Promise deferred

I was hoping for bears. They had promised me bears. Well, sort of; my friends were going to show me where they had seen several black bears in the Quinsam River a couple of  days before.

The Quinsam River is a short stream that flows into the Campbell River, 20 km. long, as the crow flies, over 40 as it winds down from two small lakes. Good fishing; there are salmon and trout; where we looked down into the water, the salmon jostled each other in the shallow water, big fish, mostly heading upriver to spawn. And where there are spawning salmon, there are bears, fattening up for the winter sleep.

We saw no bears.

But there were pretty green and yellow banana slugs.

Banana slug, Ariolimax columbianus, and moss on a halfway fallen tree.

And even a butterfly.

Cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, female. (The females have 2 black spots on the forewings.)

It was a beautiful fall day, raining off and on, but the sun shone even through the rain, and the wet forest glistened.

Bottom to top: salal, huckleberry, big-leaf maple, evergreens.

And there were mushrooms everywhere.

Pholiota sp. on a well-aged alder log.

Coral mushroom. 

An unidentified small mushroom, draped in spider web, growing on a snag.

But no bears. I'll just have to go back another day.

I still have another dozen or so photos of mushrooms from that walk to process. Coming up next.

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Quería ver osos. Me habían prometido osos. Bueno, más o menos; mis amigos se ofrecieron a llevarme a donde habían visto los osos en el rio Quinsam hacía dos dias.

El rio Quinsam es un rio corto, tributario del rio Campbell. Corre por 20 kilómetros si se mide en linea recta, unos 40 kilómetros en verdad, bajando serpenteante desde un par de lagos del mismo nombre. La pesca es buena; hay salmones y truchas; donde nos detenimos para mirar el agua, gran número do salmones se retorcían, haciendo que el agua pareciera estar hirviendo. Eran peces grandes, apurándose para llegar a su zona de desove. Y donde hay peces en desove (época de reproducción), hay osos acumulando reservas para los meses de hibernación.

No vimos ningún oso.

Pero hubo babosas "plátano", muy bonitas, vestidas en amarillo y verde:

1. Babosa Ariolimax columbianus en un tronco medio caído.
2. Y una mariposa Pieris rapae. Las hembras tienen las dos manchas negras en cada ala anterior.
3. Era un dia lindo de otoño; llovía en momentos, pero el sol seguía penetrando las nubes aun mientras llovía, y el agua en las hojas del bosque centelleaban.
4. Y por dondequiera había hongos. Estos son del género Pholiota.
5. Hongo coral.
6. Hongo sin identificación creciendo en un tronco muerto.

Pero no vimos osos. Total: tendré que regresar otro dia.

Me quedan sin procesar otra docena de fotos de hongos de ese dia. Ya vendrán.

Midnight musings

 No photos today. 

I am constantly amazed by something beyond the scope of any camera, but maybe not out of reach to our imaginations. 

Picture this: a miniature spider lives and hunts inside the shade of my bedside lamp. She (and I'm assuming that she's a she because of her territorial claims) is rarely seen, but if I jostle the lamp she drops down on an invisible thread to investigate. A mere speck, a dust mote, but if I'm close enough, I can see the outstretched legs, ready to pounce on any prey. Not me: I'm too huge to enter into her frame of reference. Seeing nothing of interest, she quickly rewinds her silk and is gone. 

That much, a vigilant camera, set up on a tripod, patiently monitored, is capable of recording. 

Back away. On the wall a couple of feet away, (look closely) there's another dust mote. Too small to recognize, but after a few moments it picks itself up and flits to another seemingly random spot on the wall. A fly of some sort. The spider's hoped-for lunch.

Are there more? A search of the neighbouring wall turns up another.  Or maybe it's the same one, which has disappeared. Whichever it was, it's gone again. 

What is the fly doing? Searching for food, too? A haphazard search at best; hop randomly, rest, hop, rest ... And there's not much to eat on my wall, is there? How does a little fly keep body and soul together? But then, the same goes for the spider; how often does a lonesome fly's random flitting bring it into the precise corner inside the lampshade where Spidey lurks? Why hasn't she starved? 

But she has been eating; another speck, a ghostly spider shape, hangs under the light bulb: a spider molt. Spidey has already grown too fat for her skin.

