nature geek northwest

Bonaparte's gulls, Cortes Island

2011-08-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

With their graceful white wings and jay-like raspy call, Bonaparte's gulls are a glorious part of the B.C. coast summer scenery, though I don't think I see them as often as I used to on Saltspring Island. Go to the Discovery Islands or Denman and Hornby and they're still there, floating over the wide, calm waters of the Strait of Georgia.
Much as they're part of summer, they're also harbingers of summer's ends. By the beginning of August, almost all of them have lost the black heads of their breeding plumage and are wearing wintry white.

Big and small, Hannegan Pass Trail

2011-08-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, family explored Hannegan Pass Trail, in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. We made it three miles out and back. My seven-year-old daughter was amazed by the scale of her surroundings.

"We're so little," she said.
Little we may be, but we're enormous compared to some.

It looks like a wasp, but I couldn't say what kind. The flower is a Columbia lily.

Cinnamon teal, Montlake Fill

2011-05-24T16:21:00.000-07:00

Isn't he handsome?

I would gawk at that red eye, those chestnut feathers and china blue shoulder patches, even if cinnamon teal were animals I saw all the time.
As it is, it's all new. A life bird, in fact. When I watched a pair of them fly around me, and then came across this drake, that was my first time noticing this species.
I am not a "lister" -- though I do track what I see when I'm traveling -- but I do get a satisfaction out of witnessing a species new to me.
It's an allure that makes birders biased observers of nature. We're great at spotting whatever storm-tossed oddities show up in our area, but we can be oblivious to huge population shifts in common birds.
And common birds do have their pleasures, though they might not be as easily summarized in the phrase "life bird." There's the way a gaudy bird, such as a common yellowthroat, can vanish into a shrub. There's the sputterings of a marsh wren, a bird given to extended diatribes of squeaks, rattles, buzzes and notes - part bird, part machine, all bad-ass. There's the constant rivalry of red-winged blackbirds, with the males calling from cattails and shrubs, and the females discreetly jockeying for position below. This time of year, the males are ready to attack all comers, other males, crows, and eagles.
So I'd have had a nice time birding, even if I hadn't seen the cinnamon teal. But I'm glad I did.

Seen in Discovery Park, May 17

2011-05-24T15:41:00.000-07:00

When I pointed this Hooker's willow out to my Dad, he asked me which famous 19th century naturalist it was named after: Sir William Jackson Hooker, the first official director of Kew Gardens or his son Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, the second director of Kew Gardens. It was an amazingly trivial question, so of course I Googled the answer. It's William.

I believe this is Pacific willow.

And this is youth-on-age.

Bright yellow goldfinch, dark green pine.

Band-tailed pigeon on madrona.

Varied Thrush, Discovery Park

2011-01-11T13:46:00.000-08:00

The woods at Discovery Park were quiet this morning. With temperatures near freezing and snow on the way, few birds were interested in loud dissertations on territory or romance. They were too busy eating. Those in groups had a chirp here and there, and one pileated woopecker let out a long cackle but most birds were quiet. The best way to see one was to watch for movement.
Still, the cold weather brought some beautiful visitors.

Varied thrushes are a species most birders are a little silly about. Their plumage is beautiful, with the blue-gray back and the bold orange stripes. Their call is haunting, and their habits mean that it's a treat to see one.
They prefer old forests, and generally only come to town when harsh weather pushes them out of the high country. They also delight in foiling all my attempts to photograph them. They tend to bounce out of the way whenever I aim my camera, and when I look up to reposition it, it often takes me a while to find them -- those orange stripes have an amazing way of blending in. So, I'm happy to have one in focus. Almost, anyway.

Goose neck barnacles

2011-01-04T13:29:00.000-08:00

There's a beach we like to go to that has a rocky outcrop pointing toward Trial Island. The deeper crevices in the rocks are full of goose neck barnacles.

They are attached to the rock by a leathery neck, so they can bend with the waves, as they gather plankton.

The waves carried them here, in the form of larvae that cemented themselves to the rock. And after they mate in the spring the waves will take their larvae away.

Backyard birds small and big

2011-01-03T14:20:00.001-08:00

Who says a hummingbird feeder can't be a bushtit feeder? Every so often, a gang of about 20 little gray birds surrounds my parents' hummingbird feeder.

The Anna's hummingbirds that hang around the feeder let the bushtits. There are at least two adult males and one sub adult that use the feeder, and they chase each other on sight.

