Off the beaten track

I spent much of today on the road, hurrying along freeways and up city streets, racing the clock. On the way home, I was feeling very sleepy, and on the spur of the moment, took an unfamiliar exit off the highway, and then, to get out of the way of trucks, dodged down a dead-end street, going south towards the river.

A quick walk in the cold without my coat woke me up. And my little old camera was in my purse (and the battery was charged - oh, joy!). I wandered about snapping photos of everything and nothing until my fingers went numb, then got back in the car and came home.

I liked these 4 photos.

Above a ditch full of blackberry canes, these dead fireweed stalks reach for the sky.

At the dead end of the dead end, a rough trail led to this fence, and to one of the tugboats that ply the river, in for repairs. The trees are on the bank of the river.

Frozen roses, crispy and shrunken, but still pink.

I'm back on the road home, waiting for the light at my turnoff, and looking at the back side of  Burns Bog. I love this view in winter; in the summer the skeletons of the trees are hidden behind a green blanket.

On the road again tomorrow. I hope the weather holds.

You're the one!

Lulu Island, just northwest of us in the delta, is a watery place, a flat, wet land where blueberries grow wild, where fields are red with floating cranberries in season. Much of the island is, or once was, acidic peat bog, similar to our own Burns Bog. The Richmond Nature Park even has a quaking trail, a section of the bog made of a thick layer of decaying vegetation, floating on the soaking wet peat so that it bounces as you walk. Kids love it.

When it rains, the deep ditches (I think you could lose a small car in a few of them) are full of brown water; bog runoff. And the drainage pipes under roads vibrate from the urgency of the water racing to the sloughs and the Fraser river.

Laurie found this rubber ducky tossed to one side by the current.

Valiant little traveler

Roaring rapids

Will he brave the current again?

The duck, like the lumber, the pipes, and the bricks, has been stained by the tannins leached out of the peat, although the duck has lost some of it to scrapes along the way. These bottles we found lying on the bank are "tanned" to a nice leathery colour.

Tannins provide the red or brown colour of many of our foods, too. Nuts, some fruit, and even chocolate, for example.

We left the duck deciding whether to dive or not. I'm sure he did, eventually; he was vibrating with impatience. (Or with the motion of the pipe.) If you ever see, floating somewhere in the ocean, a brown and yellow rubber ducky, say hello!

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:

Maybe a mallard/ostrich cross.


New fertile heads of giant horsetail, on the banks of 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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Gray day at Steveston pier.

It looked like rain, but the sky was blue to the east. We dressed for rain and went to Steveston to look at fishboats.

The historic cannery, under a steely sky.


Tug coming in for a landing.


Paulina. Very tidy, freshly painted.


Brenda; the feminine touch.


Empty spool, usually holding nets.


Smaller spool, with assorted nets.


All it takes is a crack with a smidgen of mud ...


Chugging upriver.


Rope ends.

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That was fast!

I ordered a book. Monday evening. It was here Thursday morning. 2 working days. Even Canada Post cooperated. I'm in shock!

The story: Hugh, at Rock, Paper, Lizard, wrote a review, last Sunday, of the book, "A Nature Guide to Boundary Bay", by Anne Murray. I had seen it earlier, had intended to buy it, and forgotten; Hugh's post was a good reminder. I ordered it after supper on Monday, before I could forget again.

From the link on Hugh's post, to Nature Guides BC to place an order. Done. Confirmation from PayPal. And a couple of hours later, a note from Anne Murray, saying she would send the book immediately. She meant what she said; the book, in a hand-addressed envelope, was postmarked Tuesday, the very next day. And Canada Post took only 2 days to bring it here, a full 20 minutes drive away!

And I am very pleased with the book; good info, wide coverage, maps, photos, background, covering our regular stomping ground from north to south. But I'm not going to write a review; go read Hugh's; he covers it well.

One thing I miss, having been too long habituated to the web; the ability to highlight a word or phrase, left-click on 'Search Google for "whatever you wa..."', and have a whole page of info at your mousetip. Murray puts the first mention of any species in bold print, but rarely has a description. (This is not a failing of the book; she had to limit it to one volume, not a dozen.)

So I'll be reading through the book with my Audubon's Field Guide to North American Birds, Western Region, at my side. And the Field Guide to Insects and Spiders, Kozloff's "Seashore Life of the Northern Pacific Coast", and my latest acquisition, "Plants of Coastal British Columbia".

Anne Murray's book ties them all together quite tidily.

Another book ... Here, read Hugh's entire post:

A Biophysical Inventory and Evaluation of the Lulu Island Bog, Richmond, British Columbia

The long-anticipated Biophysical inventory of the Lulu Island Bog is now available online, here. (Large PDF file, may take a while.)

If you are interested in bog ecology, or the flora and fauna of southwestern British Columbia, you will find this a valuable resource.

Silly guy forgot to mention that he is the author of the chapter on birds.

This will be a handy extension of the Boundary Bay guide; it covers the bog area immediately to the north. (Burns Bog, just across the river, is in Anne Murray's book; it will be interesting to make a comparison as to species that cross that wide river barrier.)
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Two trees in the bog

Dead shore pine, Richmond bog.

