Moment under the sun

It's midsummer on Reifel Island, and in spite of the spotty, off-and-on, sort-of-summer weather we've been treated to this year, luxuriant vegetation lines the waterways. Head-high grasses, brilliant green leaves, juicy berries and little green apples, mounds and fields of flowers in glowing pink, yellow, white, and thistle-purple, drifting seed parachutes; a new glory appears at each turn of the pathway.

Along one of the inner trails, swarms of skinny bluets darted from thistle to grass to loosestrife, back to the grass to rest, briefly.

Bluets, about 1 1/2 inches long. Possibly Enallagma sp.

I couldn't get close enough to them to see clearly; in all the movement of grasses blowing in the wind, tree branches waving overhead, they somehow always noticed my cautious easing forward and darted away.

There were two colours. The males are patterned in crisp black and neon blue, females in neat brownish-black, glinting green when the light strikes them at just the right angle. I didn't see any mating couples; it's the season for love, but they would have been on the far side of the greenery, at the water's edge.

I had given up on seeing any bluets up close, and was turning to leave when I saw this:

A spider in the act of subduing a female bluet.

Zooming in. She is still moving, feebly, but her head is hanging down. I don't recognize the spider.

And in the grass behind them, the dance went on.

Update: Rebecca in the Woods has posted an amazing video of a spider wrapping up a big dragonfly. Go watch it!

Out on their own

... but not quite grown up yet. Sparrow chicks, New Westminster Quay

House sparrow, eating grass and weeds growing between the paving stones.

Still wearing his baby feathers.

A white-crowned sparrow chick, still fluffy.

The honeydew eaters

Linden trees, says Wikipedia,

"... are subject to the attack of many insects."

It's all the trees' doing; the sap flows richly and freely in its veins, easily tapped into, nutrient-rich, sweet and fragrant. Aphids harvest it, and serve it up to a throng of other insects.

Linden tree branch, with yellow jacket

Aphids, varying ages, and a molted skin.

The aphids that feed on linden are the Eucallipterus tiliae, the Linden Aphid. The new hatchlings are white or pale green, red-eyed. They develop their characteristic dark spots and stripes as they go from molt to molt. Some adults are winged.*

The thing about aphids is that they eat more than they use, and "spill" the excess. (The proper word is "exude", and the honeydew they produce is an exudate.) The nectar coats the leaves, dripping from branch to branch; the leaves become sticky. Sometimes the whole tree glistens and sweet rain falls to the ground beneath, feeding a black fungus in the grass.

And so the food chain goes, from the lawn to the tree to the aphids, to the ants that farm them and the ladybugs that prey on them, to the horde of winged critters feasting on the lot, and back to the ground to start the next cycle.

Ant on a twig

I cheated: two sizes of ants run up and down the trunk, along the branches, across the leaves. Run and run and run and run. I was having trouble getting one where I could focus on it. So I mashed a raspberry with a bit of water and sugar, and painted a stripe around the trunk, where they couldn't miss it. Five minutes later, the large ones were lining up for the treat.

Dessert bar

Ladybugs don't wait for the aphids to produce honey. They take their juice "on the hoof", with fresh aphid meat.

Medium-sized ladybug larva. The orange deepens as they grow.

Younger larva.

And a nineteen-spot adult.

Of course there are always flies.

Very small fly, unidentified.

Accidental fly. I was chasing the yellow jacket, and didn't notice the silhouette of a common fly on the back side of a leaf until later.

There's a small mob of tiny biting black flies, rarely photographed because I'm so busy swatting them before they bite, and usually being too slow.

I don't know what's hiding under this silky tunnel. Probably a pupating moth.

The wasps - dozens of them as long as the sun shines - flit from leaf to leaf, sipping nectar off the leaf surfaces, and looking for a good home for their babies, inside a caterpillar or spider.

Black and yellow mud dauber, I think.

I caught this wasp with the butterfly net, and had to chill him to calm him down. He woke up almost as soon as I brought him out; within a minute he was on his feet and heading for the door. This photo catches him just stretching and yawning.

The female wasps will build a series of one-egg mud nests. With each egg, they will deposit a paralyzed spider, then plaster over the entrance. The larva will hatch and eat the still-living spider.