A small moth comes to the light. Too big to interest the spider; 10, 20 times her length, hundreds of times her mass. She's not hungry; she's waiting for her mate. Who could be 'way down at Oyster Bay, 11 kilometers away. He can smell her pheromones from there; he'll be along soon.

Well, there is a photo, after all.  Here's a cabbage white butterfly fluttering around a flower bed. He (I can tell by the single black spots on his wings) is looking for a female. Flitting, flitting, never pausing; he flies to the tree-tops, to the lawn, to the garden next door, back to the flowers, off down the block ... All seemingly at random; how will he ever find her? How can it be that every year we see a new crop of cabbage whites? 

And life goes on.  And we yawn. Nothing happening today, we say. How? How can we forget to be amazed at the improbable, impossible wonder of this living world? 

~~~~~~~~~~

Hoy no iba a subir fotos.

No deja de asombrarme algo fuera del alcance de las cámaras, pero tal vez lo puede capturar la imaginación.

Imagínate esto: una arañita vive y caza dentro de la pantalla de mi lámpara de noche. Ella (y creo que es hembra por sus reclamos territoriales) raramente se expone a la vista, pero si toco la lámpara se deja caer en su hilito de seda invisible para investigar. Un puntito apenas, un grano de polvo aéreo, pero si me acerco con cuidado, puedo ver las patitas extendidas, lista la araña para saltar sobre cualquier presa que se presente. No me ve; soy demasiado enorme para que me tenga en cuenta; soy parte de la estructura de su mundo. Y no percibiendo nada que le interese, pronto vuelve a su escondite, llevando el hilito de seda consigo.

Hasta eso, una cámara lista sobre su trípode, pacientemente vigilada, y con la lente adecuada, será capaz de capturar.

Retírate un poco. En la pared a una poca distancia, un metro o menos, (acércate) hay otro granito de polvo. No se puede identificar, siendo tan pequeñito, pero después de un momento, se sacude y vuela a otro sitio, aparentemente al azar. Una mosca miniatura. La comida esperada de la araña.

¿Hay otras? Una búsqueda de la pared contigua descubre una. O tal vez sea la misma, la mosca original, que ahora ha desaparecido. Cualquiera que sea, ya se fue de nuevo.

¿Qué está haciendo esta mosca? ¿Buscando alimento también? Una búsqueda no muy sistemática: volar sin rumbo fijo, descansar un rato, volar, descansar, volar ... Y de todas maneras, no hay mucho (o nada) de comer en mi pared, ¿cierto? ¿Cómo no morirse de hambre? Y lo mismo se puede decir de la araña; ¿con qué probabilidad va a ser que una mosca solitaria, dando saltitos al azar, llegue al sitio preciso dentro de la pantalla de la lámpara donde se oculta la araña? ¿Cómo es que ella también sigue con vida?

Pero sí ha estado comiendo esta arañita. Hay otro grano de polvo, bajo el foco, y tiene la forma de una araña fantasma; patas transparentes, enredadas. Una muda; la araña ya creció hasta no caber en su exoesqueleto.

Viene a la luz una mariposita nocturna. Demasiado grande para atraer a la araña; medirá de 10 a 20 veces lo largo de la arañita, con cien veces su peso. La mariposa no tiene hambre, sino que espera su pareja. Quien bien podrá estar allá por Oyster Bay, a 11 kilómetros de distancia. Desde allí le llegan sus feromonas; ya estará en camino.

Y sí hubo una foto. Aquí hay una mariposa Pieris rapae, la mariposa de la col, revoloteando alrededor de unas dalias. Busca una mariposa hembra. (Se ve que es macho por las únicas manchas negras en el centro de las alas primarias. Las hembras tienen dos manchas, más grandes.) Vuela y vuela, sin reposar, sin tomar aliento; sube a las copas de los árboles, baja al césped, va al jardín de la vecina, regresa a las dalias, se aleja por la calle ... Parece que siempre escoge su rumbo al azar; ¿cómo es que encontrará su pareja de esta manera? ¿Cómo es que cada año vemos otras nubes de mariposas?

Foto: la mariposa contra los tallos de las dalias.

Y la vida sigue. Y "no pasa nada hoy," decimos, bostezando. ¿Cómo? ¿Cómo puede ser que se nos olvide lo asombroso que es este mundo con sus vidas tan improbables, tan imposibles?

Cat on a peeling tree

 A long, long way from home. A cabbage white butterfly caterpillar* hikes down the old arbutus tree, looking for a green shelter where he can build his chrysalis.

Cabbage white, Pieris rapae, heading down.

It's a barren desert up here.

He has grown fat eating arbutus leaves far above, but the tree is no place to settle while he turns into a butterfly. Nothing on an arbutus is permanent, neither the leaves nor the bark, nor even the inner bark.

