Reaching to the sky

Yesterday I noticed the new pink catkins on the alders. Spring is on its way.

Celebrating the bare branches of deciduous trees; they'll be clothed soon enough.

Snakehead Lake, Feb. 14.

A tall alder. January, somewhere north, on Hwy. 19

Maple, Big Tree Creek.

McIvor Lake.

Alders. Looking over Seymour Narrows

A Skywatch post.

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Ayer vi las candelillas color de rosa nuevas de los alisos rojos. Un aviso: pronto llegará la primavera.

Estas fotos celebran las ramas desnudas invernales de los árboles de hoja caduca.

1. El lago Snakehead, el 14 de febrero.
2. Un aliso rojo grande. Carretera #19.
3. Un arce de hoja grande. Big Tree Creek.
4. En el lago McIvor.
5. Alisos rojos en el Estrecho Seymour.

Branches, not quite bare

The hydrangea outside my kitchen window is all over new buds. A sign of early spring, maybe, or just a response to the warm weather; it may be a mistake, if we end up with winter weather later this month.

The red alders are wearing their red catkins, too. They started producing them last November, and a bit (or a lot) of freezing weather won't phase them.

Red alder, Alnus rubra, January 2025.

The male alder flowers are the long, reddish catkins. Female catkins are smaller, and oval-shaped, greenish when they're new. Both male and female catkins appear before the leaves, but the males will drop off once pollination is finished. The female catkins will develop into small, brown cones; these stay on the tree over the winter. About now, the seeds will be dropping from between the scales of these cones. The first beginnings of pinkish leaf buds are showing at the tips of the branches.

Snag with eagle. No buds on this tree, but there's lichen.

Big-leaf maple. No leaves, no buds, no catkins yet.

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Hay botones nuevos en la hortensia en frente de mi casa. ¿Señal de primavera, tal vez? ¿Una respuesta al clima que este año, hasta ahora, ha pasado por alto el invierno? ¿O un error que se pagará si es que veamos temperaturas de invierno más tarde?

Los alisos rojos ahora estrenan sus candelillas rojizas. Las empezaron a producir en noviembre, y no les espanta el frio, aunque todo se congele.

1. Rama de aliso rojo, Alnus rubra, ahora en enero, 2025. Las candelillas machas son largas y rojas. Las candelillas hembras son más chicas, redondeadas, verdes cuando están nuevecitas. Tanto las candelillas machas como las hembras salen antes de que aparezcan las hojas, pero las candelillas machas se caerán una vez terminada la temporada de polinización. Las candelillas hembras formarán pequeñas piñas; estas permanecen en el árbol durante todo el invierno, y ahora las semillas están escapando de entre las escamas. Y se ven en la punta de las ramas los primeros brotes rojizos de las hojas.
2. El árbol estará muerto, pero lleva vida; el águila y los líquenes que cubren las ramas.
3. Un arce de hoja grande. Este árbol todavía no muestra señas de hojas, ni sus botones, ni las candelillas que aparecerán más tarde.

Barren beauty

The old saying has it backwards. In summer, sometimes you can't see the trees for the forest; they tend to merge into one solidly green mass. Whereas in winter, the deciduous trees, at least, stand out in all their barren beauty.

Sentinel. Standing guard at the exit from the estuary.

Sometimes the empty branches seem to be looming overhead, almost threateningly.

Rippled reflections

Lace against the sky. (See the bird?)

A Skywatch post. 

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“Cuando los árboles no dejan ver el bosque” es un refrán común. Pero por aquí, desde la primavera hasta el otoño, la realidad es el inverso; el bosque tantas veces no permite ver los árboles; todo se convierte en una masa densa, verde. En cambio, en el invierno los árboles de hoja caduca tienen la oportunidad de lucir toda su belleza desnuda.

1. Árbol guardián, siempre vigilando la salida del rio desde el estuario.
2. A veces parece que las ramas desnudas se alzan inhóspitas, amenazadoras.
3. Reflejos ondulados en el agua.
4. Encajes de madera contra el cielo gris. (¿Y puedes ver el pájaro?)

Un poste Skywatch. 

Finally!

She's a quick change artist: here are two photos, 3 days apart:

Last Sunday, Ma Nature was still wearing her winter outfit.

Bare branches.

And today, she's all decked out in yellow-green sequins.

New leaves, like green fairy lights.

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Un cambio rápido. Hace tres dias, los árboles llevaban las ramas desnudas, aparentemente muertas, sin color. Hoy, estrenan hojitas nuevas, luminosas.

Ya era hora.

Mostly greys and blues. And a touch of yellow.

