Surprise at the end of the trail

I found myself following the Elk River, wondering how to get down the sandy flats it meanders across. And then there was a sign: Elk River Viewing Area. Just what I wanted! I pulled in and parked.

Signs can be misleading. This one led to a toasty dry, sun-baked path. Rocks and dust and BCHydro lines. I did get to see the river, eventually. Sort of.

I'll walk you down the trail today; tomorrow, I'll show you what else I saw.

Bones of the hill

The trail — more of a footpath, barely wide enough for two feet — leads past the access road for the BCHydro crews, then skirts rock outcrops; brownish rock, in gentle slopes, covered with mounds of moss baked to a crisp, faded to almost white.

Coming around another rocky slope. A bit of welcome shade ahead. BCHydro poles marching along.

More rock. Big Den mountain, 1174 m. Would that be a bear den? Probably.

And there's the viewing platform. And the end of the trail.

Not exactly a "Nature walk"; a dusty trail down the ravaged lands where they cut down the forest to string the wires carrying electricity from our Campbell River dams to the opposite coast of the island. An area of scruffy shrubs, dead branches, trucked-in gravel, and those Hydro poles. 

But wait!

Sign on the viewing platform. (Bird droppings removed.)

The sign reads:

Roosevelt Elk in Strathcona Park. 

The Elk River Valley provides a good variety of habitats for the Roosevelt elk. Clearings such as the river flats and hydro lines are rich in the small trees, shrubs, ferns and grasses that make up the majority of their diet. The nearby forest provides shelter from predators and severe winter storms. The resident elk herd is made up mostly of females, yearlings and calves. The adult males come down from their summer range in the high mountain passes in time for the fall rut.

Look For These Elk Signs:

1. Tracks and scat (droppings) are clear evidence that elk have been here.

2. Many shrubs growing here have signs of elk browse. They appear misshapen, with many short branches.

And I'd been blaming BCHydro for the broken shrubs!

View from the platform. No elk; wrong time of day.

And far below, the river. No river flats here, no trail down to the water.

View looking back from the platform. The usual cool blues and greens.

And tomorrow: what I saw along the path.

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

Me hallé sigiendo el rio Elk (Alce), buscando alguna manera de bajar hacia las llanuras donde serpentea el rio. Y  hubo un letrero: Area de Observación del Rio Elk. ¡Justo lo que buscaba! Entré y estacioné el coche.

Es muy fácil malinterpretar un letrero. Este me dirigió a un sendero seco, tostado, quemado bajo la luz solar sin protección. Rocas y polvo y los cables de BCHydro, la compaña eléctrica. Af fin, sí logré ver el rio. Más o menos.

Hoy les llevo en el sendero conmigo.  Mañana, les enseño que más encontré.

1. El esqueleto de la tierra. El sendero — apenas suficientemente ancho para caminar en desfile — pasa por el camino que usaron los equipos de BCHydro, y luego rodea afloramientos rocosos; roca color café, cubierta de cojines de musgos tostados, crujientes, blanqueados por el sol.
2. El camino pasa debajo de otra roca. Hay señas de un poco de sombra más adelante. Y los postes de BCHydro siguen su marcha.
3. Y una roca grande.  El monte Big Den (Guarida Grande). ¿Será una guarida de osos a que se refiere el nombre?
4. Y allí está la plataforma para observaciones. Y el final del camino. No era precisamente un "Paseo Naturalista:; un sendero polvoriento entre terrenos arrasados donde borraron el bosque para colgar los cables que llevan corriente eléctrica desde nuestras presas en el rio Campbell hasta la costa opuesta de la isla. Un sitio lleno de arbustos desbaratados, ramas muertas, grava que han traido de lejos; y esos postes de BCHydro,
5. ¡Pero, esperen! Aquí está el letrero que han puesto en la plataforma. Y dice:
   
   Los Alces Roosevelt en el Parque Strathcona. El Valle del Rio Elk provee una buena variedad de habitats para los alces Roosevelt. Espacios abiertos tales como las llanuras del rio y loa corredores de BCHydro están ricos con los arbustos pequeños, los helechos y pastos en que consiste la mayor parte de su dieta. El bosque cercano provee protección de los predadores y albergue durante las tormentas severas del invierno.  La manada residente de alces consiste por la mayor parte de hembras, terneros de menos de un año, y becerros. Los machos adultos bajan de sus pastizales de verano en las alturas para la temporada del celo.
   
