a time. Later, afternoon sun briefly touches the edge of the garden, and the potted honeysuckle, inspiring it to burst out in leaf.
And now, I have morning sun!
8 AM garden, with chickadee.
The first rays kiss my little juniper, and move on to highlight the Creeping Jenny, sneak through the Lily-of-the-valley patch, and settle on the violets for a few minutes.
Top o' the morning!
Then it moves on to waste itself fruitlessly on a bare wall, and shuts itself off in frustration. But it will be back in the afternoon, to encourage the sprouting perennials for half an hour.
We, my garden and I, are so grateful!
Begonia. Doesn't mind the shade; provides its own cheer.
I found this tiny wild violet around the corner, where the sun shines every day.
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And now, I have morning sun!
8 AM garden, with chickadee.
The first rays kiss my little juniper, and move on to highlight the Creeping Jenny, sneak through the Lily-of-the-valley patch, and settle on the violets for a few minutes.
Top o' the morning!
Then it moves on to waste itself fruitlessly on a bare wall, and shuts itself off in frustration. But it will be back in the afternoon, to encourage the sprouting perennials for half an hour.
We, my garden and I, are so grateful!
Begonia. Doesn't mind the shade; provides its own cheer.
I found this tiny wild violet around the corner, where the sun shines every day.
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Friday, April 24, 2009
These books you must -- must -- see!
I'm passing on a link from BugGirl's Blog: she found
There is even a bagworm page!*
This link takes you directly to the online museum exhibit. (You have Flash, right?)
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"... this lovely artwork from BiblioOdyssey. It’s from a Ukiyo-e book from the late 1700’s."There are 3 books; Insects, Shells, and Birds; and well over 100 paintings, each with its associated poem and translation.
There is even a bagworm page!*
This link takes you directly to the online museum exhibit. (You have Flash, right?)
"OMG is it beautiful." says BugGirl.*Bagworm poem:
On a pitch-dark nightIt wouldn't apply to Canadian bagworms, would it?
when one can't even guess
which way is East or West
the bagworm hides his lust
in a cloak of invisibility.
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Lazy afternoon
We weren't feeling ambitious; it was a day for dawdling along on flat land, on easy trails. So we went to Richmond again, and ambled around the tip of Terra Nova Natural Area. We parked at the dead end of Westminster Highway, and followed the dike to the end of River Road, then back across the fields just inside the dike; a short walk, but full of discoveries.
From the dike, we look west across Sturgeon Banks; marsh, mudflats, and shallow waters of the Fraser River estuary. The cattails here were hopping with male redwings, each proclaiming his territorial rights. We took oodles of photos, all alike, of pale brown cattails with black silhouettes enlivened with one or two sparks of brilliant red.
On the landward side, three headless mallards floated in the ditch:
There used to be farms just inside this dike, and here and there the plantings of old homesteads mark the boundaries. Just beyond this tree, a bit of yellow in the shrubbery is an old forsythia.
Yellow tree.
Atop a hill of dirt and gravel dredged from the newly-cleared slough, a stream-side flower blooms:
American brooklime. Usually found on the edges of slow creeks.
Twinberry leaves and flower buds.
The twinberry, Lonicera involucrata, is a native plant, usually seen in sunny areas near water. We found them thriving on Finn Slough, and I was familiar with them on Vancouver Island years ago. I always thought the shiny blue-black berries were poisonous; somebody must have told me this early on. I did try one, when I was a kid. It was very bitter, and I spit it out. Now I read that they are edible, and sometimes palatable.
Unidentified weed, going to seed.
Rich brown trunks and branches. Beauty that will soon be hidden under a green blanket, also beautiful.
At the tip of River Road, a slough divides presently occupied land from heritage sites. We turned here and followed the slough back to the new pond.
Terra Nova Slough.
New buds.
Apple blossoms in an abandoned garden.
In a grove of trees beside the mound of dirt, several Yellow-Rumped Warblers teased us, always being just behind a branch, directly between us and the sun, or not where they were when we pressed the shutter. Not even in the same tree! I got this male from the top of the hill, getting up at eye-level to the trees. He didn't give me a second chance.
Back along the trail on the landward side of the ditch, clumps of garden plants, daffodils and tulips, more forsythia, Pieris, marked the location of long-forgotten front stoops . Under the protection of nettles and blackberry canes (Vicious! One jabbed a thorn deep into the top of my scalp.), we found these Spring Snowflakes, Leucojum vernum:
About a foot tall, slightly fragrant, glowing white bells with green pinched petal tips.
One was handily turned face up.
I had never seen these before, and was awestruck. So elegant, so graceful, so modest withal! I am going to be looking for some for my shade garden.
And to top the afternoon off, a flock of geese flew south overhead, honking and chattering among themselves as they travelled.
Time for tea in Steveston! Well, tea and a muffin for Laurie, coffee for me. And then home, well content.
.
From the dike, we look west across Sturgeon Banks; marsh, mudflats, and shallow waters of the Fraser River estuary. The cattails here were hopping with male redwings, each proclaiming his territorial rights. We took oodles of photos, all alike, of pale brown cattails with black silhouettes enlivened with one or two sparks of brilliant red.
On the landward side, three headless mallards floated in the ditch:
There used to be farms just inside this dike, and here and there the plantings of old homesteads mark the boundaries. Just beyond this tree, a bit of yellow in the shrubbery is an old forsythia.