Live birch, ditto.

Update: Hugh Griffith added a comment that deserves to be read as a part of this post. Therefore, I am reproducing it here:

In two pictures you have told the story of the bog. The shore pines are declining (along with the bog as a whole) and the birches (a genetic mish-mash of native paper birch and European species) are taking over.

Poor bog.

Thanks, Hugh.

Treasure Hunt

We read about them in Lulu Island Blog: sundews. The last time I had seen any in the wild was 20 years ago, in the mountains above North Vancouver. And these were right close by, in the Richmond bog. We had to go and find them.

I didn't have high hopes; they are tiny, elusive plants and the bog is big. But we would enjoy walking there, whether or not.

We started at the Richmond Nature House, off Westminster Highway. Signs outside warned us: no dogs, no bikes, no feeding the animals. Do not pick the plants, not even berries. And no smoking; bog fires are easily started, hard to put out.

In the Nature house, a very small boy was watching a very large garter snake in an aquarium. He (the snake) was flicking a red tongue out at the boy; when Laurie peered over the top, the snake rose up to investigate, sticking the tongue out even more, an inch or more. The tip was forked and black.

On to the trails. Fireweed, birch, twisty pines, salal, the occasional mountain ash. And acres and acres of blueberry, mostly the invading high-bush blueberry, quite a bit taller than it was the last time we walked there. Underneath, the Labrador tea struggles to maintain its foothold.

Blueberry. Beautiful, but invasive.

Over the pond, dragonflies danced. The tiny blue damselflies with the brilliant head and rear end, some sturdy-looking brown dragons, and one of the blood-red meadow-hawks that I had seen before by Crescent Beach. Try as I might, though, I could not get a photo; I would focus the camera on what seemed to be a favourite spot for them and wait. They would be elsewhere. As soon as I turned to where they were now, they went back and parked at the old spot. I'm sure they do it on purpose.

Pond. No dragonflies.

But we were looking for sundews. I kept my eyes mostly on the ground at the sides of the trail. There were tiny flowers, several kinds. You have to look closely at this next photo, taken down at the base of the reeds, to see the flowers; some kind of miniature shooting star. (Update: Hugh Griffith -- see comments -- identifies it as a cranberry flower. Thanks, Hugh!)

Mosses. Pale green spagnum, and this rose-coloured mat.

'shrooms. Several varieties, mostly deep in the underbrush. This one was just beside the path.


Looking up for a change, I saw a bleeding tree, with tiny trapped flies.

And, yes, we found the sundew! One small patch, a few feet across, 1/2 inch high, hiding among mosses and grasses. Almost invisible, but there it was.



The day was hot and dry; even the bog paths were dry. But when I sat on the moss to take these photos, I found out that the water table is barely finger-nail deep. The sundews' roots -- I tested -- sit in soggy soil. And they pull that water up to the tips of their leaves, and stand there looking dewy-fresh, even in the heat of the day. All done in order to trap unwary insects, coming for a drink, only to be eaten.

It's a dog-eat-dog world. But beautiful, in spite of it.

Working late, again

Too much work; another of those all-nighters.

Tomorrow, I'll continue with the Bella Coola trip: milky river, insane fishermen (and photographers) and more.

For now, back to the plowing:

Richmond field.

Once a Salt Marsh...

... and now, sun-drenched slopes where kids fly their kites. Garry Point Park, the extreme southwest corner of Lulu Island.

The last time I was here, in the 1980s, the city of Richmond had just begun terraforming. The kids and I scrambled over heaps of gravel, piles of logs and tangled driftwood. Inland, dozens of kites flew, buzzing and whistling. Today, there is a gravelled walkway along the shoreline, sandy beaches, monuments (not very interesting ones), a vaguely Japanese "Japanese Garden". And wildflowers, acres of them.

Lupins, blue, purple, pink and red.
A little brown bird flitted from one to another of these, perching on the flower spikes, bending them right over, always too far away to get a clear view.
The red area behind the lupins is mainly red sorrel; I never would have thought of it as a flower, but massed like that, it is quite attractive. Beyond them, Scotch broom, near the end of its blooming season.

Plantain, Plantago. Quite large plants, scattered over the seaward edges.
Along the north end, we came across an old slough, Scotch Pond. A couple of signboards told its history, in brief. And I'll be briefer, still: up to the late 19th century, it was Musqueam Indian territory. In 1899, the Scottish Canadian Cannery took it over. In 1905, the Japanese came in, with Atagi Boatworks. Since then, canneries, mooring, net floats and boatworks have come and gone. Since the late 1980s, it has been a heritage site owned by the City of Richmond.

In the reeds bordering the slough, we found white and yellow irises, probably planted long ago, now gone wild:


And finally, along the pathway, some variety of Malus, apple or crabapple, probably. Fragrant, white and cream, with the slightest tint of pink.

What I will remember most, though, could not be captured by any means yet known: the touch of the breeze from the water, the warmth of the sunshine, the scents -- salt, dust, flowers, and some indefinable "green" fragrance --, the song of birds and the hissing of waves on the sand. I'll just have to leave that to your imagination.