A stretch of the tree in question.

The bark peels off in two stages; first, the dark brown outer bark, then the inner layer, smooth reddish bark. The layer underneath, which will turn red and peel off in time, is greenish, and even photosynthesizes like the leaves do.

*UPDATE: The caterpillar has been re-identified as the larva of a White-dotted Prominent moth, Nadata gibbosa.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Está muy lejos de casa, esta oruguita. Una oruga de la blanquita de la col, Pieris rapae,** haciendo el largo peregrinaje desde lo alto del árbol, buscando un sitio verde para formar su crisálida.

Fotos: La oruga en la corteza del Arbutus. Y un tramo del árbol.

La oruga ha crecido comiendo hojas allá arriba, pero este árbol no es un lugar adecuado para fijarse mientras se transforma en mariposa. Nada en este árbol es permanente, ni las hojas, ni la corteza, ni aun la corteza interior.

La corteza se desprende en dos etapas: primero la corteza exterior, de un café oscuro, fragmentado ya. Luego, en grandes hojuelas, la corteza interior, ésta lisa, con la textura de seda, y de un color rojizo. La capa que se descubre entonces, la cual también en su turno se volverá rojo y se desprenderá, ahora es algo verde, y hasta hace fotosíntesis al igual que las hojas.

** Se ha identificado la larva ahora como la de la mariposa nocturna Nadata gibbosa.

Little green eyes

The first cabbage white butterfly of the season dropped in to visit today. Just in time; the wild field mustards are blooming nicely next door, ready for her to lay her eggs on the leaves.

Pieris rapae. On the ground.

When I got too close with the camera, she flew up to rest on the engine hood of my car. I gave her a bit more space with the next attempts.

With her reflection, and some clouds. Wings partly open.

And wings closed again.

The males have one black spot in the centre of the primary wings, visible when they're open. The females have two. As far as I can tell, she has two, although the second is half hidden by the outer wings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

La primera mariposa de la col, la Pieris rapae, vino a visitarme hoy. Justo a tiempo; las brassicas silvestres han empezado a florecer en el jardín del vecino, listos para que ella ponga sus huevos en las hojas.

Fotos:

1. En el suelo.
2. Cuando me acerqué demasiado, se fue a parar sobre el motor de mi coche. Bueno, así tuvo reflejo. Pero me mantuve un poco más alejada. Aquí con las alas medio abiertas.
3. Y cerradas otra vez.

Los machos tienen una mancha negra en el centro de las alas primeras, visibles cuando están en posición abierta. Las hembras tienen dos. Me parece que esta tiene dos, aunque la segunda mancha está medio escondida tras la ala exterior.

Wakey, wakey!

 A month ago, I discovered four caterpillars eating my nasturtium leaves. I put them in a jar with more leaves, and they all pupated. I posted the story and their photos on September 2, "Sleepy Time".

I put their jar outside in a protected corner. A couple of weeks later, I checked the jar and found three butterflies just hatched, drying out their wings.

Cabbage whites, Pieris rapae. Butterfly and empty chrysalis.

I love those spotty green eyes!

All dried out and exploring my kitchen.

An empty chrysalis. The butterfly crawled out of that hole in the front.

And checking out my window. The males have one spot in the centre of their forewings, the females have two.

Once they had dried out their wings and had settled down, I captured them one by one and carried them outside. I found it interesting that each one I released immediately flew to land on my silvery-grey car, the colour of our sea and sky on cool days. After a brief pause, they flew up and away, towards the garden. They had only a few warmish days in which to find a mate and lay their eggs.

From the day they pupated, October 31, to the day they eclosed, the 18th of September, makes 19 days in the chrysalis stage. The last time I housed a chrysalis, it took 3 weeks.

The fourth chrysalis looked ok, but didn't hatch. I gave it more time, but it is still green and silent. Could be something was wrong with it, but could be that it is on a fall timetable and will wait until spring. I've kept it safe, just in case.

Chrysalis # 4. Looks fine, but is inert.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hace un mes descubrí cuatro orugas comiendo las hojas de mis capuchinas. Las metí en un frasco y tres dias más tarde, formaron crisálidas. Puse el frasco afuera en un sitio protegido. Esto fue el 31 de octubre.