The orange wasp, again. She's a ichneumon wasp, Theronia atalantae fulvescens.

These wasps prey on several moths and butterflies, notably the pine butterfly, a relative of the cabbage white. I may have seen these about and mistaken them for cabbage whites; they are very similar. The wasp also takes tussock moths and tent caterpillars.

In all the time I spent examining the tree this year, dodging wasps the whole time, I saw only one spider, and one very small caterpillar. It looks like the wasp babies are well provided.

And a tiny wasp, unidentified. It may prey on the larvae and larva food of the larger wasps.

The bark is juicy, too. I don't know what makes these tooth marks. Squirrel, maybe? An ant in the lower right corner shows the size.

Lichen on a small branch. Just because.

*Last year's post about this same tree, with larger aphid pics, is here.

Almost wordless

Hawkweed, Reifel Island:

So she's actually orange and green

I went out to the linden tree again, this time with a butterfly net. And after a few catches and immediate escapes, I finally managed to transfer one of those orange beasties to a container.

Those guys are fast!

Some kind of wasp; narrow waist, ovipositor, long antennae. Crawling up the wall of the container. A second or two later, she* was gone.

I love those stained-glass wings!

I've searched through BugGuide's orange wasps, without finding a match. So I'll crop this and a few others (belly, wing venation, etc.) and send them off for an ID.

And then I'll post my linden tree residents inventory; lots of critters coming up!

*She, because she has the ovipositor for laying eggs.

Orange blaze beastie

I am far too optimistic. I make plans as if life could be counted on to keep to a schedule. Silly of me; I should know better by now.

There were a couple of orange "something or others" dashing around the branches of the linden tree. I took photos; none turned out identifiable. Mostly, the critters had left before the camera clicked. Or there was a blurry hint of an orange streak in the distance.

The clearest shot I got was an accident; I was after the yellow jackets by this time.

See it there, in the upper left corner? Very orange, very fast. With a long "tail", which I'm guessing is an ovipositor.

I was doing inventory of the linden tree's residents this year (not the same as last year's), but I wanted those orange thingies! So I went out again this afternoon, searching for them. Now I have one more or less passable photo, at least to give me a basic idea as to where to start looking on BugGuide. I'll go out tomorrow to try again, if the weather holds.

For now, I'm off to BugGuide until I'm too sleepy to see straight.

Yellow jacket

... on the linden tree in the yard.

Western yellow jacket, Vespula pennsylvanica

I spent half an hour under the tree in the afternoon, chasing critters. I got bitten by small black flies, spider-webbed, tickled. I had ants in my shoes and down my neck, a wasp in my hair. But at least I didn't get stung this time.

The rest of the story, tomorrow.

Ceiling monitor

I have another visitor. He turned up at the door yesterday, came in (with help), then found himself a comfy spot and settled in.

He's on the ceiling; been there since last night.

Small magpie moth, Anania hortulata.

See those big eyes? Together, they're bigger than the rest of the head. Moths have compound eyes, up to 17,000 individual light receptors, ommatidia, in each large eye. There is no eyelid; these eyes are always open. And because of their relative size, they may, as in this little moth, be looking straight at you, no matter where you are. (Sort of like some spooky paintings.)

It's a weird feeling, having a pair of eyes on the ceiling, always staring down at me.

"I'm watching you, down there!"

Greendale afternoon

We were in Greendale for a family wedding at my daughter's wedding chapel. I kept myself busy between events, taking photos of the kids. Laurie wandered about, checking out the garden, watching the sun set. These are a few of his photos.

Crocosomia, shedding petals

A tangle of daisies

Hydrangea and rail fence

Busy napping

Sparrow on a wire

Light fading on the neighbour's farmhouse, pink on the clouds and mountain peaks.

More warm light

Mountains southeast of Chilliwack

Darkening clouds over the chapel bell tower.

And one of mine:

Cousins, collecting tiny flowers to refill the flower girl's basket. (After the ceremony.)

The bride was beautiful, the groom beaming, the parents proud. The weather behaved itself; not too hot, not too damp, not raining; we were able to eat dinner in the chapel gardens. But the mosquitoes -- ahh! the mosquitoes! -- they were plentiful, and bloodthirsty! It's been a bad year for them at that end of the Fraser Valley. And by the time I found the Off, both bottles were empty.