It was an undecided sort of day. Is it winter still, or are we getting into spring? The sun kept trying to break through the clouds but the clouds were winning; the world was blue-grey. I went to Baikie Island; maybe I would find early buds. There, some of the trails were under snow, some dryish, some under water. And yes, there were leaf buds, but it was too dark to see their colours.

But the wintery light, what there was of it, made a good backdrop for the bare branches.

Baikie Slough and bare branches.

Bare branches, reflected in the slough

Alder catkins and the beginnings of leaf buds.

No catkins here. Must be a maple.

Tree lace: a tree full of catkins.

The sun again trying to do its job. The trees are cottonwoods.

And when I got home, I found my forsythia showing off its yellow-tipped flower buds. So there's that.

Must be spring, after all.

A Skywatch post.

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Era uno de esos dias, ni era primavera, ni tampoco invierno, o tanto invierno como primavera; no se decidía. El sol trataba de penetrar las nubes, pero por la mayor parte, no lo lograba. Todo era de un color gris/azul. Fui a la isla Baikie, con las esperanzas de encontrar brotes nuevas de hojas. Los senderos tambien eran variables; algunos bajo nieve, otros puros charcos de agua, otros casi secos. Y sí, había brotes nuevos, pero tan poca luz había que no se podían distinguir sus colores.

Pero la luz invernal, la poca que había, hacía un buen telón de fondo para las ramas desnudas.

Fotos:

1. El agua tranquila de Baikie, y ramas desnudas.
2. Ramas reflejadas en el agua.
3. Candelillas de aliso y los principios de brotes de hojas.
4. Aquí no hay candelillas. El árbol debe ser un arce.
5. Encaje de árbol: un árbol lleno de candelillas.
6. El sol otra vez trata de penetrar. Los árboles son álamos.
7. Y llegando a mi casa, descubrí que la forsitia estaba luciendo sus nuevos botones amarillos. Parece que sí viene la primavera.

Un post de Skywatch. 

Silhouette

 Branches and alder catkins.

Against a blue and white sky.

Another Skywatch post. 

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Los alisos en silueta; ramas y candelillas.

Leafless.

 Bare branches ...

With towhee.

With robin

Birdless. As far as I can tell.

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 Ramas secas, sin hojas.

1. Con toquí moteado (Pipilo maculatus).

2. Con petirrojo.

3. Sin pájaros. (Por lo menos pájaros visibles.)

Reaching up

 Waiting for spring.

Shrub, dried grasses basking in afternoon sunlight on the Oyster Bay spit.

Any day now, we'll start seeing buds and green tips.

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Esperando la primavera, arbustos y hierbas secas absorben el calor del sol de la tarde en la lengua de tierra encerrando Oyster Bay.

Cualquier dia de estos, empezaremos a ver botones y hojas verdes.

View from the north highway.

Looks like summer. But there is still ice on the puddles.

View over Discovery Passage towards April Point, on Quadra Island. With log boom and two tugs. And winter-blasted blackberry canes.

And the trees are stretching naked branches up towards the sun.

From the same location, looking south towards Duncan Bay.

But in my garden at home, the first hyacinth buds are swelling out. Spring is coming.

Trapped

... in a web of  branches.

Afternoon moon

Upside-down trees.

It stopped raining. Just for the day; we even had blue sky for part of the afternoon! I went to explore a new trail, dodging puddles most of the way. Puddles full of trees.

Study in greys. The cloud cover was still thick.

Branches going every which way. And the sun trying to break through.

Looking at the bush, the trees become a tangle of competing branches and fallen leaves; in the puddles, they're reflected singly against the sky.

I heard a frog couple croaking back and forth, and stood a long time with my toes in the creek, trying to see either one of them; no such luck! Wet leaves, wet branches, wet moss, wet mud, wet feet; no wet frogs. I was glad to hear them, though.

Lazy day photos

I've been down with the annual winter sniffles, but managed to make a quick trip to Tsawwassen to collect eelgrass and Turkish towel for my tank critters. I took the slow road home across the lower delta, staying off busy highways where unexpected sneezes can be dangerous.

So I got to count birds; 5 hawks, on trees and light poles; half a dozen eagles, and as many nests; hundreds and hundreds of ducks and Canada geese in soggy, muddy fields; small flocks of starlings and pigeons roosting on trees and wires; and a constant stream of gulls overhead, heading southwest to wherever they go at dusk. I miss that, now that the new highway system is open and I have to keep my eyes on the road.

I pulled off, twice, to take quick photos with the little point-and-shoot.

Gazebo and branches. A bare hint of sunset, which quickly faded to grey.

Mount Baker and blueberry field. The plants turn red for the winter.

I've got the tank cleaned and refurbished. My critters are happy with their new climbing equipment/nibbles. And I'm tuckered out. Goodnight!