High and dry

 Detail of a pile of sun-bleached driftwood on the lake shore. Just because.

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

Un poco de un montón de troncos y ramas dejados al borde del lago, blanqueados por el sol. No más porque me gustan las texturas.

Cougar on Tyee Spit!

But he's ok; he doesn't bite.

"Chadwick Cougar": driftwood creation by local artist Alex Witcombe

I saw the first of these on the shore three years ago; a dinosaur taller than I am, dubbed (now I know; then I didn't) "Sheila the Velociraptor". There was no sign, no indication of who had made her, no signature anywhere. The artist wasn't advertising.

Later on, a raccoon appeared beside the highway. He's still there, and local wits dress him up, add hats, and for Canada Day, a flag. There's a harbour seal, an owl, a fox family which I still haven't seen.

And a couple of weeks ago, Chadwick Cougar appeared on Tyee Spit. I found him on a quick walkabout. He's life size, made entirely of driftwood (and screws), dabbed with paint in a cougar colour.

The artist lives in Courtenay, just south of here, and has a Facebook page, where more of his creations can be seen, along with a map. Most of them are close by, although he has a couple in Victoria, and another couple halfway up (from here) towards the northern tip of the island. I must go and see the Sasquatch over on Quadra Island.

Silver and red

Driftwood and dying leaves, with fly.

Salmon Point trail.

I'm assuming that this piece of driftwood is from the root end of the log; only there is the wood so undecided as to which direction it wants to go. Where's the food? Where's the water? Above ground, the question is, "Where's the light?" and that's almost always straight up.

On a driftwood log

Three links in a food chain:

Clump of mushrooms growing out of a driftwood log.

Maybe four links: people felled the tree, possibly. Then the ocean carried it to Salmon Point and threw it onto the shore. Here, mushrooms are eating the wood. And something is enthusiastically eating the mushrooms; the bites look like those of slugs or snails.

I looked for the slugs, but they are usually night feeders, especially out in the open. I couldn't see any, nor any sleeping snails. The logs make good, sturdy roofs for slug bedrooms, down in the dark and damp.

Driftwood dance

Wordless:

Salmon Point trail

Roots

High and dry on the rock breakwater at Oyster Bay ...

A recent addition to the shoreline.

With time, the tree will be banged and rolled about, floated and dumped, soaked and sunburnt, chipped and peeled, until it turns pale and smooth, and goes to join the rest of the driftwood along the high tide line, south of the rocks.

Tyrannosaurus rex

There's something inspiring about driftwood. People, from toddlers to ancients, seem compelled to rearrange it, to create something new of it. Fences around sandcastles, teepees or hideouts leaning on logs, shacks simple and complex, roofed or open to the sunshine, full-sized art installations, barricades and territorial markers, circular "rooms" with a fire pit at the centre, bagel holders, flagpoles (I saw one today with a purple t-shirt as a flag); all doomed to disappear with the next tide or the next winter's storms.

At sundown this evening, I met a driftwood dinosaur.

Young T-rex, human-sized, Stories Beach

He's built near the top of the intertidal zone, where only the worst storms will reach him. And his creator intends him to last: he's put together with many brass screws.

I don't know why he has a rock in his head.

Deep thought

Wise old log:

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen ...

My internet connection is sick again tonight. I may be offline for a day or two.

The northern palette starts with grey

Add in a tube of blue, and a dab of green. And just a smidgen of something warmish.

Upper Campbell Lake, from Strathcona Park Lodge, halfway across the island.

Wood, stones, water, all in shades of grey.

And then there's this:

Startling yellow branches, still without leaves or buds. Unidentified tree.

Coffee break

I stopped for coffee in a beach shack with a plank and plywood lean-to for shelter from the weather. In spite of the sunshine, the wind was chilly, and there was a roaring fire in an airtight stove in the lean-to; every seat was taken.  I took my coffee and walked down the shore, scrambling over piles of driftwood and rolling stones, holding a camera and a hot coffee cup.

Loose rocks, with tiny snails that I tried not to step on.

And there are snails here, too. Click for the full size view.