El 18 de septiembre al observar el frasco, encontré tres mariposas "blanquitas de la col", o sea Pieris rapae. Apenas habían salido de sus crisálidas; todavía estaban secando las alas.

1. Fotos: una mariposa y la crisálida de donde salió.
2. Otra. Me encantan esos ojos verdes con sus puntos negros.
3. Esta ya tiene las alas secas y está explorando mi cocina.
4. Una crisálida vacía. La mariposa salió por la abertura hacia la cabeza de la crisálida.
5. Dos mariposas en mi ventana. Los machos tienen una mancha negra en medio de la ala anterior; las hembras tienen dos.

Cuando ya estaban listas, las capturé una por una, y las llevé afuera. Algo interesante fue que cada una, al hallarse libre, se fue directamente a descansar sobre mi coche, que es de un color gris plateado, el color de cielo y del oceano aquí en los dias templados. Luego se levantaron y volaron hacia el jardín. Solamente les quedaban algunos pocos dias templado en que encontrar su pareja y poner sus huevos.

Desde el dia en que formaron las crisálidas hasta el dia en que salieron, sumaron 19 dias. La última vez que tenía en casa una crisálida tomó tres semanas.

La cuarta crisálida parecía estar bien, pero no eclosionó. La guardé otras dos semanas, y nada. O es que le faltó algo, o tal vez piensa que es otoño y hay que esperar hasta la primavera. La tengo guardada por si acaso.

Foto # 6: la crisálida que no eclosionó.

Sleepy time

 I found four cabbage white caterpillars eating my nasturtium leaves.

Looking sleepy, fat and happy.

I collected the half-eaten leaves, and rather than dumping them in the yard waste bag, I put them in a pint jar, where the caterpillars ate more leaves, producing an impressive amount of caterpillar poop. And then, on the third day, they all migrated to the top of the jar and turned into chrysalises.

Cabbage white chrysalis, Pieris rapae, tied to the bottom of the lid. 

And on the rim of the jar. Anchored with a few fragile-looking silk threads.

The last time I had a chrysalis in a jar, the butterfly emerged after only three weeks. That would be the summer generation. Those that pupate in the fall will overwinter in this state, and emerge in the spring.

It's still warm now, though the nights are cold. I'll store this jar outside in a protected spot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Encontré cuatro orugas de la mariposa blanquita de la col, Pieris rapae, comiéndose las hojas de mis capuchinas. En vez de tirar las hojas dañadas al recyclaje del jardín, las puse en un frasco con tapa.

Las orugas sigieron comiendo, produciendo una cantidad de excremento de oruga. Y al tercer dia, las cuatro subieron a la orilla superior del frasco, y formaron crisálidas.

Fotos: una oruga, y dos crisálidas.

La última vez que tuve una crisálida en casa, la mariposa salió a las tres semanas. Era parte de la generación del verano. Las mariposas de esta especie que forman sus pupas en el otoño pasan el invierno como crisálida, para emerger como mariposa en la primavera.

Todavía hace algo de calor en el dia, pero las noches son frías, ahora al principio de septiembre. Guardaré este frasco afuera en un lugar protegido.

Blurderfly

Cabbage white butterfly doing what cabbage white butterflies always do.

Weedy herb garden with chives and butterfly.

On sunny days, they're worse than bees. Bees stop to dig into flower centres; cabbage white butterflies almost never stop. I chase them and chase them; if ever they pause, it's not long enough even for the autofocus on the camera.

So I got this one, anyhow. See it? Out of focus, in the distance, but it's there. And the chives at least behaved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

La mariposa "blanquita de la col" haciendo lo que siempre hacen; en dias asoleados no se permiten fotografiar. Vuelan y vuelan sin parar; si acaso se detienen es por un instante tan corto que ni la cámara puesta en enfoque automático puede verlas.

Pero hay está; ¿la ven? En un jardín de hierbas culinarias con sus hierbas malas; la mariposa estaba muy contenta visitando todas las flores sin parar. Las flores color de rosa son cebollín; atrás hay perejil. Las flores amarillas son una hierba común, mostaza de campo (Brassica rapa).

First sign of spring?

Last fall, a couple of caterpillars pupated in a jar in my kitchen. I put a lid on it and hid it in a quiet corner. Yesterday morning, the jar contained a brand new butterfly.

Cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae. Female, because she has several spots on her forewing. Males have only one.

She's getting ready to leave.

I had to climb up into the kitchen sink to get these photos. A minute later, she'd moved on. I haven't been able to find her since, so she'll have to stay inside.

All tattered and torn

Poor little cabbage white! Life has not been treating him well.

But as long as there are sunny afternoons, and yellow Brassicas, he'll keep flying.

The cabbage butterfly prefers purple, blue and yellow flowers over other floral colors ... (Wikipedia)

On to the next flower; delicious nectar!

On the Myrt Thompson trail.

The 'fly who came in from the cold

Such fun I've been having with one little critter!

It started 6 weeks ago, with a yodelling caterpillar. At the end of September, he lived, eating nasturtiums, on my desk for a few days, then he built himself a hammock and turned into a chrysalis. I set him outside in a glass case by the door, and kept an eye on him. The chrysalis gradually lost its bright green colour, fading to a yellowy white. Nothing else seemed to be happening, but of course it was, invisibly; all that rebuilding from the inside out.

I almost missed the next act; I was too late for the first scene. I checked his cage just after breakfast last Thursday, and there he was, out of the chrysalis. Barely out. His wings were still wrinkled, and he was slowly unfolding his legs.

I posted a photo of those legs, the only ones stretched out at the moment. (You commenters are pretty good; you knew it was a butterfly, just not what species.)

9:33 AM, on the inside of the glass case. Three legs

He seemed to discover more legs, as he untangled himself.

9:34 AM Six legs. Cabbage white butterfly, mostly yellow.

9:36 AM

While he stretched, I looked at the empty chrysalis:

The head end is down; the chrysalis is split from the "beak" to the "waist".

It was too cold outside, just above freezing. I left him there for a few hours, but he didn't want to move, so I brought him in and he perked up right away.

A warm corner on a vase by a light.

On a glass bottle.

On the back door. No, he didn't want to go out. I asked.

Next day, on the kitchen floor.

He was a male, as shown by the one black spot on his forewing, and should have been looking for a mate. But it was miserably cold out there, and his friends weren't flying, so I let him stay at home in the warmth. Unfortunately, a spider finally got him. Sometimes I could wish that spiders were vegetarian.

Beak and fins and drying paint

On a drying maple leaf just outside my door, my latest caterpillar sleeps in his half-inch chrysalis. Depending on the weather, he'll be there over the winter. I'll keep an eye on him, although it is something like watching paint dry.

Unless I start thinking about what is going on inside.

I always find this hard to imagine; a living thing takes all his working parts, dissolves them into a soup, and rebuilds them into something different. Without dying in the process.

That's some major self-surgery!

So once the caterpillar is tied down safely, he gets right to work; no time to lose. Here's the schedule for this little critter:

10 AM - start weaving the sling.
11:40 - sling is done.
11:40 to 2:00 - shake, shimmy and squirm to remove old skin.
2:30 PM - Old skin and hairs gone, shape changed (fins and beak added, feet gone), wing veins forming and visible.

2:30 PM

7:30 PM - Dots and colouring added. Wing veins complete.

Here you can see the veins of two wings, the forewings with dots along the vein, and the hind wings, shorter and underneath the first.

The caterpillar's mouth was set up for chewing leaves. When he is a butterfly, he will be drinking from a straw, instead. So the whole head has to be rebuilt. The new yellow and brown beak (almost like a bird's beak, except that it doesn't open) is the beginnings of the new mouthparts. He will also have to build new antennae; as a caterpillar, his antennae were tiny hairs.

He has "fins"now, like a shark's dorsal and pectoral fins. I don't know what function they may have; they will be left behind when the new butterfly emerges.

Beak to tail, day 6.

At some point in his development, the new legs will also be visible through the casing. Not yet; I couldn't find them today, even with a bright light shining through.

And the day before he emerges, the black dot on the forewings (two if he's a female), the brand-new butterfly feathers, will show up.

Better than watching paint.