The fairies have landed!

Fairy parachutes. Sometimes I wonder how certain mushrooms got their common names: Man on Horseback, Earpick, Train Wrecker, for local examples. Some people have vivid imaginations. This one, Fairy Parachute, though, was an obvious choice. But there must be a lot of fairies landing in our forest!

Fairy Parachutes, Marasmiellus candidus.

Seen from above. Same twig, further along.

These tiny mushrooms grow in clusters on twigs and canes, especially of salmon- and thimble-berries (Rubus spp.), and on ferns. They are gilled mushrooms, but with few, widely-separated gills, connected by veins in the translucent cap.

Here are some on a live salmonberry stem.

Same stalk. I count 48 parachuting fairies in this group.

These look similar, but they're growing on a live red alder tree. Suggestions welcome.

More about names: the scientific genus name, Marasmiellus comes from the Greek word, marasmos, meaning "drying out", referring to the ability of these mushrooms to wither when dry, then flesh out again when it rains. And the species name, candidus, means "shining white".

This low-lying, soaking wet area beside the river had several mushrooms I haven't noticed before: I'm plodding on, searching through websites and my new BC mushroom book. Tomorrow: four kingdoms, one photo.

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

Paracaídas de Hadas. Así se llama este honguito en inglés. (En español el nombre común no es tan descriptivo: Marasmio candido.) A veces se me ocurre considerar como es que se originaron los nombres comunes de ciertos hongos; (traducidos del inglésa) Hombre sobre un Caballo, EscarbaOrejas, Destructor de Trenes, por ejemplo. Hay gente que goza de una imaginación muy original. Este nombre, en cambio, es apropriado y perfectamente descriptivo. ¡Pero parece que habrá gran número de hadas aterrizando en nuestros bosques!

1. Paracaídas de Hadas, Marasmiellus candidus.
2. Otra sección del mismo tallo, con los hongos vistos desde arriba.
   
   Estos honguitos pequeñitos crecen en grupos sobre palitos y cañas, especialmente las de salmonberry y thimbleberry (Rubus spp.), y sobre helechos. Son hongos con laminillas, pero estas son escasas, unidas con venas en el sombrero translúcido.
3. Un grupo en la caña de un salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis).
4. En la misma caña. Aquí veo que han aterrizado 48 o más hadas en este sitio.
5. Estos hongos se parecen, pero están creciendo en el tronco de un aliso rojo. Se solicitan sugerencias.

Y algo más acerca de los nombres: el nombre científico del género, Marasmiellus, se deriva del Griego, "marasmos", que quiere decir, "secándose", y se refiere a que estos hongos se pueden secar completamente, encogiéndose, y luego volverse a revivir cuando llueve. Y el nombre de la especie, candidus, se traduce como "blanco brillante".

En este humedal bajo al lado del rio encontré varios hongos que no había observado antes. Ahora voy buscando entre sitios web y mi libro nuevo sobre hongos de Colombia Británica. Mañana: cuatro reinos en una foto.

All wet

The Campbell River is a short one, as rivers go; barely 6 km. as the crow flies from where it drains out of John Hart lake to where it reaches salt water beside Baikie Island. From above the three falls (Moose, Deer, and Elk) starting at 150 m. above sea level,  it tumbles down a narrow gorge between rocky cliffs for half its length. Then the walls fall back and expose a small flat space, about 1/3 of a kilometre across, at around 11 m. above sea level. Here the main body of the river keeps rushing on down to the sea, but some of the water finds openings to the flats, and wanders in, gets lost among the hummocks and the fallen trees and up-turned roots. Some of the water keeps moving and rejoins the river downstream, some gives up and soaks into the mud.

It's always wet down there under the trees, even in mid-summer. At this time of year, after a few weeks of rain, there's not a dry twig to be found, not a dry stone to sit on. A couple of trails loop the area; I took the longer route the other day, since a good bit of the short loop was underwater.

So: watery pics.

A drenched log in the stream, with red-belted conks and fallen leaves. (See video below.)

Another soaked log, this one with a gull.

