Hole in the ground

 Down there, in the mud, the sun is shining.

Or should it be, "Up there"?

Just a puddle beside the trail. Down at human level, all was dim and brown, mud and dead leaves, lichen-coated but otherwise bare alder trunks, more mud ... I had to keep my eyes on the ground, watching my step; it could be slippery underfoot or the mud could suddenly be ankle-deep. And then, a glimpse of blue sky and sunshine far above. Somehow, it made the air feel warmer.

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Bajo mis pies, en el lodo, brilla el sol.

En el camino, al nivel de mis ojos, todo era penumbra, colores oscuros; lodo y hojas muertas, troncos cubiertos de líquenes, más lodo ... Tenía que mantener la vista en el suelo, mirando donde ponía el pie, pues el sendero bien podría estar resbaloso, o el lodo podría de repente llegar a mis tobillos. Y luego, un charco, con agua, ofreciendo un reflejo del cielo azul y la luz del sol allá arriba. De alguna manera, hasta hizo que el ambiente se sintiera menos helado.

What were we following?

 It hasn't rained for a couple of days, but down the trail we followed, there were small patches of ice in the shade. The rest, with the temperature at 5° C, had melted, and in every dip in the trail (and there were many), we had to find a way around the deep mud. 

For much of our walk, we were following tracks of some largish animal. Except for at the mud puddles; here, the critter walked straight through the mud, sometimes stopping (why?) to churn the mud a bit. I took many photos of blurry tracks. One, in slightly drier mud, turned out more or less ok.

It almost looks like 6 toes. 4 toes and a heel pad. The evergreen needles are about 2 to 3 cm. long.

It's too small for a bear track, 'way too big for a raccoon or fox. A large dog, maybe, not on a leash. Or maybe a cougar? A roundish track, no claw marks, but is that heel pad three- or two-lobed?

What do you think?

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Hace dos dias que no llueve, pero en el senderito que seguimos ayer, había restos de hielo en las sombras. Con la temperatura del dia en 5 grados sobre cero, la mayor parte del hielo se había derretido, llenando los muchos tramos bajos del sendero de lodo, tanto que teníamos que buscar camino entre el bosque.

Por largo rato, seguíamos las huellas de algún animal grandecito. Pero éste seguía derecho, cruzando los lodazales, a veces deteniéndose (¿Porqué?) para revolver el lodo. Saqué muchas fotos de huellas; solamente una, donde el lodo estaba un poco seco, salió más o menos bien.

Foto: la huella. Hasta parece que tiene 6 dedos, pero son 4 y un talón. Las agujas de abeto miden entre 2 y 3 cm. de largo.

La huella es demasiado chica para que sea de un oso. Y muy grande para que sea de un mapache o de un zorro. Un perro grande, tal vez, sin correa. O tal vez, ¿podría ser una puma? La huella es redonda, y no muestra garras. Pero ese talón: ¿tiene dos o tres lóbulos?

¿Qué piensas?

Muddy buddies

 In a handful of moss:

The tiniest snail I've ever seen.

How does he keep so clean, sliding through all that mud?

With a young sowbug. And the snail hidden inside his shell.

The snail is about 1mm. across the shell. Or less.

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En un manojo de musgo y lodo, se encuentra el caracolito más pequeño que nunca he visto. En la segunda foto, le acompaña una cochinilla juvenil, midiendo algo menos que medio centímetro. El caracolito mide aproximadamente 1mm.

Me pregunto como es que se mantiene tan limpio, deslizándose sobre ese lodo.

Muddy buddies

For a few minutes, I looked at the mud between and under yesterday's rocks. It's busy down there:

From a distance, it just looks like brownish mud. Looking down at your feet, it's home to millions of pink-tipped green anemones. When the tide comes in, they'll all wake up and wave their pink tentacles above the surface of the mud.

I flipped a stone and found this iridescent polychaete worm. Also present: stubby isopods, mussels, barnacles, and a few crabs that scuttled away quickly. One didn't quite make it out of range. See it?

More stubby isopods, Gnorimosphaeroma oregonensis, and one large rockweed isopod, Idotea wosnesenskii. Names larger than the animals themselves.

That mud is slippery! I went down on my back, had to roll over in the mud to find something to grab and pull myself up. No harm done (a bit of a bruised tailbone is all), but this next photo was taken quickly while I hurried, dripping mud, back to the car. I should have, will later, stopped to look more closely.

Little black, sharp protrusions on the surface of the mud turned out to be the tips of an under-mud colony of mussels.

Watching it all, impassive:

Gull on a weedy rock.

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Por algunos minutos, me detuve a mirar el lodo entre y debajo de las rocas que mostré ayer.