   Observe estos señales de la presencia de alces:
   
   1. Huellas y excrementos son seña clara de que estuvieron aquí.
   
   2. Muchos de los arbustos en este lugar han servido de alimento a los alces. Parecen estar malformados, y tienen muchas ramas acortadas.
   
   ¡Y yo que he estado echando la culpa de los arbustos malformados al descuido de los empleados de BCHydro!
6. Vista desde la plataforma. No hay alces; de dia se esconden en el bosque.
7. Y por fin, el rio. Sin llanura, sin camino que baja hasta allí.
8. Viendo en dirección opuesta desde la plataforma; verdes y azules.

Mañana subo fotos de lo que encontré en camino.

New old find

The wind howled. Rain spattered my windows with flying mud. Dawn - a watery, grey sort of dawn - to a greyer dusk gave us barely 8 hours of muted light. No day to take the camera and go looking for kelp. I spent the day re-caulking the new leaks around the bathroom window,  and sorting 10-year-old photos. It seemed a good day to make drastic cuts, leaving the remainder easier to organize and, later on, find.

I found a new candidate for next year's Arachtober; a ten-year-old photo I had filed on the basis of a quick eye-balling under "Land snails".

And yes, I had included it in a blog post back then, but today it was a "new" find. Look:

Grove snail with patterned shell. And a busy mother spider.

And here's a second photo of the spider alone, cleaned up a bit.

Spotty mother, with pinkish egg case.

 

And for today, they're promising us sunny breaks. Interspersed with rain, of course.

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

El viento aulló. Gotas gordas de lluvia, llevando lodo levantado por el viento, salpicaron mis ventanas. Desde el amanecer — un amanecer tenue de color gris — hasta una puesta del sol aun más grisaceo, apenas tuvimos 8 horas de media luz. No era un buen dia como para salir con la cámara en busca de kelp. Me pasé el dia calafateando las nuevas grietas alrededor de la ventana del baño, y luego revisando y recortando fotos que tomé hace diez años y más. Parecía un buen día para eliminar muchas, dejando los que quedan más fáciles de organizar y encontrar.

Y en eso, encontré una foto que servirá para empezar mi folder para Arachtober del año que entra, una foto de 2010 que había puesto a base de un rápido vistazo, en el folder de caracoles terrestres.

Si, hay un caracol, pero ¡mira la arañita que lo acompaña! Una araña con su bolsita de huevos. ¡Tan miniatura! El caracol mide apenas 15 a 20 mm.

Y para hoy, nos prometen unos momentos de sol. Entre las lluvias, claro está.

Bare branch serendipity

Another reason to appreciate the winter months: driving by on the highway, en route to collect water for my aquarium, I saw an eagle's nest, usually hidden behind green stuff. I turned off at the next road, turned again, and again, and came up on the tree from the far side. From one spot, I had a clear view, without too many intervening branches.

Eagle and her nest.

She's eating something pink.

Another turn, and I found another viewpoint, from someone's driveway.

The eagle. I can't see what she's eating.

Of course the nest is empty at this time of year, but now I've found it, and the two possible spots from which to view it; I'll be back in the spring.

Just plain lucky

If I hadn't been looking at tidepool sculpins. If I hadn't gotten down on my elbows and knees to see the big plumose anemone under the rock in the sculpins' pool. If the sun hadn't angled in at just that moment; I would have passed these by without noticing.

Feather duster worms, on the underside of a huge rock, at the top of the tide pool.

These are big worms, well over an inch wide at the crown. There are hints of others farther back, where the sun hasn't reached; they look almost purplish-black.

Two tubes at the far end, with a few more deeper down, in the shade.

 I touched one tube; the worm in it disappeared instantly and didn't reappear while I waited.

About half of the visible worms were striped; the rest were dark red.