Little birds weren't the only yard visitors.

This great blue heron looked around the yard,

but apparently saw nothing of interest.

Winter peeps, Victoria

2010-12-26T12:14:00.000-08:00

On my Christmas Day walk, I found a small flock of black turnstones, trotting around the edge of the rocks as the waves rolled around. Their high-pitched trilling voices cut through the sound of the sea.

The sky was amazing.

From an earlier walk, a flock of greater yellowlegs sheltering from a gale.

Out again after too long

2010-11-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

I went to Discovery Park today, for the first time in months. There was a lot of noise from construction crews removing the remains of the small military installation, Fort Lawton, that used to take up part of the park.
I walked down the path thinking of work-a-day things: dinner menus, job applications, shopping lists, when I saw a small small movement to the side. I tried, as usual, to take a picture, and as usual, I failed.

But here it is, a tiny brown bird with a big beautiful voice, the Pacific Wren, formerly known as the Winter Wren. And then all of a sudden birds were all around me: a pileated woodpecker in the distance, a downy woodpecker in the alder above me. chestnut-backed chickadees on the bushes, and ruby-crowned kinglets and golden-crowned kinglets darting in and out of the sword ferns. It was as if I had passed through a magic door, and the quiet, winter-drab woods had come to chirping life.
No decent pictures though. My big mammal hands and eyes were too slow.
I did come across a handsome pair of fox sparrows in the meadow, on the way back.

Shore crab condo, Hornby Island

2010-08-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

The shale on the beach where we stayed at Hornby Island was so soft that the shore crabs could dig burrows in it. We could see them scurry for cover as we approached.

Smoky Hornby Island

2010-08-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

On Aug. 4 and 5, Hornby Island and much of mid-Vancouver Island was covered in smoke from forest fires. It was a weird scene. At the campground, I overheard a teenager talking on a cell phone saying "the sun is dead." Not quite, but certainly blunted, orangy red at 10 a.m. and still hot as can be. My lungs still feel it.
The ferry approaching.

My kids on the beach, south of Phipps Point, at about 6 p.m. You can see Denman Island in the distance. Vancouver Island, behind it, is obscured.

Purple martins, Buckley Bay

2010-08-11T16:46:00.001-07:00

Open the door after you get in line for the Denman Island ferry and you can hear the happy, gurgling call of purple martins. Several families were raising young in boxes placed on pilings next to the ferry line up.

We could see two heads out of every opening. Every so often a male or a female would fly in, perch at the top of the piling and look around, then swoop over to bring them a food item, sometimes leaving with a white fecal sac. I watched one mother bring a dragonfly to the box, and then another. The father showed up a few minutes later, also carrying a dragonfly. He offered it to the young, but they must have been full. So it was a meal for Dad.

Golden Buprestid, Mount Maxwell

2010-08-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

Why is it called a golden buprestid? Looks green to me. Anyway, my husband and his t-shirt need fear nothing from this glorious critter. Douglas Fir, shore pine and various wooden structures, not so much.

Pacific spiketail, Saltspring Island

2010-08-11T15:41:00.001-07:00

Handsome fella, Green Lake

2010-07-09T13:59:00.001-07:00

Red-winged blackbird making noise from a cottonwood tree.

And keeping tabs on who makes noise back.

Ohanapecosh, Mount Rainier National Park

2010-07-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

We went camping at Ohanapecosh Campground at Mount Rainier National Park last weekend, far far away in that era when we were complaining about how summer was taking its time arriving. It didn't rain much, and we had a lovely, if heavily clothed time.
Ohanapecosh is the site of a long-ago spa town on some hot springs. The town has long since vanished, and the National Park Service has restored the area around, so we can view the wonders of thermophilic cyanobacteria.

And miraculous dripping brains...

Also seen: western coralroot.

Bunchberry

Devil's matchstick, which is a cool name, as is...

red-naped sapsucker.

Prettiest slime mold yet, Discovery Park

2010-06-11T15:24:00.000-07:00

Fred Rhoades tells me that these are the newly emerged fruiting bodies of Ceriatomyxa fruticulosa, or coral slime. Eventually these tendrils will become opaque and then become stippled with tiny spores on stalks.

Damselflies, preparing for lift-off, Discovery Park

2010-06-11T15:08:00.001-07:00

It may not feel like summer just yet, but over in the North Beach pond, every log and piece of wood was lined with skinny insect bodies sporting electric blue highlights. Swift forktail damselflies.

