Under a bark roof

At the edge of the estuary wetlands, a tangle of rotting, winter-felled trees bordered the path. What bark still remained hung loose; I peeled off a section, disturbing a family of sowbugs and an earwig in his bright spring outfit.

The wood is soft and wet, protected from light (up until this moment), warmed by early sunshine; a perfect hangout.

The next piece of bark housed spider egg cases on the underside.

Another earwig. I haven't seen one wearing this beautiful maroon colour before.

More sowbugs with frass.

I was interested in the leftovers, the bits of chewed and/or excreted wood, in various colours, stirred together like a vegetable casserole with a side dish of mashed beans.

Under another slab of bark, I found this beetle:

One of the Jewel Beetles, Buprestidae.* A wood borer, probably a recent hatchling.

(*Update: the beetle has been re-identified as a click beetle, Agriotes lineatus. The following paragraph, then, refers to the photo beneath.)

These beetles lay their eggs under the bark. The larvae hatch and tunnel outwards, eating the nutritious growing layers just underneath the bark. They leave characteristic tunnels, wider at the outer end (because the larva is now bigger and hungrier). They pupate, then hatch into adults, which drill an exit hole out to the big, wide world, and hurry away to find a mate.

Mined log, at Miracle Beach. The long, straight, central tunnel was made by the adult female; each little notch along its edges is where she laid an egg. Several exit holes are visible. Species unknown.

After each photo, I carefully notched the piece of bark back into its original location.

Nasturtium

It's still warm enough for my crop of nasturtiums, and they're trying bravely to produce seeds, but the constant rain shreds the petals and the pollinating insects have fled. There may be no seed pods for my salads this year.

I rescued a few flowers that were hiding under the wide petals, and brought them inside.

Good in salad, but too pretty to eat.

At least one insect was still busy; it came inside with the handful of nasturtiums, too.

Earwig, too busy to notice the move.

So there are some pollinators out there, after all! I'll look for seeds again whenever it stops raining.

Dusty

An earwig walked down my lampshade.

And the light shines through.

Later, she was checking out my screen. I recognized her again by the broken antenna.

Earwig females have smooth, slightly curved forceps (those pincers at the rear); males' forceps are wider at the base, with a tooth just before the strong curve. (See BugGuide photo.)

The name earwig, which literally means “ear creature,” originated from the widespread superstition that these insects crawl into the ears of sleeping people. Moreover, many individuals believed that once the earwig gained access into the human ear, it could bore into the brain. Actually these insects do not crawl into the human ear. (Penn State, Dept. of Entomology)

I heard that when I was a kid. I didn't quite believe it, which saved me a bit of worry; we had earwigs everywhere.

Enough for company, but she's not sharing

This is the spider that I blame for me putting my head through another's web.

The extra leg, I think, is one discarded by her lunch in the fruitless struggle to escape.

That's a big meal! She'll have leftovers for the next day.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we're heading to the beach for one of the last lowish afternoon tides this year.

Pinhead spiders, pinhead spider food

With the onset of fall weather, we've been hurrying to finish postponed summer gardening chores, and settle the gardens in for the rains. In the last three days, Laurie chopped down a small tree and we dug out its roots. By hand, digging and chopping, prying and scraping. I thought we'd never get it done. I've finished cutting down the summer's crop of ivy that was making a new onslaught on our evergreens. The rhododendrons are pruned. My shade garden is cleaned up, fertilized and mulched. The hawkweeds are no more.

Whew!

I was too tired to look at the blog yesterday.

This afternoon, the last thing I (thought) I would do before I quit for the day was to cut off a couple of old hydrangea flower heads whose stems had broken.

There were spiders among the drying petals. I went for the camera.

Worn out dark blue hydrangea

The spiders were all tiny, some barely big enough to cover a pinhead, some slightly bigger, but more mobile.

I snapped umpteen variants of this; Ma spider just slipping around to the far side of the stem.

And as I chased spiders, I found a whole community of critters, so small that I hadn't realized they were there. So that's what all the spiders have been eating!

Snail, a couple of millimetres across.

Another snail.

Whiteflies. About 1 - 2 mm. A pest, but they weren't too numerous. And winter is coming.

Baby American house spider. Probably eats whiteflies; they're about her size.

Another one. These were so small that I couldn't see what they were with the naked eye.

A small meadow spittlebug, Philaenus spumarius, about 1/4 inch long. Another of the critters that keep moving to the far side of the leaf.

A very small weevil that I couldn't identify. I like his back markings; the back side of a comic-book hawk? A Sasquatch in a rain cape?

Earwig hiding in the crotch of a flower stem. A composite; one photo had the head in focus, another had the tail. And none had the middle. And then the 'wig ran away.

This earwig was from a few days earlier, on a rhododendron leaf. I really want to get a good photo because I love the markings on the thorax. Try again!

This spider, and several others like her, fell out of the flower heads as I de-leafed them. They're very fast runners.