Desert isle

South of Campbell River, the highway follows the shoreline to Oyster Bay, then veers inland. From here on south, access to the shore is via occasional roads through the forest to resort areas or parks. Keeping to these roads, I'd missed something important.

Saturday afternoon was sunny and warm; the tide was high, but going down. I took a path to the beach from the south end of Oyster Bay Park, and headed south along the shore, past the front walls of a resort, past a wide lawn with notices on the beach for guests of the next resort, heading for a bright spot where sunlight had managed to filter through the trees to a patch of beach.

The wind was up and the waves were choppy. Only two boats were in sight from here, one of them towing a barge laden with bright-labelled boxes.

Boats, barge, and Mitlenatch Island, 5 miles away.

Looking at my photos later, I zoomed in on that island, then searched for it on Google. It's not shown on the maps, but on Google Earth, there it is, in the middle of the Strait, highlighted separately from the water surrounding it. And there's a name: Mitlenatch Island. It's even a Provincial Park.

Mitlenatch Island Nature Provincial Park is home to the largest seabird colony in the Strait of Georgia. Glaucous-winged gulls, pelagic cormorants, pigeon guillemots, rhinoceros auklets and black oystercatchers also return to Mitlenatch each spring to breed. All sedentary marine life, including abalones, scallops and sea cucumbers are fully protected within this zone. Some of the largest garter snakes in BC reside here. These snakes are frequently encountered along trails and in beach and tide pool areas, where they feed on small fish such as sculpins and blennies. This park is a favourite haul out for harbour seals, northern and California sea lions. The sea lions are generally present from late autumn to mid-May. River otters, killer whales and harbour porpoises are often sighted offshore. (Wikipedia)

Cormorants! Garter snakes! Sea lions! Rhinocerous auklets! Guillemots and porpoises and whales and sea cucumbers! And more!

Mitlenatch Island is home to the largest seabird nesting colony in the Strait of Georgia ... (BC Parks)

It's a dry island, which is why it shows up against the background of our coastal rain forests. It's in the Vancouver Island rain shadow, and gets about half the rainfall that we do in Campbell River, just a few miles away. It even has cacti!

Visit in May when the island’s meadows of spring wildflowers are in bloom, or in late May to July when the harvest brodia blooms and in the last half of June when the coastal cactus bloom. (BC Parks)

Most of the island is off-limits to visitors, but there are a few trails and a bird blind. Volunteer wardens stay on the island during the summer to ensure that people stay to the trails and don't harass the sea lions. Fishing off-shore is not permitted, nor is any sort of collecting, except for photos. And memories.

And it's accessible only by boat. The only local boat tour I can find starts from Cortes Island; to get there for a day trip this May, I have to take an early-morning ferry to Quadra Island, drive across the island, take a second ferry to Cortes Island, and take a shuttle across Cortes to Manson Bay, a trip that has to be repeated in reverse in the evening. Expensive and exhausting; but I've already pinned it to my calendar. This is a place I must see!

Trail to Serendip

If I'd been paying attention, I never would have found it. I daydreamed myself into the wrong lane, got hemmed in by trucks, and was forced to turn right down a side street that, two blocks later, dead-ended at the river bank.

Campbell River, looking down towards the estuary.

I parked and went to look at the river. On my left, a wood fence shut off the view and access to the bank. On the right, blackberry canes and other weedy shrubs made another wall of sorts. But while I watched the river, a woman with a hiking stick and a backpack came along behind me and turned into a narrow gap in that wall. I followed her.

There was a path, narrow and muddy, hemmed in by weeds, but after a short walk, it broke through into an open space. There were benches, and a sign.

Myrt Thompson Trail. Home Depot off to the right.

The trail itself hadn't been improved; it remained narrow, half gravel, half mud, carved out only by foot traffic. I went on; the trail had to lead somewhere.

It follows the river bank, heading downstream, towards the estuary, an area that I had often looked at from Tyee Spit, but never found any way to get there. Now, in mid-winter, the vegetation is mainly weedy grass and, along the bank, alders and evergreens. Someone has planted a few new evergreens alongside the path; they look like they're struggling through their first winter.