A baleful eye

happily, behind a wire fence.

My son-in-law's rooster.

Plumes over his back.

His hens, keeping their distance.

At Greendale, in Chilliwack, at the east end of the Fraser Valley.

Good question

Sign on a fence post at Crescent Beach:

What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?

So Laurie asked me, and off the top of my head, I said, "Climb a rock face." I could think of many more; build my own cabin in the Bella Coola valley, go back to school to study marine biology, learn to play the guitar and sing along (in public), go hang-gliding ...

For the most part, I'm not afraid to fail, but with some things, failure is almost inevitable.

How about you? What do you dream of doing?

We have lift-off!

Today at Crescent Beach:

Water lovers

The water was high in the Fraser River a couple of weeks ago, with some flooding in spots. The Coquitlam River flows into it, just a few metres down river from Colony Farm, which is all low-lying flood plain. When the Fraser floods, the water backs up here.At the exit from the parking lot beside the Kwikwetlem First Nations reserve (IR#1), we found a barricade and sign at our usual trail entrance: Flooded: Do Not Enter. It didn't look flooded; the path, at least, was dry. And while we wondered, a woman came around the bend from the "flooded" area. We asked her about it. "It's fine," she said, adding that the sign should have been taken down.

So we ignored the sign and headed down the trail. After a few bends, there were some muddy spots. And when I stepped, instead, into the grass, I found inch-deep water underneath.

We went on. A few more curves, and the muddy patches became puddles that eventually covered the whole path, inch-deep over stinky mud. Not exactly fine; we were glad to come to the bridge up to the dikes.

High water on the Coquitlam. The square box is a pumphouse.

Standing above the river, we could see that the water was still high, but had been higher; there was a grey layer of scum about 2 feet deep over the stems of the shrubs. And jammed up against the pilings, was a collection of debris and displaced pondweed.

Potamogeton natans, floating-leaved pondweed. The leaves come in two forms; those long, stringy things are the non-floating ones.

Leaves, detritus, and flowers. The flowers are inconspicuous, greenish yellow, and clustered on an erect stalk.

These plants are normally found in standing water, as in sloughs or ponds. The flooding, minor as it was, must have flushed them out of the old drainage ditches.

Beside the ditches, red elderberry is ripe for the picking.

Birds love these seedy fruits. They are edible for humans, but only cooked, and not especially palatable, although they are reputed to make good jams and jellies. Long ago, they were a staple food for native peoples.

But birds do love them. Even chickens; when my daughter had a couple dozen, I used to harvest the berries for them, for the fun of seeing them chase madly all over the place, trying to steal each others' treats.

Orange elderberries. I have never seen these before.

Black hawthorn, the native hawthorn. It is found often on old farm sites, especially along streams.

At this time of year, it seems that the dominant colour for flowers is pink, from native hardhack (alongside the river in the top photo) and lathyrus to stunning invasives:

A lathryus, probably purple peavine.

The noxious Policeman's helmet, Impatiens glandulifera. Notice the glowing seed pods.

A pale pink and white variety.

This plant is an escapee from gardens, and has become a worrisome invader. It grows up to ten feet tall, along streams or riversides. (Along the trail at the edge of Burns Bog, they stand with their feet in the shallow creek.) They overshadow native plants, starving them of light and nutrition, and will eventually drive them out altogether.

And those gorgeous seed pods are explosive. When they are ripe, the merest touch will make them pop open and eject the seeds, all 800 of them, up to 20 feet away. The seeds will sprout in soil or even underwater, and can survive up to 2 years, until conditions are right. Ripped out stems will sprout if left on the ground.

Bindweed buds

These are probably the introduced Hedge bindweed, Convovulvus sepium, which likes moist areas, and climbs over other plants more than the native field bindweed.

Bindweed tying up a sheaf of grasses.

Bindweed varies from dazzling white to blush pink.

Under a stand of taller trees at the edge of the reserve, we found an interesting variegated maple.

Two-tone leaf, striped snail

No two alike.

The afternoon was hot, hot, hot. We were sunburned in spite of sunscreen and hats. But our feet were dry again by the time we got back to the car.