El lodo, a primera vista, parece sin interés, pero mirando directamente para abajo, se nota que está densamente poblado con millones de anémonas "Anthopleura elegantissima". Cuando sube la marea otra vez, cada una extenderá sus tentáculos color de rosa por encima de la superficie del lodo.

Volteé una piedra y encontré debajo este anélido poliqueto de colores iridiscentes. También presentes: isopodos "chaparros", mejillones, bálanos, y unos cangrejos que se apuraron a esconderse. Uno no logró desaparecer completamente. ¿Lo ves?

Más isopodos "chaparros' y un gran isopodo "Wosnesenski". Los pequeños isopodos llevan el nombre científico, "Gnorimosphaeroma oregonensis", un nombre mucho más largo que el animal.

¡Ese lodo es resbaloso! Terminé cayéndome sobre la espalda en el lodo. No hubo daño, aparte de un moretón en donde no se ve, pero tuve que revolcarme en el lodo para encontrar algo sólido para ayudarme a ponerme otra vez de pie. Así que la foto que sigue fue tomada sin cuidado, aprisa, mientras me apuraba, escurriendo lodo, para regresar al coche. Debería haberme detenido para investigar lo que veía. Otro día será.

Se veía en la superficie del lodo un grupo de lineas agudas, negras. Al mirarlas más de cerca, descubrí que eran mejillones, escondidos bajo el lodo, con solo las puntas al agua. Nunca había notado esto antes.

Y finalmente, una gaviota, mirando todo impasivamente.

Mud lovers

The sidehill behind my house was logged off early in the 20th century, then mostly left to itself. It was too steep, too wet, to be considered for housing back then, and gradually turned into a forbidding jungle of alders and maples struggling through a thicket of Himalayan blackberry vines.

My neighbours, a generation ago, cleared the lower slope of blackberries and built their houses. Now, as the population grows, as well as the size of houses, even the old wastelands become valuable. My landlords are clearing that back hill, with the view of building a house and a garden site there.

I explored the site on a sunny afternoon. The blackberries are mostly gone; now the mud is populated by buttercups and Queen Anne's lace. The hill is still wet, even on dry days; mud oozes slowly down the hill; shoe-swallowing mud, glooping mud. In a wetter spot that almost becomes a creeklet, I found a patch of American brooklime.

American brooklime, Veronica beccabunga ssp. americana.

This is a tiny flower that creeps along wet ground, seepage areas, at the edge of ditches. I don't see it often, partly because of its habit of growing where I can't walk. To get these photos, I had to crouch precariously above the mud, with my shoes already half eaten.

The bluish colour in back is the sheen of water over the mud, which is almost black.

Four-petalled lilac-coloured flowers.

They say it's edible, but they also warn against eating any growing in polluted water. So I'm not harvesting any of these.

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En los primeros años del siglo pasado, se cortaron los viejos árboles del cerro atrás de mi casa. Desde entonces, el sitio se abandonó a su suerte, ya que era demasiado inclinado, demasiado húmedo, demasiado inestable como para construir casas. Con el tiempo, se convirtió en una jungla de alisos y maples casi ahogada bajo cañas de mora invasiva.

Mis vecinos, hace una generación, limpiaron la parte inferior del cerro, matando las moras, y allí construyeron sus casas. Y ahora, con el crecimiento de la población, aún ese terreno inútil adquiere valor. Los dueños de mi casa están limpiando ese cerro, pensando construir allí una casa y un jardín.

Una tarde asoleada, fuí a explorar el sitio. Casi todas las cañas de mora se han extirpado; ahora el lodo está cubierto de ranúnculos y zanahoria silvestre. Y el cerro sigue mojado, empapado; el lodo fluye lentamente cerro abajo y es capaz de comer zapatos.

En una esquina donde el lodo casi se convierte en riachuelo, encontré estas flores. Son Verónica acuática (o becabunga), una planta pequeña que se arrastra por sitios donde hay lodo mojado, en el borde de riachuelos, en terrenos maltratados. Raras veces la encentro porque acostumbra crecer donde se me hace difícil caminar. Para sacar estas fotos, me tuve que balancear precariamente sobre el lodo, con los zapatos ya medio tragados.

Se dice que la planta se puede comer, pero también nos advierten que no hay que comerla si está creciendo en aguas contaminadas.

Treacherous footing

I've surfaced from a few days battling the flu, in time to watch disturbing news from down south. This photo from Oyster Bay seemed appropriate.

The sign says "Tidal Flats unsuitable for walking".

The whole tidal area within the breakwater is deep in reeking, sticky, foot-grabbing muck, treacherous underfoot even around the edges. The sign is unnecessary; the stink is off-putting enough. And yet ... and yet ... the birds love it; peeps of all sorts dash about, finding goodies in the ooze, cheeping happily; ducks, dabbling and diving, take over when the tide comes in; geese and gulls rest on the sand banks, and purple martins occupy the nest boxes. None of these are present in the photo, probably because of the dog out on the breakwater and another on this side of the water. But they'll all be back shortly.