The deciduous leaves overhead are gone, but in the understory, salmonberry and thimbleberry shrubs are just starting to drop theirs. 

Old upturned roots make mini-islands in the streams. View of a bridge from a bridge on a second trail.

Near the inner edge of the flats, the land rises, leaves an open space for wetland grasses.

Even now, there's a hint of pink at the tops of the alders; catkins getting ready for spring. Here's where my trail went underwater.

The ferns will stay green all winter.

Even the mushrooms hold their tiny pools.

On the bank of a slow-moving stream.

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

El Rio Campbell es corto, apenas logrando ser un rio; corre apenas 6 km., midiendo en linea recta, desde donde sale del lago John Hart hasta donde llega al agua salada pasando la isla Baikie. Desde arriba de las tres cataratas, (Moose, Deer, Elk) empezando a 150 m. sobre el nivel del mar, cae entre paredes rocosas por un desfiladero angosto por unos 3 km. Y luego, las paredes se abren, dejando un pequeño sitio aplanado, aproximadamente de 35 metros de largo, a los above sea level,  it tumbles down  metros sobre el nivel del mar. Aquí, mientras el rio mayor sigue su carrera hacia el mar, una parte del agua encuentra aperturas que le permiten entrar a la tierra baja; entra, se pierde entre las islitas y los árboles caídos, con sus raices al aire. Parte del agua sigue corriendo hasta unirse de nuevo al rio; pero buena parte se rinde y se integra al lodo.

Está siempre mojado allí bajo los árboles, aun a mediados del verano. En esta temporada, después de semanas con lluvia, no hay ni un palito seco, ni una hoja que no gotea, no se puede hallar ni una piedra donde sentarse a descansar por un rato. Hay senderos; dos rutas circulares. Yo tomé la ruta más larga el otro dia, pues parte de la via corta estaba inundada.

Fotos de agua y cosas empapadas, entonces.

1. Un árbol caído en la corriente, con unos poliporos Fomitopsis mounceae, y hojas muertas.
2. Otro tronco mojado, este con una gaviota.
3. Las hojas de los árboles de hoja caduca ya yacen en el suelo, pero los arbustos nativos, salmonberry y thimbleberry (Rubus spectabilis y R. parviflorus) apenas empiezan a caer.
4. Raices de los árboles caídos forman islitas en agua de poca profundidad. En el fondo, un puente, visto desde otro puente en otro sendero.
5. En el extremo opuesto al rio, el terreno empieza a subir, dejando un espacio abierto, donde pueden crecer pastos de los humedales.
6. Ahora, en noviembre, ya se ve un tinte color de rosa en la copa de los alisos rojos; las candelillas preparándose ya para la primavera.
7. Los helechos son perennes; se mantendrán verdes todo el invierno.
8. Hasta los hongos llevan sus charquitos de agua.
9. En el borde del agua, con corriente lenta.

Y un video del tronco de la primera foto. Aguas agitadas.

Watery flats

The Campbell River is a short one, as rivers go, with just a bit over 8 km. from its starting point at John Hart Lake to the estuary. Along most of those 8 km., it cuts through the hills in a deep, narrow, winding canyon. Nearer the estuary end, the ground flattens out, but retains the steep hill on the north side. I drove, then hiked, up the lower end of this hill to find afternoon sunlight.

Heading up. The river is down on my right. On the left, the hill continues its climb. The afternoon sun, now low in the sky, paints tree trunk shadows on the road.

For most of the way, the view is obscured by forest, but near the parking spot, they've cleared it away to put in Hydro lines and a pipe from the pump house up the hill. (Pipes from the old pump house lead to or from the Duncan Bay generating station, through ancient wood pipes.)

View down the slope from my road. Water pipe and power lines lead to the river.

The water below is a wetland, a slough. The river feeds it, but the water here is barely moving. The river runs on the far side of the first forested area, in that dark valley beyond.

Zooming in. The Canyonview trail leads down the flats on this side of the river before climbing to above Elk Falls. A side trail goes nowhere.

