Paper hanger

Yellow jackets and hornets make large, elaborate nests, interesting to find, but showing no sign of the internal structure. Paper wasps are less protective of their young. Lazier, more inclined to go off hunting, maybe.

I found one making her nest under the overhang of the toilets at Oyster Bay.

Golden paper wasp, Polistes aurifer, working on her nest.

These wasps build a single layer of cells hanging from a tiny stem, leaving them open to the air. The cells remain open while the young, one per cell, hatch and grow through several molts, with the adults watching over them and feeding them ground up caterpillars and other insects. (Maybe I shouldn't have called them lazy.)

When the larvae are ready to pupate, they spin their own silk cocoon to seal themselves in until they're ready to emerge as full-grown adults.

Paper wasp nest

And, on the logs at the top of the beach, a wasp nest, abandoned now at the end of summer.

Looks like a paper tree.

This is a paper wasp nest, probably Polistes dominula, which builds open nests, not enclosed in a paper "football", like the yellow jackets do.

Identifying a Wasp or Hornet Nest

• Paper wasps - Paper wasps build open and exposed nests that resemble an upside down umbrella. These nests can get quite large late in the season, and adult wasps will readily sting if they sense danger approaching. Some wasps build new nests on top of old nests, giving the false impression that they are reusing a nest.

• Yellow Jackets - build nests that are surrounded by a papery covering, and are commonly found within wall voids or cavities in the ground. When disturbed, yellow jackets are quite aggressive, and can attack in large numbers. Yellow jackets are typically most aggressive in late summer and this leads to an increase in yellow jacket stings.

• Bald faced hornets - build nests that are covered in a papery shell and European hornets build their nests in natural cavities like tree stumps, or in cavities within buildings.

• Mud Daubers - construct nests using mud or clay. The nests are small, tubular mud shutes usually built either in existing cracks or crevices in masonry, stone or timber around homes, sheds and garages. (From Rentokill)

View from the top. Two of the cells still contain enclosed larvae.

Wasp nest on high

It's a good thing I looked up, squinting against the blaze of afternoon sunlight, searching the trees for an invisible singing bird; I would have missed this otherwise.

A fat wasp's nest, once hidden, exposed now that the leaves are half gone.

The nest looks heavy, hanging on a branch, dragging it down.

I was re-visiting Baikie Island; a full report tomorrow.

(And I never found the bird.)

Baikie Island is tucked into the mouth of the Campbell River.

Wasp nest

How quickly the seasons change! Last week, we were in hot summer; this week, it's fall. It stopped raining briefly this afternoon, and I went back to Tyee Spit to look for a tiny plant I'm trying to identify. There were flowers last week. This week, there are seed pods.

Pushing through the shrubbery, I came upon this wasp nest.

Water-resistant paper and dying leaves.

The wasp nest is built from top to bottom, with cells for the developing larvae pointing downward, and the exit somewhere towards the bottom. In this one, I noticed the change in pattern; the centre top is built around twigs from the bushes, then the cells are added in rounded lumps. As the builders worked towards the bottom, they switched to a regular, layered style, working around a couple more twigs.

Zooming in to show the textures.

There was no sign of wasps, though I rustled the bushes quite a bit, breaking off dead branches to get through to the nest. There may still be a few alive inside, but they'll die with the first hard freeze.

We are here.

Farewell party?

My aquarium critters needed eelgrass. Lots of eelgrass. I'm going to take them, tank and all, on a 5 hour trip, probably bumpy at times, and they'll have to leave most of their water behind. Several gallons of water sloshing back and forth unpredictably can cause quite a bit of damage, so I'll leave them an inch or so, and pack the tank with wet eelgrass. The anemones and snails will hide under the sand, and the hermits will cling to the eelgrass, and all will be well. I hope.

Very tiny hermit, climbing the eelgrass.

Down at Boundary Bay, I found everything all laid out for me; piles of fresh eelgrass, with roots and the diatom fuzz the hermits love, big sheets of sea lettuce, even a fresh holdfast, just the right size for the tank. The wind and tide had been working in my favour; the tide was high and still coming in, and the wind had whipped the waves into a froth. Together, they'd dug up an eelgrass bed from the lower intertidal zone and deposited it, still fresh and barely tangled, at the water line for me.

My hermits are happy.

So were the wind surfers.

I had another item on my shopping list: I wanted photos of spiders for the Arachtober group. So I poked around the fences and alleys of Beach Grove, peering into cracks and under shrubs. (The residents there are very tolerant; mostly they smile. One man told me there were many wolf spiders along his fence. I didn't find any.)

I found, first, a couple of abandoned paper wasp nests.

Look at this (click) full size to see the texture of the paper.

And yes, I found two spiders.

Large cross spider.