Lots of them.

Last year, I photographed an earlier generation on June 1.

Gull eating sea star, Discovery Park

2010-06-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

Among the many talents of the ubiquitous glaucous-winged gull: sea-star swallowing.

It takes some effort.

There.

My mouth would feel odd too.

Looking a little lumpy.

Tadpoles galore, Discovery Park

2010-06-11T10:41:00.001-07:00

Walk close to the water's edge and the surface churns, as little creatures dive for cover. But sit and watch for a while, and they start to emerge from among the leaf litter.

Nice legs.

Looks like this one is on the way to becoming a Pacific Tree Frog.

I must keep coming back here, and see how things develop.

Flower fly on thimbleberry, Discovery Park

2010-05-18T13:52:00.001-07:00

Genus Sericomyia, I think.

Yellow-spotted millipede, Discovery Park

2010-05-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

The bright colors on this glossy critter signal that it is poisonous. Poke one, and you're likely to get a whiff of almonds: the scent of cyanide. It's what allows the millipede to go about its business on the forest floor, without the tedious business of ducking under pieces of leaf litter. But poison gas hasn't stopped this one from picking up a passenger.

Salmonberries ripe, Discovery Park

2010-05-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

... and I'm not the only mammal snacking on them.

Field trip afterglow with rufous hummingbird, Discovery Park

2010-05-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

I'm still absorbing an amazing field trip I took on Saturday morning, led by Seattle Park ranger Penny Rose. The trip was part of a class on birding by ear, and she was a wonderful teacher. Rose is the kind of naturalist who can walk into a place and within seconds, can see and hear four times as many things as I could pick up in half an hour. I want to be just like her.
Among the sightings/hearings: 54 species, including four kinds of warbler and three kinds of flycatcher, three nests and the first Swainson's thrush song of the season. She also showed us through a trail I'd never tried before, but which will be one of my primary destinations in future. She calls it "bird alley."
Here's one of the characters you can find there.

We don't see many rufous hummingbirds in Seattle. It's possible that the city-loving Anna's Hummingbirds, who live here year round, make it hard for the migratory rufous hummingbirds to find niches. But this fellow is sitting pretty, guarding a territory that includes the big fireweed patch in the south meadow.

Spring cleaning, Montlake Fill

2010-05-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

Big bleached snag, tree swallow singing away from a high branch, and in one of the holes, a tail.

There you are.

And drop the sawdust away from the hole.

A pair of chickadees were taking turns at this, flying in, taking out stuff, dropping it, preening, and flying in again.

Now Blooming in Oak Bay Native Plant Garden

2010-04-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

This half-acre nook was first dedicated as a publicly owned native plant garden in 1939, but much of its current appearance is the result of diligent restoration done in the past 10 years by local activists. It boasts 120 native species, with many specimens rescued from building sites. April 1 showed the garden in its full glory, with fawn lilies...

...and more fawn lilies.

shooting stars

chocolate lilies

pink fawn lilies

trillium

satin flower

yellow wood violet

bleeding heart

blue-eyed grass

and the first camas.

Goldfinch and willow

2010-03-18T12:21:00.001-07:00

The willows at the north end of Golden Gardens were full of trilling American goldfinches,the state bird of Washington, Iowa and New Jersey. It ties with the robin (Connecticut, Michigan, Wisconsin) for the fourth most popular state bird, coming in behind the Mockingbird (Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas), the Western Meadowlark (Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oregon, Wyoming), and the grand champion state bird, the cardinal. (Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia.)
I'd prefer if each state would have a bird to itself. There are 888 species to choose from in the country, after all. So, let's give the goldfinch to New Jersey, let Iowa take the indigo bunting or something, and find another bird for Washington. My first pick would be a corvid. British Columbia has the Steller's Jay, so I consider that taken, but the raven is up for grabs.
Still, even the most playful raven isn't as endearing as these fluffy yellow things trilling in the pussy-willows.

And for more morning cheer: brant in the waves.

New! Exciting! Geeky!

2010-03-17T13:27:00.000-07:00

I have a new blog, called Figure One, in which I find cool pictures/charts/graphics and then gush about why I like them, or don't.
Ideally, I'd like it to be kind of like Go Fug Yourself, but instead of celebrity outfits, I'll have maps, graphs and a wolverine named Xena.