Yellow tree.
Atop a hill of dirt and gravel dredged from the newly-cleared slough, a stream-side flower blooms:
American brooklime. Usually found on the edges of slow creeks.
Twinberry leaves and flower buds.
The twinberry, Lonicera involucrata, is a native plant, usually seen in sunny areas near water. We found them thriving on Finn Slough, and I was familiar with them on Vancouver Island years ago. I always thought the shiny blue-black berries were poisonous; somebody must have told me this early on. I did try one, when I was a kid. It was very bitter, and I spit it out. Now I read that they are edible, and sometimes palatable.
"Fruit - raw or dried. A pleasant taste. Not tasty enough to be widely sought. The only form we have tried has an incredibly bitter taste."I'll have to repeat the taste test this summer.
Unidentified weed, going to seed.
Rich brown trunks and branches. Beauty that will soon be hidden under a green blanket, also beautiful.
At the tip of River Road, a slough divides presently occupied land from heritage sites. We turned here and followed the slough back to the new pond.
Terra Nova Slough.
New buds.
Apple blossoms in an abandoned garden.
In a grove of trees beside the mound of dirt, several Yellow-Rumped Warblers teased us, always being just behind a branch, directly between us and the sun, or not where they were when we pressed the shutter. Not even in the same tree! I got this male from the top of the hill, getting up at eye-level to the trees. He didn't give me a second chance.
Back along the trail on the landward side of the ditch, clumps of garden plants, daffodils and tulips, more forsythia, Pieris, marked the location of long-forgotten front stoops . Under the protection of nettles and blackberry canes (Vicious! One jabbed a thorn deep into the top of my scalp.), we found these Spring Snowflakes, Leucojum vernum:
About a foot tall, slightly fragrant, glowing white bells with green pinched petal tips.
One was handily turned face up.
I had never seen these before, and was awestruck. So elegant, so graceful, so modest withal! I am going to be looking for some for my shade garden.
And to top the afternoon off, a flock of geese flew south overhead, honking and chattering among themselves as they travelled.
Time for tea in Steveston! Well, tea and a muffin for Laurie, coffee for me. And then home, well content.
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Thursday, April 23, 2009
At home in the garden
It was Earth Day. And I spent most of it up to my elbows in the stuff. Earth.
First, I re-potted and trimmed all but one of my houseplants. Then I moved outside, and repotted most of the outside container plants, divided the hostas, transplanted some of the London Pride*, trimmed the evergreens, ripped out a mountain of moss, top-dressed the second half of the garden with manure, and repositioned a wire fence.
A pleasant, contemplative day; I love digging in the dirt!
For the smaller hostas, I decided to use a planter box that had spent the winter upside-down in a dry spot. When I flipped it over, I found it full of spider webs. I brushed some away, and a big Tegenaria rushed out.
Several clumps of frass hung in the box; I fished this one out to examine it.
Frass
I thought I could identify what she's been eating, but other than that ridged thing, which I think is the remains of a woodbug, nothing there is identifiable. Yet it all came from her food, since nothing could fall into her cozy upside-down house; it all walked or slithered or crawled in through the cracks between the boards. She's quite a tidy housekeeper, and ties up her garbage and hangs it out to dry well away from her nest area.
There's always the worry, with these; is she a hobo spider, T. agrestis? Does she bite, is she aggressive, is she venomous? I went back to check my list of identifying marks from last year.
Let's see: I didn't get a look at the underside, nor the top of the cephalothorax. But she has dark rings around her legs, and pointy pedipalps. She's not a hobo; no need to evict her.
I put the box back where I found it, and found another planter for my hostas.
*This (the London Pride link) was from my previous blog. Reading it over, I found a few posts that I think are worth reposting on this blog, starting with my "Shade garden" series, since we're in planting season again.
.
First, I re-potted and trimmed all but one of my houseplants. Then I moved outside, and repotted most of the outside container plants, divided the hostas, transplanted some of the London Pride*, trimmed the evergreens, ripped out a mountain of moss, top-dressed the second half of the garden with manure, and repositioned a wire fence.
A pleasant, contemplative day; I love digging in the dirt!
For the smaller hostas, I decided to use a planter box that had spent the winter upside-down in a dry spot. When I flipped it over, I found it full of spider webs. I brushed some away, and a big Tegenaria rushed out.
Several clumps of frass hung in the box; I fished this one out to examine it.
Frass
I thought I could identify what she's been eating, but other than that ridged thing, which I think is the remains of a woodbug, nothing there is identifiable. Yet it all came from her food, since nothing could fall into her cozy upside-down house; it all walked or slithered or crawled in through the cracks between the boards. She's quite a tidy housekeeper, and ties up her garbage and hangs it out to dry well away from her nest area.
There's always the worry, with these; is she a hobo spider, T. agrestis? Does she bite, is she aggressive, is she venomous? I went back to check my list of identifying marks from last year.
Let's see: I didn't get a look at the underside, nor the top of the cephalothorax. But she has dark rings around her legs, and pointy pedipalps. She's not a hobo; no need to evict her.
I put the box back where I found it, and found another planter for my hostas.
*This (the London Pride link) was from my previous blog. Reading it over, I found a few posts that I think are worth reposting on this blog, starting with my "Shade garden" series, since we're in planting season again.
.
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