As the year turns

The nights are crisp, the days bright. A chill wind blows, tossing branches, bending dried grasses. Leaves, yellow, brown, orange, red, sail across our paths, blanket the trails, rustling as we walk through the heaps. The wind smells of spice, of warm wood, of ripe brown leaves. Eagles pipe overhead, riding the breeze. Late October on the island!

Along the Myrt Thompson trail. Fallen leaves blow across the old pavement.

Trail-side shrub.

Frozen leaves on the Ripple Rock trail.

Big-leaf maple leaves, Baikie Island.

Sit and rest a while. Trail-side log, Baikie Island.

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Finales de octubre en la isla: las noches son frías, los días llenos de luz. Un viento fresco agita los árboles, inclina la hierba en el suelo. Hojas amarillas, rojas, anaranjadas, cafés, vuelan, cruzando nuestros senderos, apilándose contra la hierba, acobijando los caminos, haciendo un sonido crujiente mientras caminamos. El aire huele a especias, a madera recalentada, a hojas maduras. Las águilas chillan allá arriba, haciendo círculos, como flotando sobre la brisa. 

Las fotos son de hojas en tres senderos: el camino Myrt Thompson, el sendero que va a Ripple Rock, y la isla Baikie.

On mossy trunks

Some more tree trunks to wonder about:

These are beside the Ripple Rock trail.

Douglas fir

The forest is deep and shady here. Most of the Douglas fir trunks have a good crop of moss, and the lower branches are lightly furred, with a different, dangly, hairy moss.

But, among them are the alders:

Red alder

The alders have bare trunks, but the branches are heavily laden with a moss that looks (from ground level) like the Douglas fir trunk moss.

Red alder trunk and branches.

Why?

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Ya que estoy mirando los troncos de árboles, aquí hay otro misterio. En un bosque al norte de la ciudad, en camino a Ripple Rock, los abetos de Douglas llevan una capa gruesa de musgo en el tronco, y en las ramas, otro musgo, más delicado, como pelos colgantes.

En el mismo bosque, los alisos rojos no traen musgo en el tronco, pero las ramas están cubiertas del musgo que crece en los abetos.

¿Porqué?

Biting off more than I can chew

At the end of a busy day, I drove down to Brown's Bay, stopping by the Ripple Rock trail on the way. Walked and drove and clambered over rocks for three hours, then came home to water the garden, and finally fell asleep downloading photos with my finger hovering over the delete button.  Good thing the originals were still there!

Thimbleberry flowers and green berries, Ripple Rock trail.

I'll start processing the Brown's Bay photos tomorrow. When I recover from today.

Trailside decor

Where the Ripple Rock trail climbs steep hills through dark, ferny woods, many purplish-blue flowers cling to the hillsides.

Coast penstemon, Penstemon serrulatus. In the background, Oregon grape leaves, another shade lover.

Out in the open, where the sun shines, the Nootka rose takes over.

Rosa nutkana. Named for Nootka Sound, on the west coast of the island, where it was first described.

A pale yellow crab spider lies in wait between two pink petals, only visible because she's stepped out of the centre of the flower.

Snag and sky

At the edge of the cliff, a dead snag stands tall, roots firmly clamped into the rock, twigs still attached. Woodpeckers have just started working on the trunk. Good eating in there!

The live trees are growing from lower down, on what looks like a bare rock face.

Ripple Rock trail, Viewpoint 1.

Double take

The Ripple Rock trail brochure classifies the trail as "Easy to Moderate". It's 8 kilometres, round trip, and takes from 2.5 to 3 hours. Yesterday, I made a second attempt at it, this time with my energetic granddaughter. I made it halfway, and turned back, to rest at the first viewpoint while she went on to the bottom of the last hill.

It's not an easy hike, although it seems so at first, where a wide road leads down, down, down to the shore at Menzies Bay. There, the trail turns and clambers up a narrow rock staircase of sorts, steep, uneven, twisty and sometimes wobbly underfoot. After a couple of bridges and more hills, we come to a viewpoint; a wide, flattish rock at the top of a cliff, carpeted with moss, dotted with flowers. We went on. The trail drops and rises, drops again. I was starting to stumble.

By the time I had given up and returned to the viewpoint, I was out of breath and a bit dizzy. (I'm not as young as I used to be, but then, who is?) I lay flat on the moss, recovering, and watched the clouds.

The view from moss level.

Cottony clouds and the treetops.

Later, I sat on a rocky outcrop, snacking on nuts and apricots, watching flowers blow in the wind. And then a bird, a big bird, appeared between two trees, soared away off down the bay, came back with a couple of friends. They spiralled across the water, almost at my feet for a long while.

At first, I thought they were young eagles. But the wings weren't right.

Turkey vulture. The head is small, because it lacks feathers. When the light was right, I could see that it was red. And the wings are turkey vulture wings.

The wing itself is dark, but the flight feathers are pale. Against the bright sky, the light shines through them.

The red head is visible here. The bill is white, and hooked.

Later, while we had lunch on the rock, the birds joined the flock at the mouth of the bay. Too far away for photos, but I took a few anyhow; couldn't resist. And when I examined those photos at home, I discovered the imposters.

6 vultures here. But if you look closely (Click for a full-size photo), you'll discover three double-winged fliers joining the flock. Dragonflies!

Distances are deceptive; the dragonflies were probably just at the edge of our cliff.

(The trail hasn't beaten me; I'll tackle it another day, more slowly. There's no reason I have to go end to end without stopping to rest, is there?)

Another Skywatch post.

Viewpoint

Today I hiked the Ripple Rock trail. Made it over half way, then rested at Viewpoint 1.

Menzies Bay, from Ripple Rock trail viewpoint, high on a rocky cliff.

More photos and story, later. I'm taking my aching muscles to bed.

A Skywatch post.

One way to look at it

When it's impossible to separate one element of a scene from its background, go the opposite route: include everything, ground to sky.

Reflections in a pool beside the Ripple Rock trail.

Tinies along the trail

The trees along the Ripple Rock trail are crowded, tall, twisty, and thickly draped in mosses. In the afternoon sunlight, the camera sees them as criss-crossing black silhouettes, with flaring yellow sunbursts. My eyes aren't any better. So I watch the path, instead.

First skunk cabbage bud of the year.

Frayed mushrooms on a log end.

Junco, thinking that if he doesn't move at all, I won't see him.

Moss sporophytes.

And on another, short, trail:

Green lights in the understory.

The trees are beautiful, but sometimes you can't see them for the forest.