Chased but not caught: a flock of those orange flies with the red, red eyes. And I put my head, again, through a cross spider's web.

The better to pinch you with

There was no need to flip a rock to find this angry mother; she was waiting for prey (or my fingers, whichever came first) out in plain sight, on a rock Campbell River beach.

Giant seaside earwig, Anisolabis maritima

The females lay their eggs in cracks or burrows and stand guard over them. The sturdy pincers at the end of the abdomen can deliver a nasty pinch. When I got too close, this one raised them straight up towards me, in a threat gesture. (The males do not stand guard, but run when they notice us. Their pincers  are curved strongly inward, almost forming a circle.)

I kept my fingers well away.

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

Three more days until Rock Flipping Day!

A quick game of hide and seek

Laurie found an earwig for me. I chilled her* in the fridge, and photographed her on an ice pack. Not good enough.

First photo, while she was still sleepy.

A few seconds later, awake and cleaning her antennae, preparing to run.

A couple of stretches, and she took off running, out of sight in a second. I couldn't find her anywhere, so I put away the camera, the lights, and the ice pack. When that was done, she sauntered out from under the computer. Grrrrr!

I put her in a flat plastic container and tried again.

A brief pause to look at the camera. Then back to running, taking shelter under scratches on the plastic.

I gave up. She's been sent out to play in the rain.

*The forceps (cerci) are unequal in length in the males. Earwig female forceps are (more or less) straight-sided, whereas male forceps are strongly curved (caliper-like) and larger. (From here. My addition, in italics.)

Anti-procrastination: Rock Flipping Day, 2010

Saturday. The day before the official Rock Flipping Day. (The list of flippers is posted here.) I was worried about the weather, and whether I would even have time on Sunday; so I jumped the gun. I flipped a few rocks, just in case.

(As it turned out, I had time to flip even more on Sunday, so I'm in the clear.)

We were on Centennial Beach, at Boundary Bay; a quick walk before the tide forced us back. Boundary Bay is not the place to go looking for rocks.

Mud, sand, eelgrass. The raised lumps are worm poop mounds. Sand. Not a rock in sight.

But up against the last house before the park, the wall had been reinforced with riprap, against high water.

Too big to manage.

Smaller rocks on the park side.

I found one I could lift, and carefully flipped it over. Earwigs scattered in all directions. By the time I'd trained my camera on the space, they were gone. All but one; she wasn't planning to move.

Hole in the center, earwig, and something white.

Standing her ground, ready to defend her eggs.

A male, on his way to hide under a neighbouring rock.

This is the giant seaside earwig, Anisolabis maritima. We saw some on Vancouver Island this summer. The female has straight pincers (forceps) at the tail; the male's are curved inwards.

A few steps up the slope, sea rocket grew over the sand at the base of the rocks. A few rocks had rolled down onto it; I flipped a medium-sized one.

Sea rocket. Cakile maritima, I think, from the deeply indented leaves.

Dead sea rocket under the rock. Note the sharp stay-at-home seed pods. A smoother section has floated or rolled away.

Brown sowbug that scuttled away to hide under a plank.

I took a few steps the opposite direction, down the beach. A few rocks had ended up on the gravel at high tide level: had they been there long enough to attract critters? At least one had.

Purple shore crab trying to make himself invisible under the stones.

Getting worried. I replaced his rock, gently.

Twenty steps, three different habitats.

Salted earwig

A pair of earwigs were foraging around the logs at the top of Oyster Bay beach. But these were like no earwigs I had seen in my garden. They were twice the size, and sturdily built:

Anisolabis maritima, the giant seaside earwig

They ran away from us, very fast. Laurie chased one; I went after the other. I took a few photos of sand where an earwig had been a second before, or of a blurred set of pincers, then tried to head her* off before she scooted under a log. I was not too comfortable with handling her - those pincers (forceps, they call these) look vicious! - so I pushed a handful of sand around her. And then, by some fortunate accident, I dropped a bit of sand on her head. Didn't hurt her, as far as I could see, but she froze in her place. I got this photo.

Then she started to run again. I salted her with sand, and she lay still. Wonderful! (Like that old chestnut about catching a bird by putting salt on its tail. But this actually worked.)

After a minute or so, she roused herself again. I added more sand. Oops! She had a new response this time:

Waving forceps at me, wide open.

Looks like she means business. Grievous bodily harm, most likely. I took this one photo and backed off.

Laurie was kinder to his earwig, so he never got as close. But he got one tiny shot that shows the creamy neck of the 'wig.

These earwigs are twice the size of our common garden one, and unlike most other earwigs, they have no wings. (See "normal" earwig, here. The wings are obvious.) Our garden earwigs are scavengers, eating particles of organic debris; this giant is a predator.

It lives under drift logs, seaweed and other debris near the high water mark where it feeds on small crustaceans and insects. It can capture prey with its forceps and holds the captive while it is devoured. (From E-Fauna BC article.)

*Females have straight pincers; those of the male are curved inward. And yes, they are capable of giving a good pinch.