Voyage of the Guillemot

2010-03-15T12:19:00.001-07:00

On Sunday I had the great privilege of taking a trip on Guillemot, a fine old wooden motorboat owned by Peter Mann and his wife, Nancy Everds. Nancy takes truly amazing wildlife pictures, and she also photographed the trip. If she posts any, I'll link to them and we can all gaze in awe.
Anyway, here are some pictures that I took:

Here's the wake of the Guillemot on the glassy early-morning water of the Ship Canal.

Double-crested cormorant drying its wings. (And doing the bat-signal.)

Mr. and Mrs. Common Merganser, perhaps charmed by the cuteness of the vessel, consent to be photographed.

Surf scoters out in Puget Sound.

There was a big flock of western-grebes. We could hear their trilling calls above the hum of the engine.

A pair of bald eagles looks on from Blakely Rock, off Bainbridge Island.

Two pelagic cormorants and three sea lions share a buoy.

Brant on Blake Island.

Brant with Mount Rainier in the background.

A yellow-faced bumblebee, I believe. Spring continues.

If you moor at Blake Island, make sure your boat is secure.

There are curious characters about.

Another pelagic cormorant.

Harlequin ducks, off West Seattle.

Dead harbor porpoise, Discovery Park

2010-03-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

My son and his buddy came across this on Saturday morning on the south beach. Something has obviously had a meal of it, but there were no crows or gulls skulking around, and it didn't smell. Poor thing.

Salmonberry blooming, Discovery Park

2010-02-23T17:37:00.000-08:00

Let's see, when did this start happening last year? Ah: March 18. So salmonberry is two weeks ahead. Red-flowering currant is earlier than that. I haven't noticed any maple bud action. I'll have to check.

Witty's Lagoon, B.C.

2010-02-23T13:42:00.000-08:00

Green mossy woods, shining streams.

Fiddlehead. Bracken fern, judging by the size and where it was growing.

Nice to see Yew.

And the lovely lagoon. There were northern pintail, green-winged teal, mallards, buffleheads, great blue herons, and a gorgeous kingfisher who cleverly avoided being photographed.

Snow Goose, Montlake Fill

2010-02-09T14:05:00.000-08:00

Just one, hanging out with a rag-tag band of Canada Geese. At one point they wheeled overhead. I could see the black wing tips.

Red-winged blackbirds sitting in a tree

2010-02-08T14:48:00.000-08:00

A pair of male red-winged blackbirds sat at a tree a few feet away from each other, exchanging "oak-a-lee" calls and flashing their epaulets.
Just below them, five females took in the performance.

And then the females left to pick bugs from a nearby alder.

The males started hopping up the tree, coming within a foot of each other as they climbed.

They each gave two or three trills from the trees' top branches, before one flew to a nearby cattail.

Then they both ducked into the reeds, and the drama was over.

Early spring?

2010-02-08T13:41:00.000-08:00

Usually, when people talk about how this year's warm, El Nino-fueled winter is causing plants to sprout up early, I'm a little skeptical. Spring is always early around here. The first tulip shoots show up around New Year's Day. It's just that, when the weather is warm and nice, more people are out to notice the new growth.
But then I noticed the coltsfoot appearing.

Compare this to my picture of the same coltsfoot patch on March 4, 2009. It's further along, but not 24 days further along.

That's not a dog print

2010-02-05T11:27:00.000-08:00

Seen on a trail in Discovery Park.
Incidentally, raccoons appear to be mating these days. I know this because a pair were copulating on my parents' back lawn in Victoria for about an hour on Tuesday. Naturally, my parents phoned me up to tell me about it, and emailed a photo.

Pretty birds, Discovery Park

2010-02-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

Mr. and Mrs. Barrow's goldeneye, gleaming in the sun.

And my geek-a-licious bird du jour, a Lincoln's sparrow in the south meadow. Such a pretty little birdie. The dapper coloring, the crisp black streaks on the belly. Really I'm quite silly about it.

There was also a fox sparrow, but this is the best picture I got, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Crows in a crowd

2010-02-04T14:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, morning, about 10:30 a.m. about 100 crows gathered in Discovery Park's south meadow. Some of them converged on trees. Others ambled about in crowds on the ground, like shoppers taking in a big sale. I could hear three distinct kinds of cries: a rattle, a musical, raven-like "cronk," and, overwhelmingly, a high, harsh "caw, caw, caw" -- the call crows always give when assembling.
I couldn't find a reason the crows were crowding together. They weren't diving at anything. I wonder what they were up to?

