Palest blues

Oyster Bay at mid tide.

From the new tip of the sandbar, looking east over the tide flats to the breakwater. Mitlenatch Island in the background, at mid-Strait.

Incoming tides swirl around counter-clockwise, then reverse when they cross the inner leg of the bar, making these wavy indentations in the sandbar.

Mostly yellow

We'd had a few days of good, steady rain, and then the sun came out, warm and inviting; it was time to go mushroom hunting. I was on my way down to Salmon Point, where there is always a good crop, when I turned to look at the trees over Oyster Bay as I passed. And the light shone on them, and they were yellow.

I got no further. I spent the rest of the afternoon at Oyster Bay.

I always park facing this tree. It's glorious at all seasons.

The internet is wonderful, and the photos it carries can transport you anywhere, but it can't do this: the first thing I noticed, passing the gate to the wild field, was the scents. Imagine a perfume made up of golden leaves, dying brown leaves, grass, the aroma of wet earth, the spicy tang of evergreens, the sweetness of crabapples half eaten by the birds and hornets, a bit more dry grass, almost hay. Add in a whiff of salt water, and the sombre note of black eelgrass out in the lagoon. Got it?

As close as a photo can get to a scent. Random shot, beside my path.

The old apple tree. The apples are gone now. The birds have had their fill.

Down in the grass and weeds, two toasted-bun mushrooms.

Aphid on a fallen maple leaf.

Zooming in on that aphid, running from the camera now.

Even the rocks are decorated for fall. Yellow and white crust lichens, bird guano lovers. These rocks are sometimes covered at high tide.

Yellow "sunny face" lichen on another rock.

So I still have to hurry down to Salmon Point to find those mushrooms before the rain sets in again.

Warm greens

Twig and fly at Oyster Bay ...

With pale, round "plate" lichens, and fall colour in the field behind.

Lumpy, bumpy, orange spider

I almost stepped on her. A fat, orange spider was parked right beside my work chair; when I turned to go for a coffee, my foot missed her by a couple of inches. She didn't even move.

She barely bothered to react when I put the camera down a few inches from her eyes. Trusting soul!

I took more photos. She turned her back on me. I don't think she liked the flash.

"Knees up, Mother Orange!"

I think she's a Marbled Orbweaver, Araneus marmoreus, an extremely variable species, but the eye placement is right, and the pattern of legs and body fits. And these spiders hate the light.

An interesting exchange on BugGuide:

"While focusing I noted that the round protruberances on her back were pulsating. Are these respiratory?..."
"Yes! ... I've noticed the pulsating as well. I believe it is a defense mechanism. ... It could be that they are trying to produce silk so that they can 'web' away from me.
But as I originally said, I think it's just a defense mechanism. Perhaps to make them look larger to predators."
… Nikole Loomis (Bush Cricket and Buckeye Lover)

When I was done, I shooed her off towards a corner, where she could safely lay in wait for the next passing harvestman. I went for the coffee, finally. When I came back, there she was, sitting patiently beside my chair again. Time to deport her!

In an Ikea glass, waiting to be moved.

I put her outside, in the rain. And it turned out that was a lucky move. That white powder on her pedipalps in the first photo? I realized that it was the remains of some diatomaceous earth I'd spread around in the hot days of last summer, when we had been invaded by fleas. I had vacuumed it since, of course, but there's a bit still hanging around in the back of my closet. And it's a spider killer, too.

Although it feels much like talcum powder to humans, diatomaceous earth is actually jagged, and when spiders walk across the powder, it begins to jab and cut into their hard exoskeleton. According to the Oregon State University, the wounds created by the jagged diatomaceous earth cause the spiders to desiccate, or lose all of the liquids and oils from their bodies. This desiccation eventually leads to death. (From sfgate)

It's a slow killer. It takes a spider two days or more to dry out and die. However, if it rains, or if the ambient humidity is high (like anywhere outside here, these days) the diatomaceous earth slides off, and the spider lives.