These get their name from the cross shape (sort of) on their abdomen. The scientific name is Araneus diadematus, meaning "crown spider", which doesn't sound quite right. I don't see a crown. This one looks more like a Christmas tree, all decorated. The ones here in North Delta are mostly orange and brown; both the Beach Grove spiders were brown and grey.

And then I drove home, saying, "Goodbye, see you later," to all the old favourite landmarks on the way. Next week at this time, I'll be on the Island.

Muddy bassinets

Do spiders eat wasps? Do wasps eat spiders? We've been discussing this in the comments on yesterday's post. Conclusion; yes, and yes.

Even baby wasps eat spiders.

The porch of the building behind the washrooms at Reifel Island Migratory Bird Sanctuary is a quiet corner, rarely visited. There, swallows tend their nests in the eaves, and moths sleep on the walls, undisturbed. And in the shade at the top of the inner wall, black and yellow mud dauber wasps build their baby incubators.

A dozen little cradles, all in a row.

Half a dozen. A new nursery, under construction.

Each little tube contains one wasp egg and provisions for the growing larva. The female wasp collects mud from the edge of the pond nearby, and molds it into tubes on the wall, working from both sides, making ribs which meet in the middle and are cemented shut.

As each tube is finished, she goes grocery shopping, bringing back a half-dozen or more spiders, live, but paralyzed by a shot of wasp venom. They will never wake up. In each tube, then, she lays one egg, and seals the tube up with mud. When the eggs hatch, the growing larvae will eat the spiders, still alive up to that point.

The two open tubes in the photos above are still unfinished; the others all contain comatose spiders and developing eggs.

Here's a mother wasp, working on an open tube.

Once most of the eggs are laid and provisioned, she starts daubing the whole mass with another layer of mud. This will dry hard and seal in the babies until they're ready to break out.

Adding spiders to the latest tube. The spider hiding on the left doesn't realize her danger!

Of course, nothing is foolproof. Other species of wasps, ichneumonids* and cuckoo wasps**, look for mud dauber nurseries under construction, and lay their eggs inside while the mother is off catching spiders. When the invaders' eggs hatch, they eat the spiders and the mud dauber larvae, too, then burrow their way to the surface of the mound.

Look at an old mud dauber nest and you can decipher what happened to the offspring. A large hole chewed out at the end of a cell means an adult mud dauber successfully emerged. Small holes along the length of the cell mean some kind of parasite came out instead. (From BugEric)

About names: the common name is simply Black and Yellow Mud Dauber. Its scientific name is Sceliphron caementarium; hard to pronounce, but it makes sense: caementarius means "mason, builder of walls." Of cement, of course.

* Ichneumonids. Christopher Taylor called them Icky Newmans. A good mnemonic, and it helps with pronunciation, too!

** Cuckoo wasps. Brilliant green; I saw a fair number at Reifel Island on Tuesday. I'll look again at those nests later on, to see who were the final hatchlings.

Baker's dozen; beauty and beasties

Random moments from our May wanderings:

Banana slug eating a faded leaf, Cougar Canyon

Columbine in my garden

Nootka rose, with 4 critters. The orange bee I was following left before I could catch him. Burns Bog.

I've never seen a wasp nest like this one before. Overhead, as we went out our door. About 4 inches long.

Osprey spiderwort, Potter's nursery.

This was strange. It's a short branch off a dead tree; just the stem and then this - thing. A beginning of a burl, maybe?

White flowers under shrubbery beside the road. Unidentified.

Down to the beach . . .

Centennial beach, from the new concession stand.

Mussels, barnacles, and sea lettuce on the rope holding a boat float.

Tide coming in, Crescent Beach

Laughing log? Beach Grove shore.

Glossy water and cloud, Point Roberts.

And more clouds:

Centennial Beach and Point Roberts.

A Skywatch post

Reifel Island: it's not all about the birds.

I'm still processing photos from a couple of hours on Reifel Island. We were shutter happy.

Near the gate, after we run the gauntlet of absolutely starving (to hear them tell it) mallards, we come to a clearing overlooking the lagoons to the east. Just below the fence, a school of carp are usually milling about, waiting for seeds, just like the mallards. I love to feed them, watching them slide over and under each other, in a slithery, complicated dance.

Most of these carp are about 2 feet long.

4 fish here, and swirling water.

Most of the birds were lazing about, waiting for Saturday, but the insects don't have that luxury. They were all busy, busy, busy.

Cross spider, Araneus diadematus, in the center of her web. Every bush and clump of tall grass had several of these, all fat, quite a few with their latest catch.

Big blue-eyed darner, pausing to catch his breath. Not for long.

Syrphid (hover) fly on asters.

Goldenrod and brown water. With a spider's anchor line.

The same goldenrod with a pair of yellow and black look-alikes; a small, long-legged wasp, with a yellow face and yellow striped abdomen,and a hover fly, with its striped vest.