Blooming in Discovery Park

2010-01-21T10:25:00.001-08:00

Indian plum is coming into bloom. I don't think it is early, despite the bizarrely warm weather lately. That's the thing about spring around here: it happens over about six months starting at the winter solstice.

From the meadow. I think these are hazelnut catkins.

Oo. Pretty. All orange and brain-shaped.

I think that has to be hardwood bark, so this is witch's butter, or Tremella mesenterica.

northern shovelers, Discovery Park

2010-01-21T09:44:00.001-08:00

I like northern shovelers, largely because of their cartoonish, paddle-shaped beaks. (It has 110 projections called lamellae which filter particles out of the water, so perhaps they should be called strainers instead of shovelers.)

Those males are mighty pretty.

And they work hard to stay that way.

Pileated woodpecker, Discovery Park

2010-01-20T18:08:00.000-08:00

Discovery Park was lovely yesterday. The birds are starting to sing, and I heard a Pacific tree frog. (Actually, I've heard tree frogs a lot in Discovery Park this winter. The only time I don't hear one is when there's frost on the ground.)
I also came across this lovely pileated woodpecker dismembering a snag.

This is after a big panel of bark has come out. Watching through my binoculars I could see the woodpecker's amazing tongue in action. But no picture of that this time.

A second woodpecker, another male, flew up to a neighboring tree for a few minutes, then flew away.

Sweet taste of spring

2010-01-20T16:51:00.000-08:00

In a corner of the grounds of my daughter's school is a patch of miner's lettuce. Today we noticed the first succulent leaves, which are like butter lettuce, only thicker. My kids love them, and they otherwise avoid anything salad-like.

Here's our friend Jane, foraging for greens.

Indian plum bud burst, Discovery Park

2010-01-07T14:11:00.001-08:00

Most Indian Plum buds were furled in tight little cones, but there were a couple of plants that were enticingly further along. Looks like winter might end after all.

Down by the beach, there were the first pussy willows.

Harlequin ducks and shorebirds, Cattle Point, Victoria

2009-12-23T16:32:00.000-08:00

I took a walk to Cattle Point on a blustery Monday, all the better to see that most gorgeous of waterfowl, the harlequin duck.

There were also at least three black oystercatchers foraging along the rocks.

Here's one chiseling into a crevice. It came out with a limpet. Earlier, I saw it clutching a sculpin in its beak.

Then my bird ID skills were put to the test by a parade of shorebirds in winter plumage. Judging by the size, bill length, and the fact that they were foraging in the grass, I think the little birds next to the glaucous-winged/western hybrid gulls were dunlin.

Here are some more.

I also came across two black turnstones. This one seemed to be huddling into a rock crevice fore shelter.

And perched on a rock off Willows beach, two more species. I think the short-billed ones are black-bellied plovers, and the long-billed one is a willet.

Icy morning, Green Lake

2009-12-10T13:00:00.001-08:00

A week into the cold snap, Green Lake was fringed with ice, and had big rafts of ice floating in the middle.

Hooded mergansers were putting on a great show in the willows on the east side of the lake. I spotted some males grunting and arching their necks at each other. Also, one female, who caught a large fish, had to evade all the others in her flock of 16 birds in order to swallow it. She managed.

Here's a splendid male.

Here's the biggest find of the day, a young green heron, perched discreetly in a willow. Too discreetly for my liking.

As usual, I could see it better than I could photograph it.

One of these wigeon is not like the others...

It's a Eurasian wigeon, likely visiting for the winter from Siberia, making it more exotic than the American wigeon that make up the rest of the flock. They breed in boring old North America.

And here is a lovely common merganser. Also seen: northern shovelers in full breeding regalia, three ruddy ducks and a common goldeneye.

Hooded Merganser, Green Lake

2009-12-01T14:26:00.001-08:00

I saw lots of hooded mergansers and a few common mergansers on Green Lake this beautiful morning.

Lovely creatures.

Birds, Discovery Park

2009-12-01T14:08:00.000-08:00

From yesterday:
Ruby-crowned kinglet, part of a raucous mixed flock that included ruby-crowned kinglets, golden-crowned kinglets, black-capped and chestnut backed chickadees, a nuthatch and...

...brown creepers. Here's one.

Over by the pond a song sparrow was hopping around, apparently eating tidbits from the duckweed and occasionally wetting its feathers.

Slime mold revisited, Discovery Park

2009-12-01T13:39:00.000-08:00

Remember this, from Nov. 18?

