November flowers

At Mud Bay.

Early, pale sunset. Everything's turning brown, but the tansy's still going strong.

New tansy buds.

Mature buttons

All over buds, and a brown fly

Sea rocket, sheltered between the rocks on the shore.

Same photo, showing dying stems.

And one little brown mushroom in wet grass.

I'm playing catch-up, after a slow November; these photos are from several weeks ago.

Wordless - Tree skeleton

Distant peeps

At Mud Bay . . .

Coming in for a landing by a mud bank

And a moment later, they were just specks in the shadow.

(Dental surgery in the morning; taking a day off from the blog, I think.)

Indefatigable weeds

It's November; even the evergreen blackberries have stopped work for the year, but a few plants never give up. Around Mud Bay, the tansy, the hawkweed, and the sea rocket are in full flower. After all, there are still a few flies and beetles around to pollinate them. Can't waste an opportunity!

These plantains, growing in the shelter of the railway approach to the bridge over the Serpentine River, seem to think it's still mid-summer.

Plantago lanceolata, at Mud Bay Station

Stretching two feet tall

Mushroom in the grass

Mud Bay Station

A spot of warm colour on a grey day

Nothing to see but ducks

We've had a few days of those thick fogs, the kind that makes you glad there's another car a few feet ahead of you; you can see its tail lights through the mist, and it's up to that driver to know where you're going. Yesterday morning's fog was just this side of rain. The garden was wet, but the sidewalks were barely damp.

It lifted slightly around lunch time, so we went to the beach.

Not that there would be much to see; blue-grey sky, grey sand, grey mud, grey water, grey birds. The tide was out a ways, coming in slowly, so slowly it brought no seaweed with it, just more grey water.

Ah, but those birds! Thousands upon thousands of ducks, in great grey rafts all across the Mud Bay end of the bay, visible mostly as dark lines on the horizon where there should be only more grey water. We walked north, towards them, but never got near enough to identify more than a few mallards. Most of the ducks were smaller. Wigeons, maybe; there had been a small flock on the duck pond in Centennial Park.

We walked for maybe an hour. It was chilly on the shore; the sun made a weak attempt at shining through the fog at one point, but quickly gave up. Not enough people out to make it worth its while.

Then something disturbed the ducks, probably an eagle. Clouds of birds rose off the water, circling silently. If they were complaining, we were too far away to hear them.

Lifting off

Laurie's camera does distances better than mine. Or than my eyes. These were the ducks nearest to us.

Sky dust.

A few wheeled overhead, before re-joining their flock at the far shore.

Zoomed 'way in; a fuzzy mallard. Many of the ducks were smaller.

The cloud lifted, swirled, thickened, and drifted off behind the dunes, where the mud lies too deep for walking. All we could see then was the end of the raft, black where everything else was grey. We gave up and went back to Tsawwassen and a toasty coffee shop.

As we drove home, the sky cleared in patches; we saw blue through the clouds. Half an hour later, they had all burnt off, and the sky was a deep, summertime blue. No fair!

Today we're back to fog and damp. Ah, BC!

A Skywatch post.

When it rains ...

... we go to Mud Bay. Sometimes, anyway; we can't spend every second day there. (Will summer never come?)

Here's Mud Bay in the rain:

Northern shore of Mud Bay at high tide, looking west towards Tsawwassen.

The weeds love the rain. Unidentified brassica.

The muddy shore, now bright with grasses and alfalfa. And a red, red dock.

I had never seen dock this red before.

"Dock ... produces 3,000 to 4,000 seeds per plant" (BC Gov. site)

There are 4 different saltmarsh plants here. The only one I can identify is the pickleweed (Salicornia virginica) on the far left.

Update: the tall stems of green flowers (pale yellow when mature) are sea arrow grass, Triglochin maritima. The tan flower heads in back are sea plantain, Plantago maritima ssp. juncoides. The salt-tolerant grass is still unidentified.

Detail of the flowering stems.

This pretty little moth sat for a brief moment on a tansy leaf.

Wet railroad tracks with starlings on a rail and on the fence. In the distance, three eagles perch on a pair of snags.

I love the way the mist separates and outlines each layer of trees. In the foreground, a rotting old fence that I always call "the teeth".

Red barn far across the fields beyond both branches of the Serpentine River, looking as if it were just a stone's throw away.

The rain stopped. At least here; it looks like it's still raining over in Tsawwassen. 

Looking east and south, the water is blue; looking west towards the hidden sun, it takes on a purple sheen.

Before we left, I picked a big handful of new, tender lambs' quarters. At home, I stir-fried them with onion for supper. Delicious!

Just wondering ...

A young man at the local aquarium supplies store tells me that, if you wade out here and dig, you'll find big green crabs a few inches down.

That's all soft, sticky mud, all the way across (3 km.) to the Nicomekl river, and Crescent Beach.

Looking southwest to Tsawwassen. Mud flats, growing grass and pickleweed.

I wonder how far you could wade before you were up to your chin in mud. How deep does that mud go?

I wonder, too, how many different critters you would pass as you sunk beneath the goo.

A Skywatch post.

While the sun still shone

It has been raining, desultorily, without enthusiasm; too damp for gardening, too cool for bugs, too grey for photos. Most of my flowers are gone anyhow. Even the begonias and winter pansies are hanging their heads under the weight of rainwater.

It's good, then, that I'm still sorting September photos, full of bright, warm, sunshiny flowers and critters.

Our neighbour's sunflowers.

Banana flower and green fruit. Beach Grove.

Flies and a beetle on goldenrod. Mud Bay Station.

Unidentified seed pods. Possibly peppergrass* (a Mustard). Mud Bay, growing through the  rip-rap.

Gumweed and Cabbage white butterfly. Mud Bay.

Tiny succulent, Beach Grove.

Orange-brown sandhill skipper* on sea rocket. Centennial Beach.

Pickleweed, Salicornia pacifica. The white "spines" are salt crystals. Salicornia gets rid of excess salt by moving it up to the tips of the stems, which turn red and eventually drop off. Mud Bay tide flats. 

Another pickleweed plant. This one is just starting to accumulate salt at the tips.

It's raining harder now. I wonder if it's going to rain all month long, to make up for our warm September.

*Thanks to biobabbler, Katie and Jodi for the IDs. (See discussion in comments.)

Well-dressed grasshopper

For once, a grasshopper let me approach without flying away. Maybe he realized that I couldn't climb his rock in a blackberry patch.

Look at his cute "shoes"! (Click on photo.)

For now, he's unidentified.

Found at Mud Bay, end of August.

Distilled sunlight

At Mud Bay, yesterday afternoon:

Birdsfoot trefoil. Orange and yellow flowers on the same stalk.

Red-tipped buds.

The plant. A legume, trailing and semi-erect, perennial.

Immature seed pods with strange pointy caps. Mature pods are fatter, and have dropped the cap.

Flowers and a visitor. Small orange butterfly, unidentified.

Faded to brown

Last year's flowering weeds, still worth looking at:

Tansy

Some sort of aster; I'll have to wait till summer for a better ID.

Goldenrod

And thistle

Tansy against the sky.

Mud Bay Station, again.