Luckily, this huge wasp nest (10 to 12 inches high) has been abandoned; it is only a couple of feet off the path, and at head height. Usually, they are built higher up in the trees.

We had ostensibly come to see birds.

Sky, branch and mallard reflected in a still pond.

Semicircle of one-legged peeps.

Just a late-summer path.

Just missed!

. . . and other glitches.

The walk under the trees was peaceful; out on the wetlands, the sun was warm. The weather was glorious, with a clear blue sky and pillows of white clouds on the mountain tops. Sparrows and robins sang in the weeds, thousands of bees buzzed in the lupins waving blue and pink flags on every hill. Cottonwood fluff drifted in the wind and speckled the pools and river. Just simply delightful!

There had to be a fly in that ointment. There was.

On the first leg of the path, grasshoppers popped up from under our feet, waved butterfly wings at us for a second or two, then settled to become invisible again. We stalked them with the cameras. They were too quick for us. The best I got was one shot, where I didn't even give the camera time to focus.

I've sent this to BugGuide for an ID. I'm stumped. Update: It's a Mourning Cloak butterfly, badly frayed. Thanks, Bug Guide people!

Oh, well; grasshoppers are like that. (Update: So are butterflies.) On! Between the trees we could see the boats moored on the Nicomekl river, and the mud flats adjoining, where once we saw flocks of sandpipers sleeping in the grass at the edge. We walked down a little trail to get a good look. No sandpipers. Not even a hint of one. No ducks, either.

But there were oysters. Piles of them, exposed at low tide.

Big guys with frilled edges

They cling to any anchor point in that sloppy mud.

I took it for granted that these were the native oysters that have been living in the Nicomekl for centuries, but didn't risk the mud to go and get a good look. But they're far too big; the natives are barely a couple of inches long, and these are as big as my hand. And they mound up on top of each other, rather than hiding under rocks.

As far as I can tell from the photos, they're the imported and invasive Japanese oysters.

Crassostrea gigas is an estuarine species, but can also be found in intertidal and subtidal zones. They prefer to attach to hard or rocky surfaces in shallow or sheltered waters up to 40 m deep, but have been known to attach to muddy or sandy areas when the preferred habitat is scarce. The Pacific oyster can also be found on the shells of other animals. Larvae often settle on the shell of adults, and great masses of oysters can grow together to form oyster reefs. (Wikipedia)

In some places in the world, though, it is considered by some to be an invasive species, where it is outcompeting native species, such as the Olympia oyster in Puget Sound, Washington . . .

... and here just across the border.

Around the corner, we stopped to take photos of the bees in the thimbleberry bushes, then looked over the pool on the inland side of the trail. Nothing in the grass, nothing on the water. We went on, and a minute or two later, stepped aside to let another walker pass.

"I just saw a fox in the grass back there!" she said, pointing at the fence we had just been leaning on. "It was so shiny!"

I kept looking for the fox the rest of the time. It never showed.

But we saw ducklings; 7 of them:

Way over there against the bank. See them? (I darkened them a bit to make them visible.)

We turned inland at the bridge, to walk back across the wetlands. On the bridge rail, a chipping sparrow was sitting, chipping away merrily. At least we saw him; all the photos show is a vaguely bird-shaped grey-brown splotch.

On the bridge, I was looking over the rail at the mud under the roots of the cattails. Laurie was a way back, trying unsuccessfully to take photos of the redwing blackbirds. Down in the muck, I heard a bird call, one I didn't remember hearing before. And there was a bird down there, a dark brown bird-shaped thing scooting away into the vegetation. I could hear his call, then, as he wandered around in the reeds, but I never saw him again. Nor did Laurie, when he came to help me look.

Looking through the books, I think -- I think -- that it's possibly a Wilson's snipe. A life bird! If you can count a one-second sighting.

On the trail through the grassy field, we passed the barn owl house. I had no hopes of seeing one; they would be sleeping, but still, I did entertain the thought that one might have thought of a mid-afternoon snack. Of course not!

And we passed the tree where, a few years back, a huge wasp nest had hung from an upper branch, like some kind of weird grey strawberry. I looked, but there were none in the tree now. On the home stretch, though, we walked under a broken red alder. In the gap where the wood had torn, there was an abandoned wasp nest, very tiny. I found a long stick and poked it out.

Looking almost straight up.

Very small. Lots of space inside; you can see the inner wall through the gap.

Another view, showing the cells. I can count 6; there are probably a couple of dozen in all. Their entry hole is at the right.

Thinking it over: missed shots, missed sightings and all; it was all wonderful.

And there were still the lupins. And their cloud of bees! (Photos of these, anon.)

(Someone thought I should make the photos larger. I'm trying that, to see how it looks.)