It's a slime mold amoeba climbing a tree so it can produce spores. Here's what it looked like yesterday:

Fred Rhoades says it is likely Physarium polycephalum, a species that is easy to culture and as a result, widely studied. Among the discoveries about Physarium: it can navigate mazes and can provide the computing power for a light-avoiding robot.
It's impossible to say for sure, what it is, however, without having an expert examine the fruiting bodies closely -- possibly under a microscope.
In case you ever need to do this, here are Rhoades' instructions for sending slime mold fruiting bodies through the mail.
"The best way is in a tiny box that you put in an envelope. Take the fruiting body scrap removed on a small sliver of the bark that is on and glue it down in the bottom of a small matchbox or similar. Put a bit of cotton ball or some such in on top to stabilize it and slip the whole thing in an envelope, perhaps gluing the box down on a card to stabilize its position in the envelope. Any small, rigid container will work. The main thing is to protect the fruiting bodies from being crushed or shaken as they are very fragile."

American Searocket, Discovery Park

2009-12-01T13:33:00.001-08:00

Still blooming.

Amanita muscaria, Woodland Park

2009-12-01T12:54:00.000-08:00

Around a pine tree by the Zoo, Fly Agaric, one of the world's oldest mind-altering drugs (though I understand it's only trippy in an "Oh, look, I'm violently ill" kind of way), and insect repellents (an old use was to mix it in a potion to stupefy flies.) More recently, an icon of the fungal world, accessory of garden gnomes, favored residence of smurfs and object of desire for the Mario Brothers.

I wonder what's been eating this one.

Cooper's Hawk, Good Shepherd Center

2009-12-01T12:28:00.000-08:00

This young Cooper's Hawk was lingering among the apple trees near Seattle's Good Shepherd Center.

I couldn't see any bands, which any Seattle-born Cooper's Hawk would have. I guess it's from out of town.

Beach scenes, Discovery Park

2009-11-19T14:36:00.001-08:00

Discovery Park on Wednesday. Sea frothy and gray with floodwater, Rainier visible.

A bald eagle soaring by.

And river otter tracks on the North Beach. Check out the scuff marks where the tail went by.

Yummy slime, Discovery Park

2009-11-19T14:13:00.000-08:00

A giant amoeba oozes up a tree to release spores, and a slug takes a slimy meal. Although it's not as weird as its drippy lunch, the mollusk is pretty odd. It's a native species, Phrophysaon andersoni, with two distinctive talents: it can shed its tail when attacked and it gushes orangish yellow slime when disturbed.
It's not possible to identify the slime mold until it sets up its spore releasing structures. Fred Rhoades kindly identified the moss as Ulota or a small Orthotrichum.

Here's another look at the slime mold.

Golden-crowned kinglet, Discovery Park

2009-11-18T15:03:00.000-08:00

This time of year, songbirds tend to rove around in mixed flocks, hopping from tree to tree, gleaning for tiny insects. And usually, if you're in the woods, golden-crowned kinglets will be along, chattering in their high silvery voices. They are tiny - weighing it at 6 grams -- but tough enough to flit and chip their way through New England winters. It's hard to get more than a glimpse of one, because they seldom stay still, always hopping from branch to branch, sometimes dangling upside down, sometimes dodging behind leaves. Many a time I've tried to follow one with the camera. Most of the time I get pictures of feathery blurs or places where kinglets used to be.
Yesterday, I got lucky. This bird was in a mixed flock with black-capped chickadees and dark-eyed juncos.

Birdy day, Discovery Park

2009-11-14T20:38:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine calls it a birdy day, the sort of time when avifauna of all kinds present themselves to be seen. Thursday was one of those days.

Northern Flicker

Junco.

Young red-tail, circling over the south meadow.

Steller's jay.

Golden-crowned sparrow posing on matching lichen.

Bushtit on dead gumweed.

The bushtits really liked the gumweed.

Here be otters, Discovery Park

2009-11-13T19:31:00.000-08:00

Thursday at Discovery Park's North Beach. Three river-otter heads, one large, and two small.

Here's another view. Looks like a mother and two kits. The kits stay with their mother until the next litter is born in the summer.

And there were lots of tracks about, too.

Figuring out fungi, revisited.

2009-11-13T14:33:00.000-08:00

An expert, Fred Rhoades, a mycologist and lichenologist based in Bellingham, kindly gave me feedback on my IDs. The good news: one of them is right. The rest? Well...