And fortunately, "Mother Orange" had collected it on her pedipalps and some of her feet; most of her skin was clean. I think she'll live.

Weed? Or healer?

On a logged-over site, still piled with logging slash, muddy-rutted by large machinery treads, carpeted with torn and broken branches, Ma Nature manages to create spots of beauty.

Wood groundsel, Senecio sylvaticus.

One of the new plants, getting ready to make a zillion seeds. Next year, the site will be green.

Scattered to plentiful, occasionally dominant, in non-forested communities on cutover, fire-disturbed, or continuously disturbed sites, where it inhabits exposed mineral soils. (From E-Flora, wood groundsel.)

It's mushroom (and bug) season

I was sure I'd seen a spider. I was searching through the new growth and the logging slash on a recently cleared site, looking for the last few spiders I need to complete the month of Arachtober. And I knew I had pointed the camera at one. But where was it?

It had been too fast for my shutter finger. I enlarged all my photos and peered at them, looking for even a trailing leg; nothing! But it wasn't wasted effort: I found spider food. Tiny bugs!

White and cream mushrooms. With bluish springtails, a couple of globular springtails (one brown, one orange), and a startling blue fly.

These mushrooms are coated with a jelly-like orange varnish.

Zooming in. A red-eyed fly above, and a tiny, patterned bug on the mushroom.

No critters on this beige mushroom.

Nor on these. They were all too busy on the creamy/orange ones.

A different species of orange mushrooms. The critter here is down on the piece of wood beneath them, too blurry to make out. But it's long, has two antennae visible, and a segmented body. I wish I'd focused on the wood, rather than the mushrooms.

And I eventually got my spider for today's Arachtober entry; he came to my door in the middle of the night.

Crane fly patrol.

Fuzzy feast

In a recently-logged site, now that the rains have begun in earnest, tiny, fuzzy, white mushrooms are reclaiming soggy stumps. And a flock of springtails are feasting!

Common split-gill mushroom, Schizophyllum commune. With globular springtails, probably Dicyrtominae.

Another collection, on the same stump.

The globular springtails (globular, because they're fat, round little critters) are omnivorous. Some were on the wood, and I found a few more on other stumps, but they seem to really like these mushrooms.

Springtails commonly consume fungal hyphae and spores, but also have been found to consume plant material and pollen, animal remains, colloidal materials, minerals and bacteria. (Wikipedia)

More 'shrooms and critters tomorrow.

Roots

High and dry on the rock breakwater at Oyster Bay ...

A recent addition to the shoreline.

With time, the tree will be banged and rolled about, floated and dumped, soaked and sunburnt, chipped and peeled, until it turns pale and smooth, and goes to join the rest of the driftwood along the high tide line, south of the rocks.

Eagle and four crows

Through the windshield while I waited in a line of cars for the light to change.

Tree skeleton, holding a dozen or so yellow leaves still. And the birds.

And then the light changed and the car behind revved his motor. Get a move on!

If at first you don't succeed ...

Arachtober's almost over; nine more days, nine more photos to add to this year's hundreds of spider pics. Have you gone to see what we've come up with yet? Here: Arachtober 2017.

Yesterday's and today's photos are of a spider that was driving me crazy, arranging himself on the wall in an inverted Y shape. Whenever I got close enough to focus on his eyes - always focus on the eyes, they say - he brought his knees up to protect himself. I'd go away, wait half an hour, and come back. He'd be making the Y again.

Hiding

Caught halfway

Finally!

Between the raindrops

If you don't like BC fall weather, wait a minute. Today it rained, changed its mind, blew a bit, rained again. A fog settled down, then lifted, then the rain came back. Just before sunset, the sun popped in for a few minutes, and made a rainbow.

6:01. Sunset was due in 18 minutes.

5 minutes later. The other end of the rainbow, over Quadra Island. It was starting to rain again.

Looking back west; for a few minutes, the sky was blue.