Google maps, satellite view, shows the layout of these wetlands and trails. I've lightened it up a bit. The yellow star is my viewing point.

Campbell River is the greyish stream cutting off the lower left corner.

I've walked on these lower trails on this side of the river; water everywhere, on both sides of the trail. Little creeklets, pools, or just soggy mud until the trail starts to climb into drier terrain.

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

El Rio Campbell es un rio corto, corriendo poco más de 8 kilómetros desde su principio en el Lago John Hart hasta donde sale al estrecho Georgia al final del estuario. Por la mayor parte de esta distancia, corta su camino entre los cerros, serpenteando en un desfiladero angosto, muy hondo. Acercándose al estuario, el terreno se aplana, pero retiene la elevación abrupta en el banco del norte. Subí este pendiente, primero en el coche, luego a pie, buscando la luz del sol, ya inclinándose hacia el horizonte.

1. Mi camino. El rio queda allá abajo en el lado derecho; a la izquierda, el cerro sigue subiendo. El sol pinta las sombras de los árboles sin hojas sobre el camino.
2. El bosque limita la vista a lo largo del camino, pero en este lugar, han cortado el bosque para instalar cables eléctricos y tubería que baja desde el estación de bombeo en el cerro. (Los tubos se dirigen hasta Duncan Bay, en donde el agua corre por esos tubos de madera que antes se usaban.) Desde este punto, los cables y el tube van hacia la instalación de BCHydro que apenas se ve en la foto.
   El agua que se ve es un pantano. El rio lo alimenta, pero el agua apenas se mueve. El rio corre atrás del primer grupo de árboles, en ese valle oscuro más adelante.
3. Zoom. El sendero Canyonview (Vista del Desfiladero) cruza el terreno plano aquí antes de subir hacia las cataratas. Un senderito ocasional no va a ninguna parte.
4. En Google Maps, se ven estos terrenos acuáticos y algunos de los senderos. La estrella amarilla muestra donde yo estaba parada. El rio corta el mapa en la esquina inferior a la izquierda. 

He caminado en estos senderos de este lado del rio. Hay agua por todas partes, de ambos lados del camino; riachuelos, lagunitas, o lodo empapado, hasta que la ruta empieza a subir hacia terreno seco, camino a las cataratas.

Bog or fen? Which is it?

 Continuing with Sundew Bog.

First, some flowers:

Western bog-laurel, Kalmia microphylla.

Intriguing flowers: look at the buds at the top right. They're little pink boxes, with a star-shaped lid. Next, the lid opens to form a squarish bowl with a starburst decoration at the bottom. The fully-open flower is paler, softer, more rounded.

A sign tells me to look for Labrador tea, but it's too early; it blooms in late May or June.

Another view of the bog: 

The boardwalk bounces on that soggy, mossy ground as you walk.

And, let's look at that sign:

What's that? Non-forested fen?

Text:

The non-forested fen wetland ecosystem is a shrub-dominated, nutrient-medium peatland ecosystem. Fens are the most common wetland in the province and are an intermediate ecosystem between a marsh and a bog ecosystem.

Fens develop in basins, seepage slopes, or protected lake or pond margins where permanently saturated soil conditions are present and recieve nutrient and water inputs from groundwater.

Organic soils support a large complement of plant species, dominated by sedges and a well-developed moss layer (brown and sphagnum {peat} mosses), red-osier dogwood, sweet gale, Pacific ninebark, and evergreen dwarf shrubs.

Fens support aquatic insect populations, such as dragonflies, who rely on wetlands for breeding and early life stages. The peatland ecosystem can support unique arthropods. Rodents such as shrews, mice, and voles will use fens extensively, waterbirds use fens for nesting, listen for the frogs!

Ok, this is confusing. They're calling it a bog at the entrance and on the map, and now it's a fen, not a bog (second sentence above). Which is it? What do these words mean?

Searching the web added to the confusion, at first; there are conflicting, sometimes opposite definitions, and often the two words are used interchangeably. But there are a few clear explanations:

First: Wetlands: "Wetlands are areas where water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil all year or for varying periods of time during the year, including during the growing season." (US EPA)

Bogs and fens (and marshes and sloughs and swamps ...) are specific types of wetlands.