I had arrived at Cryptoporus volvatus. Rhoades says it's not that. In fact, I don't just have the species wrong. I may have the kingdom wrong. Rhoades says it looks like a slime mold, Lycogala epidendrum.

My assessment for this: Lactarius subflammeus. Rhoades says I'm sort of right: it is a Lactarius, and it might be subflammeus. Or it might be something else.
"...you need to taste all those little orange, white-milked Lactarii to separate the peppery ones from the mild ones. Then precise color, viscidity and host trees nearby (all Lactarius are mycorrhizal) are important."

My call: Boletus zellerii. Rhoades's verdict: correct.

I said Clitocybe clavipes. "...looks like it might be an old Gomphidius glutinosus," Rhoades says.

I think it's a Russula. Rhoades says the stem is too skinny. "Perhaps Leucopaxillus???"

Figuring out fungi, Discovery Park

2009-11-11T12:09:00.000-08:00

I adore mushrooms. I love their shapes and colors, and the way they stay unseen most of the year, only emerging one fleeting time to fruit. But do I know my mushrooms? Oh, no. I do not. But I'm trying.
I have two guide-books, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
"Mushrooms Demystified," by David Arora, is a magnificent book, the best-written field guide of any kind that I have ever encountered. Arora has a strong and amusing authorial voice, the book is crammed with info. On the minus side, it is ancient. The most recent edition is from 1986. And most of the pictures are in black and white. Plus, it's California-centric.
My other guide, "Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest" by Steve Trudell and Joe Ammirati was published in 2009, and it's as local as they come (both authors teach at the University of Washington. It's not as comprehensive as Arora's book, and well, it isn't written by Arora.
Along with these books, I can turn to the Internet, which can be helpful sometimes.
So let's see how I do with these mushrooms I encountered on Tuesday's soggy walk.

These were hard, woody, and browner than they look in the picture. I think it's a polypore, but I don't see anything that looks like it in the polypore chapter of Trudell and Ammirati.
In Arora, I follow the key to Piptoporus & Cryptoporus. Looks like Cryptoporus volvatus is a possibility.
Arora writes:
"This bizarre evolutionary anomaly looks like a cross between a confused puffball and a bemused oak gall. The smooth, warmly tanned exterior is quite attractive (often reminding me of a small loaf of bread) and gives no hint of the tube layer within. Slicing it open, however, reveals a hollow interior with a "ceiling" of tubes. The "floor" eventually ruptures and tiny bark-boring beetls enter the "trap door" in search of tasty tube tissue and spores. After feasting they depart to construct brood tunnels in old or dying conifers, and the spores they carry with them gain entry to a new host. Later, fruiting bodies may emerge through the very holes bored by the beetles!"
Cool.
Next step: Google Cryptoporus volvatus. Hey look: it's still called that.
One problem: it grows on conifer wood, and I'm pretty sure that's an alder log.

These were growing in a crowd, and I can't resist red. One broke when I was looking at the gills, but I didn't notice any latex. (I wasn't looking for it though, so that doesn't mean there wasn't any.) They look like Lactarius subflammeus in Trudell and Ammirati, and they're consistent with the description in Arora, and there are pictures that look like them online. So: Lactarius subflammeus. I think.

This is a bolete. The gills are tubular and yellow-green, and when I poke them with my fingernail, they don't turn gray. Looking at Trudell and Ammirati. I think it the cap seems more like B. Zelleri, but neither one has seems to have that green stipe. Turning to Arora, who appears to have a thing for boletes, I'm leaning toward Zelleri -- for one thing Arora says the tubes often don't stain blue.

As usual, the things I notice about this mushroom are not necessarily the things that are likely to help me identify it. What I notice: it's big, and funnel shaped with this nifty wrap-around thing going on. What I should have figured out: the spore color, as it's how Trudell and Ammirati sort out the gilled mushrooms, whether the flesh is brittle or not, and whether or not it smelled of grape bubble gum. If it did, it may have been Clitocybe clavipes.

There were a bunch of these handsome white mushrooms under a cedar tree. I think it's a Russula. Which one, I can't tell. I might have a chance if I looked at the spores under a microscope.

Barrows goldeneye, Discovery Park

2009-11-10T19:21:00.000-08:00

When Barrow's goldeneye touch down in our waters, they come ready to fatten up and mate. In their mating colors, the males are one of the loveliest of our winter ducks. Top ten for sure, anyway.