Sticky mud, sticky flowers

The Oyster Bay Shoreline Park stretches along a narrow strip between the highway and the ocean. The beach is stony and steep, difficult to walk on, but a good place to sit on a log and listen to the waves rolling in.

At the northern end, protected from the rush of water in the channel by a rocky spit, is the slough, with its ancient, rotted pilings left over from a long defunct marina; now they hold nest boxes for purple martins. The slough is bare mud at low tide, gluey, foot-swallowing mud. It looks solid enough until you step on it; under the crust, it oozes. A skin of rotting seaweed covers large patches, and the whole area stinks. Shorebirds love it.

The inner end of the slough. Somehow, without the stink, it looks prettier. Assorted peeps are foraging in the shallow water. The pilings with nest boxes are off to the left, in the deepest mud. I tried to walk closer to the birds, but the mud wanted to keep my shoes, so I gave up.

From the pathway above the water line, looking down on a piling housing an adventurous elderberry shrub.

Between the parking lot and the slough is a dry, flat plain covered with dry, often prickly plants. Signs at intervals warn us off; some of these plants are rare, some are sensitive.

I've been spending time recently sitting or kneeling on the moss and stones, looking at plants, some thigh-high, others in mats fingertip deep.

The most obvious at this time of year is the bright-flowered gumweed:

Gumweed, Grindelia stricta. Grows on dry land or sea shores. Salt tolerant.

The white exudate on the buds is really sticky.

Half closed at the end of the day.

Typical gumweed plant, this one among the driftwood lining the beach.

Tomorrow, an unusual clover.

Scat, berries, and bugs. And a rat.

The Serpentine River lives up to its name. It winds across the flat Fraser Delta farmland, spreading out into wetlands where it finds opportunity, dawdling on its way down to the flats of Mud Bay. In the Fen, a wide, gravelled path winds with it, Northwest, then South again, almost meeting itself as the river carves out a bulbous finger of marsh.

I took a side path, leading across a small bridge, through a thicket, and past tall stands of cattails bordering a former lagoon, now mostly dry, cracked mud, in spite of the previous day's rain.

No wonder the birds are elsewhere! Two stubborn Canada geese waiting for the water to come back.

From here, the path turned west, ducked through a narrow tunnel of bush - I'm short, and the branches brushed my head - and then along a straight path, hawthorns and baneberry on the left, great mounds of the invasive Himalayan blackberry on the right, sometimes three times or more my height, and loaded with purple-black berries. I passed people with buckets, picking. I tried a few; ripe and sweet. Even after I had left them behind, when the breeze picked up, I could smell their perfume.

Hard at work, pollinating. More berries on the way!

He's carrying big bags of pollen to take home to the nest.

A common red soldier beetle, Rhagonycha fulva.

Another turn, a short, noisy walk alongside the highway, and then the path came out onto the river bank again. Beautiful silence!

This end of the fen is old farmland, with remains of fences and groves of hawthorn and crabapple, all showing their dismay at this dry summer.

Hawthorn, needing water.

Here the path is bordered on the inner side with weedy grass, all brown and dead. I poked along, chasing grasshoppers and big blue dragonflies, with no luck, and dodging coyote scat.

This one has some sort of fungus.

Besides the coyote scat, every few steps, (one with a hawthorn berry on top, like the cherry on a cupcake), the grass was full of rabbit pellets. Predator and prey, but the rabbits seem to be doing ok.

A hawk was patrolling this dry land, swooping low over the grass, looking for small birds and mice, and maybe a juicy rabbit, too.

Tiny fly, unidentified. About half an inch long. Update: Sand wasp. Thanks, Christopher!

White feather. What bird would this be from? About three inches long.

And a final surprise; swimming along the shore, going downstream at a good clip, I saw this big rat:

Not a house rat.

And over the river, a pair of swallows were catching mosquitoes. Good!

Squelchy, gooey, glorious mud!

Canada geese at low tide this afternoon along the Nicomekl River.

They could always fly, but maybe they like the feel of mud between their toes.

Anyhow, it'll all wash off in the river, once they get there.

Three pink dots in the grass

These flowers are tiny. I would have missed them if I hadn't been bending to look at the mud on my shoes.

I know I should recognize this, but I don't.

When Google image search, asked for pink flowers with three sepals, growing on wet ground, starts giving me cows, bran muffins, and snowy city streets, I know I've been wasting my time. I'm going to bed.

Rainy day and muddy swans

In a field along the Ladner Trunk Road.

Muddy bellies and legs, some white backs.

It's been raining too long. This photo is from 10 days ago. It's still raining.