Brief encounter

 Here's a Very Poor Photo. Made my day, though.

Elk, Cervus canadensis, beside the highway. Aka wapiti.

All along the highway going north, there are signs: ELK NEXT __ KM. And there are usually no elk.

Yesterday, I passed a group of 4 females contentedly browing among the salmonberry bushes a few metres from the road. I found a place to turn around and came back. Although the highway was busy at that time, in the after-work "rush" (which around here means more than three vehicles in a row), the elk were still there, unfazed. But when I came to a stop across the road from them, they walked away. One, this one, stayed for a minute, looking at me before she left.

I barely had time to grab the camera and point it in her direction. No time to roll the dusty window down. No time to brace my hands. Still, it's an elk, looking at me. Made my day.

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Esta es una Foto Muy Mala. Pero me hizo feliz.

Foto: Una wapití hembra, Cervus canadensis, al lado de la carretera.

A lo largo de la carretera hacia el norte de la isla, hay muchos advertencias: WAPITI SIGUIENTES __ KM. Y casi nunca se ven esos wapitís.

Ayer pasé un grupo de cuatro hembras comiendo las nuevas hojas de salmonberry a apenas unos cuantos metros de la carretera. Busqué un sitio con espacio, y di la vuelta. Aunque el tráfico en ese momento estaba intenso, a la hora de salida de trabajo (tráfico intenso lo llamamos aquí cuando hay más de tres vehículos juntos), los wapitís comían sin preocupaciones. Pero en el momento en que detuve el coche, se alejaron. Una esperó un momento, mirándome antes de irse.

Apenas tuve tiempo de recoger la cámara y apuntarla hacia ella. No hubo tiempo para bajar la ventana, cubierta de polvo del camino. No hubo tiempo de fijar la cámara contra un objeto sólido. Bueno, es una wapití, y me está mirando. Me hizo feliz.

Chasing snow

Snow, they said. Rain and snow. But neither had showed up around home. I drove north, looking for snow. There was rain, in spots. Some 60 kilometres up, snow showed up on the mountains, but before I could find a clear vantage spot, mist covered them and it started to rain again. I went on as far as Lake Hoomac, 130 km. from home; here there was no snow anywhere, and everything was dim and green. I followed a trail until I found it underwater, turned back and headed home. And the snow caught me, just south of the lake.

Coming down fast. Taken through the windshield. (I was parked.)

It didn't last.

13 minutes later.

And then the rain came down and washed it all away.

But halfway home, I passed an elk standing by the highway. I stopped and turned around, and eased up towards him. Not slow enough; he went back into the forest, and there I saw him join a small herd. They all melted into the dark woods. It was past 5 o'clock, and sunset was before 4:30.

In all this time here, I have seen elk only once before, near Tahsis. So this was a treat.

And then a few minutes later, I saw another one, waiting to cross the road, it seemed. This time I was smarter; stopped the car, turned off the motor and lights. He was still visible in my rear-view mirror. I got the camera ready, and checked again. He was gone. Oh, well. Two elk sightings! And snow! Made my day!

It rained most of the way home. They're promising us snow for Tuesday. We'll see.

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Nieve, dijeron. Iba a nevar. Y llover también. Pero ni lluvia ni nieve se veían por mi casa. Tomé la carretera hacia el norte, buscando la nieve. Sí había lluvia por la carretera, en algunos tramos. Unos 60 kilómetros de casa, se veía nieve en las montañas, pero antes de que encontrara un sitio para estacionarme, bajó la neblina, escondiendo todo, y empezó a llover de nuevo. Seguí adelante hasta el lago Hoomac, a 130 km. de casa. Allí ni señas de nieve había y todo era verde oscuro. Bajé hasta el lago por un sendero, pero tuve que desistir cuando encontré la ruta bajo agua. Hora de regresar a casa. Y la nieve me agarró un poco al sur.

Fotos: Nevando fuerte. Saqué las fotos protegida por el parabrisas. (Y sí, estaba estacionada.) Y la segunda foto, 13 minutos más tarde; ya había cesado de nevar.

Y luego vino la lluvia y lo lavó todo.

Pero. A medio camino de regreso, pasé un alce parado al lado del camino. Me dí vuelta, y me acerqué lentamente. No era suficiente. El alce regresó al bosque, y allí lo ví reunirse con varios otros; todos se perdieron entre el bosque oscuro. Ya era noche, como las 5 de la tarde, y el sol se había puesto media hora antes.

En todo el tiempo aquí solo he visto un alce una vez antes, cerca de Tahsis. Así que esto era como un regalo.

Y unos minutos más tarde, vi otro, también al lado de la carretera. Esta vez tuve más cuidado. Detuve el coche de inmediato, apagué el motor y las luces. Miré en el espejo. El alce seguía allí. Preparé la cámara y miré de nuevo, pero ya se había largado. Ni modo. Pero, ¡Dos observaciones de alces! ¡Y nieve! ¡Un dia buenísimo!

Llovió casi todo el camino de vuelta a casa. Nos prometen nieve para el martes. Ya veremos.

Company on the hill

From the first forest walk, I returned to the logging road and went on up the hill. Now I stopped at a side road, going into a logged-off area.

Recovering.

Seedling trees, saplings, dried ferns from last year, bits of salal. And dried stumps.

Here there is no moss. The sun has baked the old stumps; the ground underfoot is hard and dry.

Closer to the edge of the cleared area, a stump harbours salal and a huckleberry shrub (the red twigs).

From the road, a faint trail led off across the hill. Looked like an elk trail to me.

See it? I followed it to the edge of the hill.

There were a few faint elk tracks, not clear because the ground is so hard, so covered with dry branches left over from the logging. But there was a patch of elk scat.

Elk scat, not fresh, with bits of dead fern on top.