A bog is a freshwater wetland of soft, spongy ground consisting mainly of partially decayed plant matter called peat. (NatGeo) Fens have less peat and more plant life than a bog.  A bog typically is watered by rainfall, whereas a fen arises from groundwater; "because fens are supplied with mineral-rich water, they tend to range from slightly acidic to slightly basic, while bogs are always acidic because precipitation lacks the dissolved minerals (e.g. calcium, magnesium, carbonate) that act to buffer the natural acidity of atmospheric carbon dioxide." (Wikipedia) "A fen is characterized by still ponds below ground level, a bog by little streams and small pools." (Quora)  A marsh is a tract of low, wet, soft land that is temporarily, or permanently, covered with water, characterized by aquatic, grasslike vegetation.

In the Canadian Wetland Classification System, fens are defined by six characteristics:

1. Peat is present.

2. The surface of the wetland is level with the water table. Water flows on the surface and through the subsurface of the wetland.

3.The water table fluctuates. It may be at the surface of the wetland or a few centimeters above or below it.

4.The wetland receives a significant amount of its water from mineral-rich groundwater or surface water.

5.Decomposed sedges or brown moss peat are present.

6.The vegetation is predominantly graminoids (grass-like plants) and shrubs.

(Wikipedia)

Whereas Wikipedia's definition of a bog includes:

The wetland receives most of its water and nutrients from precipitation (ombrotrophic {cloud-fed}) rather than surface or groundwater.

Hey, all this is good for my eyes; now I see what otherwise I would have missed. And I found a nice, new word, ombrotrophic!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Seguimos con la Ciénaga de Rocíos del Sol:

Fotos:

1. Primero, las flores. Estas son  Kalmia microphylla. Míralas bien; el botón es como una cajita con su tapa en forma de estrella. Al empezar a abrirse, se desdobla la tapa, formando un recipiente con lados verticales y con una estrella en el fondo. Y luego, las flores abiertas pierden todos esos ángulos.
2. Otra vista del sitio. El paseo de madera brinca sobre el terreno al caminar.
3. Y uno de los letreros, este informándonos sobre "Los pantanos sin bosque".

El texto del letrero dice:

El ecosistema del humedal pantanoso sin bosque es una turbera dominada por arbustos, proveyendo un promedio mediano de nutrientes. Los pantanos son el tipo de humedal más comunes en la provincia (Columbia Británica) y constituyen un ecosistema intermedio entre un marjal y una ciénaga.

Los pantanos se desarrollan en depresiones, pendientes con filtración de agua, o en los márgenes protegidos de lagos y lagunas donde el suelo permanece saturado y donde recibe ingresos de agua y nutrientes de las aguas subterráneas.

Los suelos orgánicos sostienen una gran variedad de especies de plantas, principalmente los ciperáceos y una capa bien desarrollada de musgos (musgos cafés y musgos de turbera, o esfagnos), Cornus sericea, mirto de turbera (Myrica gale), Physocarpus capitatus, y arbustos enanos perennes.

Los pantanos sostienen poblaciones de insectos acuáticos, tales como las libélulas, las cuales dependen de los humedales durante la temporada de cría y las primeras etapas de la vida. El sistema de las turberas puede sostener algunos artrópodos singulares. Roedores como las musarañas (Sorex sp. y otros) y los ratones dependen en gran parte de los pantanos, y aves acuáticas hacen aquí sus nidos. ¡Y escucha! ¿Puedes oir el canto de las ranas?

Bueno, ésto me deja algo confusa. En el letrero en la entrada, y en el mapa, lo llaman una ciénaga, y ahora resulta que es un pantano. (Mira el final del párrafo primero arriba.) ¿Pues, qué es? ¿Un pantano o una ciénaga? ¿Qué quieren decir estas palabras?

Al buscar definiciones, al principio, me quedaba igualmente sin entender, pero por fin hallé unas definiciones claras.

Estos terrenos son humedales. 