Critter art. A sunrise over the water and hills, carved by mining beetles. 

Green-eyed monster, trapped in a log jam.

The coffee was good, too.

Shelter

It's been a tough winter out on the dunes, too dry for BC, the temperatures too changeable. But some lucky seeds will always find themselves a good microclimate.

Tiny plants in a crack of an old cedar log.

If I were a beetle . . .

. . .  and a blogger, to boot, these would be my Captchas:

Bark mining beetle tunnels in weathered driftwood

Or maybe I'd be a writer of alternate world fantasies, and these could be sketches for my cover art:

Dragons? Wolves? Fossil millipedes? Zorklwifs?

Found at highest tide level, Boundary Bay.

Does a bird see the man in the moon?

Pattern from the root end of a driftwood tree, cast up on Crescent Beach:

How many faces do you see here? How many species?

Our brains do funny things. From earliest infancy, we focussed on any two spots, looking for faces. And still, if there are two remotely similar spots in a pattern like this, they immediately become incorporated into yet another "face". Any markings below them become a mouth or maybe a beak.

I wonder; some butterflies, some caterpillars, and other critters wear two conspicuous spots, which serve as camouflage, making them look like a larger animal, or maybe fooling a predator into grabbing a disposable wing rather than the head. Is this another instance of pareidolia; like us seeing Jesus in our breakfast toast or the face on Mars?

Oh, and the last I looked, I saw 17 faces in that stump. Most were not human; quite a few are not even earthly.  I'm lucky there aren't any collections of 8 spots, or I'd be seeing spider faces, too.

Untitled 57

The tide was low again at Boundary Bay, and the sands stretched far ahead. As we hurried out, to get to the eelgrass beds before the tide turned, we passed a man carrying a couple of long, twisted branches across the bare sand. Something to do while the kids splashed in the pools, I guessed.

An hour later, on our way back, we could see some sort of structure ahead near the shore. I laughed, thinking about our human propensity to build, wherever we are, with or without a practical purpose or even a hope of durability. Small children on the beach make sand castles; a bit older, and they're building driftwood shelters and even small shacks. Adults usually just set out chairs and umbrellas; sometimes they mark off their "territory" on the sand with sketchy driftwood corner posts or erect a leafy shelter from the sun.

Sometimes they're more ambitious.

Driftwood and crab design, artist anonymous

The driftwood collector was nearby, with a group, children and adults, parents and (probably) grandparents. "I love your creation!" I said to him, as we passed.

A white-haired man with him turned, laughing. "It's called, 'Untitled 57'," he said. "And it's for sale; offer a few thousand, and we'll talk."

"Untitled 57", detail

Unfortunately, we weren't carrying cash. Nor were any of the other beachgoers we talked to at the boat ramp. The deal of a lifetime, available only until the tide came in and carried it away, missed!

Wordless, almost.

Faces on the beach:

Shawl and ribbons

Squinty log

Pinnochio, trapped

The lecture

Who's afraid of the big, bad beast?

In the maw of a roaring beach monster ...

a sleepy white moth waits out the daylight hours.

Boundary Bay, September.

Hard at work ...

practicing my bird identification skills.

I think this is a ring-billed gull:

Yellow eyes with red rims, black wing tips, yellow legs, ring around the bill.

And this would be an angry swan:

With a bone stuck in his throat. No wonder he's upset!

And a bittern:

Nose in the air.

Well, I never get to see a bittern, even when other people find them right where I've just been. So I may as well make do.

Can you put a name to this?

What is it?

The skin of a _____?

We found it on the Boundary Bay beach, just below the high tide line. Does that help?

How about if I step back a bit?

That should be pretty obvious.

It's art by Ol' Ma Nature, working in mixed media: black rot fungus, some of that green slime that grows on any wet wood around here in the winter, sun and salt bleached wood, in collaboration with a crew of chomping critters.

Here's the context:

Old driftwood, root end.

Driftwood critters

Pattern recognition on White Rock beach:

Eyes in the log


Name that bird!


Elephant


Dino?


Heartwood. I should have saved this for next Valentine's Day.

.