But no elk. Maybe down in the valley ...

Google Earth view. Next trip, I'll go all the way to Pye Lake.

Time to go home. I walked back to the car, crawled down the hillside, dodging potholes. So I was going slowly enough to see the grouse watching me from behind a huckleberry bush. I stopped; so did she. We sat and watched each other for a few minutes. When I rolled down the window to get a photo, she turned and went into the trees.

Photo or no photo, I was happy to have seen her.

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Desde el bosquecito, regresé al coche y seguí cuesta arriba. Encontré otro caminito que cruzaba un area donde habían cortado los árboles hace unos años.

Aquí no había musgo; todo es seco, duro, tostado por el sol. Pero el bosque se está recuperando. Hay arbolitos, retoños, y jóvenes. El suelo está cubierto de helechos, los del año pasado, ya secos.

Un tronco al lado del bosque protegía plantas de "salal" (Gualtheria shallon) y de "huckleberry" (Vaccinium parvifolium), dos arbustos que se llenarán de frutillas en el verano, alimentos para pájaros y osos.

Un sendero apenas visible cruzaba el camino; parecía hecho por alces. Lo seguí por un rato. Las huellas que vi eran ligeras; el suelo está muy duro. Pero si había caca de alce.

En camino a casa, bajando el cerro despacito por los hoyos en el camino, tuve la suerte de ver una gallina fuliginosa que me observaba desde la sombra de un arbusto. Me detuve; tambien ella. Nos sentamos mirándonos por unos minutos. Cuando por fin bajé la ventana para sacar una foto, ella se dió vuelta y desapareció entre los árboles.

Con o sin foto, me sentí privilegiada de haberla visto.

Elk signs, yellow, brown, muddy

Signs along the highways, going north or west from here, say "Elk", with a distance, such as 55 km. Or they show an outline of an elk, with the distance.

Elk sign, Highway 19.

I keep my eyes open, watching the road and the bushes along both sides. I never see an elk. Not in the daytime, not at night. Many deer, at any hour, but no elk. Not a hair.

On a hillside above the Salmon River, I found a different kind of elk sign.

Elk scat. About the size of brown marbles. Fairly fresh, still moist.

A closer look. They're slightly squarish, a hair longer than they are wide. That bit of glitter at the left is ice.

Farther along, I found more:

This scat is older, drying and splitting. My fingernail is 1.5 cm. at the wide point, so the largest of these is about 3 cm. long. The scat contains quite a bit of fiber; their diet at this time of year includes dried twigs, branches, whatever has survived the winter weather.

Elk droppings are bigger and longer than deer droppings. Moose are even larger yet. If the droppings are dry and cracked, it is because they are old and not left there recently. If they still glitter & shine from moisture and each one spreads like grainy peanut butter or room temperature chocolate chips when you slide your boot across them, it could have been minutes, or an hour or two, depending on the weather. If they are still steaming in the cold morning air, they’re close by!  (All About Moose)

No steam seen. The elk had left the immediate area. I wandered about, looking behind piles of logging slash, to be sure. No elk. But I did find this:

There's a baby!

Near a stream, where the water crossed a logging truck access, the gravel was soft, so that elk feet sunk deeply. Here, and nowhere else, I found the little tracks of a calf, still too small to make an impression on more solid ground. The deep end is the rear of the track.

With my muddy shoe for comparison. The bottom of the track is about 4 inches long. The scruffy area at top is caused by her dewclaws, which will leave no impression on a more solid surface. She and her calf were walking peacefully; when she runs, her toes spread apart in a V.

Another print near the muddy area. The dewclaw marks are clear.

So: still not an elk, but closer. Maybe next time.

Roadside snaps

Tahsis. Malaspina Lake. Bull Lake. Oyster River. Quadra Island. Rebecca Spit. Gold River. Leiner River. Roberts Lake. And more; I've been there this past week, on an unexpected vacation with family. And now I'm home and starting to sort photos.

Miner's lettuce, moss, ferns, by the side of the Leiner River trail.

All along the highways there are these signs: Elk, 8 km. Elk, 45 km. Elk, Elk, Elk. I've been watching and have not seen even one. Until last week, along the Tahsis highway, a mother and her calf were crossing the road as we came around a curve. By the time we'd stopped, they were in the bush, but I got a quick photo as they turned to watch us from behind the trees.

A poor photo, but I'm happy.

Unidentified lake beside the highway to Tahsis.

Mushrooms next, I think.

Granny Dressup, Smiley the Elk, and a Snarky Princess

Still rescuing old, forgotten photos ...

Every place we go, we always visit the antique/secondhand/thrift stores. No telling what we'll find, and each location has its own quirks. At Willow Point, in Campbell River, LJ's  Past and Present Curios is a favourite. The owner has three stuffed BC mammals. (She's not responsible for what's happened to them in the past, she says, but at least she can give them a good home now.) She loves to dress them up with her wares, trying to fit their personality.

Granny Otter, with her reading glasses and shawl.

A cheerful elk. Not For Sale, the sunburst on his nose says. Sometimes the antlers serve as jewelry  holders.

How do you tell the difference between an elk (Canadian usage) and a moose? The moose is bigger, although you can't see the size here. But the moose also has a heavy, drooping nose (see here); the elk is more deer-like.

In Europe the moose is called an elk. And the elk is a wapiti. Which is a kind of deer. Latin is better; the same everywhere. Alces alces is the moose. (Yes, you can translate that to Elk elk. Just to keep you properly confused.) And the elk (our elk) is Cervus canadensis. Cervus means "deer".

The snarky Princess. I think she's an ermine or weasel.She's standing on the counter, maybe 16 inches tall.

The animals are pets, after a fashion. They are not for sale, but their clothes are. This summer, they were outfitted differently.