El humedal es cualquier área que permanece en condiciones de inundación o con suelo saturado con agua durante períodos considerables de tiempo. Entre ellos, los pantanos son zonas abiertas y aireadas, como una pradera, cubiertas de hierbas acuáticas y plantas como los juncos (Juncus sp.) y las ciperáceos (Carex sp.). Las ciénagas (cieno = logo suave) son bosques húmedos dominados por árboles y arbustos.El marjal es tierra plana, generalmente costera, sumergida en agua de escasa profundidad. (Selecciones) 

Las ciénagas y los pantanos son turberas; la turba es la acumulación de material orgánico muerto de hojas, tallos y raíces parcialmente descompuestos de diversos musgos y otras plantas que se han acumulado en un ambiente saturado con agua en ausencia de oxígeno. El pantano contiene menos turba y más vegetación que la ciénaga. Porque la ciénaga recibe su agua de la lluvia, mientras que el pantano la recibe de aguas subterráneas, bien mineralizadas, el agua de los pantanos tiende hacia lo básico, mientras que el agua de la ciénaga es acídica. 

Según el Sistema de Clasificación de Humedales Canadiense, los pantanos muestran 6 características, entre ellas:

2. La superficie del humedal está al nivel del agua subterránea. Agua fluye encima de la superficie y debajo de la superficie.

4.El humedal recibe una cantidad importante de su agua de parte de aguas subterráneas o agua de la superficie, aguas ricas en minerales.

(Wikipedia)

Mientras que la definción de una ciénaga, según Wikipedia incluye:

El humedal recibe la mayor parte de su agua y sus nutrientes de la lluvia y nieve, en lugar de las aguas subterráneas o de la superficie. (ombrotróficas {alimentadas desde las nubes}) 

Mirror mere

I'm still busy trying to identify alpine plants; there were so many new ones to me at Paradise Meadows!

Meanwhile, here's one of the ponds that dot the meadows.

Halfway around the Centennial Loop.

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

Sigo ocupada en tratar de identificar plantas de la montaña. ¡Había tantas nuevas para mi en las Praderas Paraíso!

Por mientras, aquí hay una de las lagunas que mantienen la pradera húmeda. Esta está en el primer círculo, un sendero de apenas 2 km.

The estuary and its birds

The Myrt Thompson trail travels down the centre of the Campbell River estuary, following a narrow spit and a series of islets connected by 5 bridges, ending where the river comes together and widens into a bay. There's still one island and the enclosing Tyee Spit before the river reaches the ocean. The islands are mostly mud flats, covered with long grasses, brown most of the year.

Birds love these flats and the quiet backwaters as the river wanders around the islands.

Mud flat, with great blue heron and sleepy mallards.

Twig and branch fence, common goldeneyes.

The Wei Wai Kum band, as part of their wetlands restoration project, is installing these alder branch fences (weirs) just offshore around the mud flats, to encourage the growth of native sedges and reduce erosion.

The barriers keep geese and inquisitive kayakers out of sensitive ecosystems. ... Introducing native plants was another part of the restoration project. Which explains the lush sedge grass (also known as carex grass), along the banks. Sedge grass not only prevents the river banks from receding but is also an excellent source of protein for bears, geese and ungulates in the area.

“The grass is especially important for bears to get their digestive systems rolling in the spring when they wake up from their hibernation,” ... (VancouverIslandFreeDaily)

Drawing Vs in shallow, grassy water.

The north shore is still heavily industrial. Here, a line of goldeneyes crosses the centre of the river.

A common merganser heading downstream, half hidden by ripple patterns.

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El sendero "Myrt Thompson" baja por el centro del estuario del rio Campbell, aprovechando una lengua de tierra angosta y luego una serie de islitas unidas por cinco puentecitos, y terminando donde los varios canales del rio se juntan para formar una bahía. Falta todavía una isla más y luego la lengua de tierra Tyee, antes de que el rio salga al estrecho del mar. Las islas son, por la mayor parte, pantanos cubiertos de pastos y juncias, de color café por gran parte del año.