The trail goes on and on, past old parking lots, (Where did those come from? Where is the access? Not on Google maps, for sure.) across a narrow wood bridge, onto a long spit barely a dozen metres across, with the trail down the centre. I met a few people; crossing a bridge, I had to press up tight against the side to allow them to pass.

Eagle landing. I think that's a crow on the tip of the tree on the right.

Red and yellow branches beside a bridge. Waiting for spring.

A narrow spit with a flock of sleeping mallards.

Nearer the river mouth, the water breaks up into a maze of back-channels, pools, and bays; mini-islands dot the area. In the main channel of the river, the current is strong, but here, the water lies quiet. Ducks dabble in the shallows or sleep in the sunshine. Overhead, high in the trees, eagles squeak, their calls sounding more like reluctant doors than like bird song. In the distance, I saw an osprey.

With the sun behind a hill, looking towards the town behind yet another islet. It's cold, and each house sends up its plume of smoke; I can smell wood burning, even from here.

After a time, the trail ends in a wood observation platform, looking across the estuary to Tyee Spit and the ocean beyond. But no, the trail hasn't ended, except in the planners' minds; the footpath takes off to the right, through a stand of alder, down a spit as narrow as the mallards' bedroom, to the very tip.

The river opens into the sea. Tyee Spit lies directly ahead, with the airplane hangars and offices on the right. On the left, industry on the far bank of the river.

I turned and went back. I still had errands to run before dark.

Moss between the path and the river, with afternoon shadows.

Near the beginning of the trail, an explanatory sign has been erected. Now, muddy and scratched, it is difficult to read. I took a photo and cleaned it up enough to decipher the information.

Part of the sign.

It tells of the restoration of Baikie Island, which had been an industrial site until recently; the area around it is still full of machinery and noise. At home, I looked it up on the web; it's not marked on Google maps; on the map version, not even the access road to Baikie Island is included. But I found some information on the Campbell River Parks site.

Baikie Island is the bit of land I had been watching across the river from the path I was on. I had poked around that area, and found no access to the shore, but it must be there, though there are no signs that I could find. (Like the unmarked Myrt Thompson Trail that I was on.)

Google maps. The Campbell River estuary. I have marked the MT Trail in red. It's a little over 1 km long. Baikie Island is the leaf-shaped land mass in the bay to the left.

The next day that the weather permits, I'll head over there and find the entrance.

A pair of eagles on a tree on Baikie Island.

Serendipity

I had taken a wrong turn and was tangled in streets that curved away from where I wanted to be, and then dead-ended, when I passed a small sign at an opening into a brushy, weedy, dark ravine. "Al Cleaver Park," the sign said. It didn't look park-like, nor inviting, but I was fed up with driving in circles. I parked and went in.

Well. An old trail led along the edge of the ravine, down a hill, past weeds and trash, and ended up underneath the road I had been looking for. And there, where I never would have seen it in years of hurrying home, was a bright crop of Queen Anne's lace, dancing in the breeze.

With bugs, to boot.

Flower head, opening up. With soldier beetle.

Common aerial yellowjacket, Dolichovespula arenaria, I think.

Harmless Syrphid fly, pretending to be a big, bad yellowjacket.

Pair of soldier beetles doing what soldier beetles do.

"Hi, friends! Mind if I join you?"

The busy pair ignored him, and he wandered off alone.

I took too many photos, and I still haven't sorted them. I've still got a bunch of critters from the Serpentine Fens, etc. And I'm due a visit to the beach to collect hermit treats. I'll catch up one of these days!

Underwater epidemic

Or, The rotten egg zone, Part II
(Part I, yesterday)

The bad news first.

The starfish are dying.* Up and down our coast, from California to BC, millions of starfish and sunstars are curling up as if in agonies, losing arms, and then quickly dying. The cute little brittle stars are infected; sea cucumbers are spilling their guts and rotting. No-one seems to know precisely why.

Affected sea stars typically first contort and twist, and white lesions appear on their bodies. Their usually firm, meaty bodies deflate and waste away. Arms fall off and walk off on their own. The animal loses its ability to hold on to rocks or pilings. Its body falls apart in pieces, and finally dissolves. Within weeks, only a ghostly white print will remain, and then nothing at all. Entire communities are wiped out, as if they never existed, (SeattleTimes)

(Stories, USAToday, SeattleTimes, PBS.)