For the morning, they're promising us 100% chance of rain, and blustery winds. Sounds about right.

A Skywatch post.

Why is it

... that cats love boxes?

Or anything box-like. This week, Chia has been found in a waste-basket, the grocery bag I just emptied, the basket I store books to donate in, my new boot basket, my spare bedding box, and the cupboard I'd just taken the flash attachment out of.

"You knocked?"

And underneath a kitchen cart, too.

Schrodinger picked the right animal to put in his quantum box. Except that the cat has nine lives, so she is always alive.

(The camera sees. I should have dusted the inside of the door frame. Dings and scratches are ok; this cupboard was my grandmother's in her honeymoon house; it's entitled. But the dust is my fault. It's gone now.)

Feels like home

It has been two years (and 4 days, to be exact) since I moved to Campbell River. And, though I still miss the Lower Mainland and the wide beaches of Boundary Bay, I'm glad I'm here. Every day, no matter what the weather, or what tasks I have ahead, I find myself smiling as I head out on my errands. There's always the water, always the trees and the latest colours, always the wide sky, always a hope of seeing a deer, or the seals playing off-shore.

Today, it has been stormy and wet again. But out in the Strait, whitecaps foamed around the tip of Quadra Island, and wispy mists streamed over the tree tops. On land, trees danced in the wind, dressed in their merry reds and yellows for fall; even the streets are carpeted in old gold. An eagle rested on the tip of a swaying fir, like an old-timer in her rocking-chair.

These leaves are from last October; today I was in a rush and left the camera at home.

Magnolia leaf, October 17, 2016

Central vein

Gaze

Hermit crab, watching me watching her.

The "flames" in front of her are the remains of a kelp holdfast she's grazing on.

Warm and bright.

It's pouring rain outside. The wind howls and whistles in the shrubbery and rolls garbage can lids down the street. Leaves fly, paste themselves to my window panes.

Chia, the cat, insists on going out to see if the storm has stopped, then runs in, dripping, to shake herself off on my keyboard and screen and look reproachfully at me. It's all my fault, of course.

I paused this afternoon, to deadhead my petunias. In the rain, but they looked so sad! Even the newest flowers were shredded and drooping. The fall crocuses have fallen over, the geraniums have lost most of their petals. The nasturtiums are trying hard, but they're all spattered with mud.

Now my jacket hangs, dripping, in the shower.

The perfect time to scan my hard drive for forgotten spring flowers!

Hawkweed. A horrible pest, but still beautiful when I stop to look at it.

Teeny-tiny lemon balm flowers. Also a bit of a nuisance; it tends to take over its surroundings. But it makes a good tea or flavoured ice water.

More lemon balm. There's always more lemon balm.

Salmonberry flower. One of the first we'll see next spring.

Small, pale lilac flowers in the Museum garden, with pollinator.

Wild chokecherries. Oyster Bay, a bit later in the year.

What was this doing in the flower file? Little brown mushroom on a log, Tyee Spit.

I feel warmer and dryer, just looking at these. Let it rain!

Vain hopes

I found this fat spider behind my bed this afternoon. She's planning on rearing a large family; three egg sacs full!

But not behind my bed, she isn't!

A lamp cord makes a handy nursery.

I may be a good neighbour and move her broods carefully to a more appropriate home. Sorry, little mother, but I don't want a hundred spiderlings in my bed!

(Posted to Arachtober.)

UPDATE: She's been moved, with her brood, to a large glass jar. Just in time; an hour later, I checked to see how she's settling in, and there are a dozen or so spiderling specks wandering about, even ballooning!

Flowering Lithop

My stone plant bloomed!

First, there was a button between the two leaves, then an orange tip, then ...

First petals. October 2.

Side view, the same day.

Coming along nicely. October 4.

Full flower! October 8.

Zooming in.

Now, a week later, the flower has started to wilt. For that plant, that's it for this year; they produce, at most, one flower per plant per year.

But there's a button poking between the leaves of the plant next door! Such excitement!