Y siempre hay pájaros, en el pasto, bajando con la corriente del agua, o descansando en las aguas tranquilas entre islas.

Primera foto: un pantano, con una garza azul pescando, y varios patos mallard dormilones.

Segunda foto: porrones osculados y una cerca de ramas.

La tribu Wei Wai Kum, como parte de su proyecto de restauración de los humedales, está instalando estas cercas hechas de ramas de aliso alrededor de las islas y pantanos para estimular el crecimiento de juncias nativas y para reducir la erosión.

"Estas barreras mantienen alejados los gansos y kayakistas curiosos de los ecosistemas frágiles. ... Introducir plantas nativas tambien fue parte del proyecto de restauración. Esto explica las juncias (Carex) exuberantes a las márgenes del río. Las juncias no solo protege las márgenes contra la erosión, sino que tambien es una fuente excelente de proteína para los osos, los gansos, y los ungulados (venados, por ejemplo) del rumbo.—Esta hierba es especialmente importante para los osos cuando salen de la hibernación en la primavera, para poner su sistema digestiva en marcha." (Del periódico VancouverIslandFreeDaily)

Tercera foto: patos marcando "V's en agua de poca profundidad.

Cuarta foto: Hacia el norte del río, el terreno está ocupada por industrias pesadas. Aquí una bandada de porrones cruza el centro del río.

Quinta foto: Una serreta grande, bajando por el río, casi escondida entre las ondulaciones del agua.

The brown lands

The Campbell River rushes down towards the sea from John Hart Lake, knowing where it's going, and not wasting time sightseeing. But then it hits the flats, and loses all sense of direction, wandering about, making side trips, back-tracking, stopping at interesting corners, following a sleepy duck or a browsing raccoon, making circles around little islands, carving out a lagoon or two, checking out interesting tree roots ...

It gets there, eventually, but in the meantime it has created a wild, muddy, grassy maze, green in the spring and summer, brown all winter.

The end of the estuary, from the Myrt Thompson trail. The fence protects recently re-planted native vegetation.

Sign near this veiwpoint, with old map of the estuary.

Text of sign: Estuaries form where rivers meet the sea.
Rivers slow as they flow through coastal floodlands and out into the Pacific Ocean. Silts and nutrients settle to form fertile delta soils, mud and sand banks and various marsh habitats. The diverse specially adapted marsh plant communities and wide flat intertidal areas are exposed twice a day by the tides and are teeming with tiny worms, snails, and crustaceans.
These are the most biologically diverse wetlands along the Pacific coast. They provide ideal feeding and resting areas for millions of waterfowl, shorebirds, wintering birds of prey, salmon stocks and many other life forms. They are essential to the survival of hundreds of fish and wildlife species, and the people relying on them.

Y en español:
Tierras pardas.

El Rio Campbell corre hacia el mar desde el Lago John Hart, sin perder el tiempo dando vueltas, como que sabe bien para donde va. Luego llega a las tierras planas y pierde toda idea de urgencia y se pone a dar vueltas, regresar a mirar alguna esquina interesante, seguir el rastro de un pato dormilón o de un mapache en busca de cangrejos de río, hacer círculos alrededor de una islita, colarse bajo las raíces de los árboles, descansar en una laguna perdida ...

Llega al mar, al fin, pero en camino ha formado un laberinto lodoso, lleno de plantas semi-marítimas y pastos, inhóspito para los humanos, pero un paraíso para los pájaros, verde en primavera y verano, y de una variedad de colores café en el invierno.

En la primera foto, se ve el estuario desde una península a medio rio. Las redes protegen plantas nativas recién sembradas.

La segunda foto es de un anuncio cerca del camino.