One of the scientists trying to find out what's happening, and why, is diving photographer Jan Kocian, co-author of a Reef2Rainforest blog. I found an article there, about a series of dives in Puget Sound, off Whidbey Island, just a short distance south of here,

. . . with the objective of obtaining photographic evidence of, particularly, the sea-star wasting disease epidemic . . .

He discovered masses of dead and dying brittle stars. It's a gruesome read, and the photos are frightening, but if you can stomach it, it's worth the effort.

Here's the gist of it, though: Kocian made a series of visits this September, finding sick sea stars, then dead sea stars, dead clams, dead and dying sunfish, dead sea cucumbers, dying sea urchins, worms, and more. By the end of the month, some areas seemed to be recovering after a storm which cleared the water, but further off-shore, the carnage continued.

The full extent of the dead area, and the reason for the mortality, remain indeterminate. Typically in Puget Sound, the benthos is very rich, so that a mortality event such as this may take several months for even partial recovery.  Although the substrate will appear to recover in a few months, quantitative sampling will show the benthos make take two or more years before it has returned to normal.

Many scientists studying this believe that it may have something to do with the increased temperature of the water; even a portion of a degree, on average, can have a major effect, stressing the animals and promoting the growth of bacteria. (I read on another website that some sea stars recovered when the temperature dropped.) Or it could be a bacterial infection, an underwater epidemic. Or ...

The cause could be a toxins, a virus, bacteria, manmade chemicals, ocean acidification, wastewater discharge or warming oceans. "We're not ruling anything out," Raimondi said. (USAToday)

I've found a few dead starfish on the beach at Boundary Bay recently, but they had all their arms, and their deaths were probably, I hope, due to more usual causes. And the stars that came home with me a few weeks ago seemed healthy. I keep hoping.

Ok. Now the good news.

After reading all this, I examined my three mottled sea stars carefully. They look fine. They're eating and growing and making a general nuisance of themselves. I don't see any early lesions, but I'm making sure to keep them cold and change their water frequently.

And I found the answer to a question I've been asking. As Ron Shimek, Kocian's colleague writes,

As is often the case in a study such as this, serendipity will rear its head, and wholly unexpected observations will be made.

And I'll leave my discovery for tomorrow.

Serendipitous miniature

Squinting through the microscope at a new centre of activity in the aquarium - story tomorrow - my tired hand slipped down, and I discovered two feather-duster worms in the sand.

The taller of the two. Still too small to see without a lens.

And there are two tinier critters caught in its tentacles, as they dashed around feeding on something even smaller.

Mustachioed babies!

In the One Thing Leads to Another department:

The other day, I posted this photo of a Eastern mud snail,

Nice schnozzle!

... and asked what animal it reminded you of. I suggested a camel/zebra cross, but Upupaepops came up with a walrus. So I had to look up walrus pics on Google. And yes, the snail does look like a walrus. Or a walrus looks like the snail; take your pick.

And I came across this video, which I mentioned in the comments, but it's too good to bury there.

A baby walrus, about 4 weeks old, was found abandoned near Barrow, Alaska.

'Way up there, at the tip, where the marker is. Google maps.

At 4 weeks old, he weighed 200 lbs! He was rescued by the Alaska Sea Life Center, and ... just watch the video. (2:18, but if you're impatient, forward to about 1:30 for the cuddliest baby ever!)



More information:
From ZooBorns, with more photos.
And a follow-up report, from Alaska Sea Life.
He is now in the Indianapolis Zoo.

He looked so awkward, trying to walk on two front flippers and dragging his rear, that I had to see how he operated underwater. And I found another baby video (3:51):

Video from Arkive. Left-click to open in a new tab. Otherwise, it closes this page.

Very graceful, but those two rear feet (watch for them at 1:43) come as a surprise. The baby nurses, and paddles his mother's belly, like a kitten does. (2:35) Keep on watching to see the parents hugging their child (3:12), just as humans cuddle a baby.

It all makes me wonder; what do walruses think and feel? How like us are they?