Dice: Los estuarios forman donde los ríos llegan al mar.
Los ríos corren lentamente através de tierras inundables y salen al Oceano Pacífico. Allí en la delta, cienos y materias nutritivas se depositan y forman tierras fértiles, bancos de lodo y de arena, y pantanos de varios tipos. Las comunidades de plantas pantanales adaptadas especialmente a estas condiciones, y las áreas planas litorales se exponen al aire dos veces diarias por las mareas, y abundan en gusanos, caracoles, y crustáceos.
Estos son los terrenos humedales con más variedad biológica en la costa del Pacífico. Proveen areas ideales donde millones de pájaros acuáticas y playeras, aves de rapiña que pasan aquí el invierno, salmones y muchos otros animales descansan y se alimentan. Son esenciales para la sobrevivencia de cientos de especies de pescado y otros animales salvajes, y de la personas que de ellos dependen.

Nunns Creek icelands

Winter is finally here. Two days ago, it was warm and rainy; today, the temperature dropped to -8° Celsius (17.6° Fahrenheit). I passed by the Nunns Creek wetlands; today they are icelands.

Frozen solid, warmed by afternoon sun.

I walked down to the edge of the ice, over ground that is usually too wet and muddy to dare. It was rock hard.

More photos tomorrow.

7 year old pond

At the Little River restoration project in Comox, two small ponds have been dug out in what 7 years ago used to be an old gravel pit. Volunteers from the Naturalist Society cleared out invasive Scotch broom and replaced it with native species, including the trees. Now the new park includes a small wetland, a dry meadow, bits of forest, a stretch of river, and a path to the beach.

I passed the wetland on my way to the beach, looking for Claytonia, but returned to inspect the ponds more closely later.

Coho salmon and cutthroat trout fry spend a year or more in these ponds before moving on to the ocean, eating and sometimes being eaten by assorted insects. Signs around the pond remind us to look predacious diving beetles, back swimmers, water scorpions, and more. An "extraordinary diversity of dragonfly species" (TideChange) makes their home here.

I didn't see any of these on my first visit; there were a few bees prospecting for pollen in the Indian plum bushes, no dragonflies. It's early in the season. I'll go back later. For now, there are waterlilies.

Variegated yellow pond lilies, according to the sign.

One lily, standing proud.

Estuary. with fisherman

Low spring tide on the Campbell River estuary. A hint of green returns to the winter brown wetlands.

A glimmer of sunlight, a blast of chill wind. But the fish are biting.

This was the third, and last, day with no rain. Yesterday made up for the lack.

A Skywatch post.

Nunn Creek mudland

The road leading to Tyee Spit passes between the back walls of a mall and a large, wild, inaccessible, shrubby wetland, the bottom lands where Nunn Creek joins the Campbell River estuary.

In the summertime, it's green, and echoes with the twitterings, quackings, squallings, and squeaking of birds. (The eagles are the squeakers; their voices seem to have been borrowed from the mice they prey on.) Fish; trout and salmon; grow up in the shallow streams; frogs dodge hungry blue herons near the banks.

The rest of the year, it's all brown. The leaves are gone, the grasses dying, exposing the brown mud beneath the bare brown branches. Even the water is brown with rotting leaves and eroding mud. When the dying sunlight hits it just right, it becomes momentarily beautiful, but the light fades quickly, and all there is to see again is a tangle of dull brown sticks against a dull brown floor.

And then it snowed! It was still snowing lightly when I found a parking spot and crossed the road to the edge of the mudlands.

And the mud is now white. The bird in the distance is an eagle. The houses on the far right are in a First Nations housing development; this wetland is on Reserve land.

More snow and water. The two birds flying are ducks. Along the street edge, wild roses grow; look closely, and you can see the red rose hips.

This land is almost impassible on foot. Not that I'd want to disturb the birds and frogs, but even if I did ...

Google map view. There seems to be the remains of an old road across, and I've found both access points, but the road is long gone. All this area, at one time, was given over to industrial and log storage areas; the entire estuary is in the process of being re-greened.

A bend in Nunn Creek.

This bit looks passable via canoe or kayak. Along the very outer edge, green stalks are the invasive broom, trying to compete with the wild roses.

From literature I've seen, I gather that there may be some unusual plants to be found here; chocolate lilies feature on one brochure. If that old road is walkable without damaging anything, I may tiptoe along there in the summer to see what I can find.

The old map may be helpful. The red line points to the mudland.

Two Boat Pond

Now this is just strange.

A few miles out of Gold River, there is a pond beside the highway. Just another of hundreds of nondescript water holes in the rainforest; half swamp, half brownish water, shallow enough to wade if the bottom is solid, which I doubt. There's no pathway to the edge, anyway; the water starts somewhere under a hardhack thicket. It's probably full of leeches or mosquito larvae.

Last March, I was driving by slowly, rubber-necking, looking for ducks, or I would never have seen the boats. There were two of them; foot-long, two-masted, flat-bottomed wooden boats, anchored at either end of the pond.

In March, the hardhack was bare, the grasses brown. Dead trees line the pond, their roots drowned in the wet winters.

We passed the pond again a couple of weeks ago. I had to stop and see if the boats were still there. One is. The other has disappeared; foundered and buried in muck, stolen by a curious bear, retrieved by someone in hip waders?

Boat # 2, in June. The grass is green, now, and the hardhack has leafed out. Otherwise, nothing has changed.

I took a series of photos to make a panorama of the ghostly trees on the far shore. There were too many conflicting colours, too many variations in the light as I turned. A black and white is closer to what I saw than a colour photo.

Boat # 2 is at the far left. Last March, boat # 1 was in the corresponding position on the right.

Who put the boats there? Why? How? I wonder.

In like a soggy lion

The first of March. The weather today was supposed to tell us something. Stay home, maybe.

I went off to count Trumpeter swans, instead. It was raining too hard to see clearly, far too hard to bring good glasses out into the rain. We stayed in the car and rolled down the windows for just long enough to count; even inside the car, our jackets were dripping on the floor by the time we had finished.

It was too wet for ducks. Or maybe the whole area counted as one big pond, and they were spread out all over; we saw very few, and only one eagle. But there were more than 100 swans in one field, so we finished the route happily.

Afterwards, I drove around, tracing roads barely seen on the map, looking at the drenched forests. I saw a sign; "Sensitive Wetland Habitat." And a bit further on, another; "Bear Creek Nature Park." And it was the perfect day for a Nature hike, wasn't it? At least, the pouring rain was "Natural," right? I followed the arrow.

The road in. Taken through the windshield, between fast swipes of the windshield wipers.

After a short drive, I came to a parking lot and a trailhead, going down and curving out of sight. Off to the side, the hillside dropped away; I could hear water rushing below. I wrapped the camera in plastic and went to look.

Happy Bear Creek, full of cold water.

Quick shot of the stump above, with a few mushrooms. The raindrops are fat enough to draw straight downward lines against the background.

My warm, thick, down coat was soaked all the way through after less than 5 minutes; I squelched back into the car and cranked up the heat. The trail can wait for sunnier days.

Seen on another road; fresh firewood drying in the rain.

A sign at the trailhead warned us to watch for black bears. It's too early; they're still sleeping. But a deer is fine, too.

Mini-marsh

On our way down the Sunshine Coast, we took a break at Pender Harbour. The last time we were there, we had only stopped long enough to check with the information booth about nearby lodging. This time we dawdled through town, exploring, until we saw a used bookstore. We can never resist one of those!

We would be browsing for a good while*, so I looked for a parking spot in heavy shade, and found it, right beside the entrance to a wetlands trail; something unexpected where the hills rush down to the sea. It was a small marshy area, half dry after a hot summer, with a board walk through the cattails. A pair of herons took off at our approach and went grumbling into the shadows at the far end; crows squabbled overhead in a tall arbutus.

And over the water, between the cattails, red and blue dragonflies zipped back and forth in the sunshine, pausing only briefly to rest on cattail leaves.

Male Western pondhawk, maybe.

Cardinal meadowhawk.

*We shopped for a good hour, and bought a bagful of books. Out-of-the-way bookstores often turn out to contain hidden treasure. This one certainly did. We'll be back! Besides, looking at the map later, I realize that we missed most of the sights of the area. There's a long, heavily indented coast bristling with boat ramps, islands and bays and marinas, a tiny lake, parks and campsites. Next time, we'll plan on spending the day.