Here's the female.

And a splendid male.

Common fungal beauties, Discovery Park

2009-11-04T20:31:00.000-08:00

I just bought "Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest" by Steve Trudell and Joe Ammirati, and I've been enjoying it. Lovely pictures, solid descriptions, easy navigation -- it has all you need in a field guide, almost. (I'd like an English index.) So even though, the weather has been unsuitably sunny, I went looking for mushrooms.

I found these under a rotting log. I think they are Lentinus strigosus. Here's what they look like from the top.

Calocera cornea, all in a row.

Parasola plicatilis.

November turtle

2009-11-02T14:44:00.000-08:00

Three turtles were out soaking up the November sun. This one was the biggest.

Ruddy Duck, Green Lake

2009-11-02T14:32:00.001-08:00

This morning was beautiful, with the low sun giving extra color to the landscape. Of course, what caught my eye was a gray duck.

This is a ruddy duck, a female or possibly a youngster. It's a type of duck sometimes called a stifftail, for its posture. The bird books say they're common, but I've never seen one on Green Lake before.

Ducks, Montlake Fill

2009-10-27T12:26:00.001-07:00

Green-winged teal with contortionist mallard.

Northern Shovelers, heads partly up.

A more typical pose. Shoveler's broad bills are combed with 110 tiny projections, which help them sieve animals out of the water.

Drake, head up.

Fall mushrooms, Discovery Park

2009-10-26T12:11:00.001-07:00

It's mushroom time in Discovery Park. Here are a few sightings. Fred Rhoades kindly helped me with the IDs. Check his site out. He's currently testing the possibilities of 3D photography.

This is candlewick fungus, or Xylaria hypoxylon, a name I will keep in mind if I ever do a nature alphabet book.

A lovely coral mushroom, probably genus Clavulina.

Stropharia ambigua.

This is might be Chlorophyllum olivieri or Chlorophyllum rhacodes. Either way, there's a lot of them in Discovery Park.

Possibly Leratiomyces ceres.

Some kind of Psathyrella, possibly Psathyrella gracilis.

Flocking songbirds, Discovery Park

2009-10-23T11:33:00.001-07:00

At the north edge of the south meadow, a big flock of cedar waxwings filled the branches of a tree. They took off. I looked up, and saw a northern harrier, followed by three crows. And then the noise was over.

Near the lighthouse, a mixed flock of song sparrows and golden-crowned sparrows hopped around the grass and shrubs. Golden-crowned sparrows winter here. They breed in the mountains of B.C., the Yukon and Alaska.

One of the golden-crowns was singing. I find the sound endearing. It seems slower and more easygoing than other sparrows. And they're handsome too. Here's a profile.

Baby seal, Discovery Park

2009-10-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

I came across this young harbor seal at Discovery Park's north beach. One of the guys restoring the lighthouse said that the seal and its mother have been coming to the beach for about two weeks. The young one pulls up on the beach at 9 a.m. each day, while the mother fishes nearby.

Song sparrows learn by eavesdropping

2009-10-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

I have a story in the P-I about the latest research on the song sparrows of Discovery Park.

L pod has a new calf

2009-10-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

The Kitsap sun has the details.

Youth on Age, Discovery Park

2009-10-15T14:29:00.000-07:00

When the weather gets wet and the leaves fall off the alders and maples, things get a little livelier in the underbrush.
Youth on Age plants (Tolmeia menziesii) flower in the spring, but they do a lot of growing in the winter. New leaves are just showing up on this plant.

Caterpillar on cattail

2009-10-15T14:21:00.000-07:00

Fall is time for enormous moth caterpillars. One of the most flamboyant in these parts is the spotted tussock moth caterpillar. This one was showing off its hairy glory on a cattail in Discovery Park. I'm not sure how it got there. I think it might have fallen off a nearby willow.

Mountains in fall

2009-10-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of luscious mountain stories to enjoy as mountain hiking season draws to a close.
Kelsi of Chattermarks visits a snow-dusted Sourdough mountain and Lee Rentz photographs larches, ice and blue skies in Headlight Basin.

Surf scoters, West Seattle

2009-10-02T14:14:00.001-07:00

I saw a flock of Surf Scoters munching on mussels on the Fauntleroy Ferry Dock's pilings. Surf Scoters winter along the Pacific Coast. They breed on lakes in Alaska, the Yukon and Canada's Northwest Territories.
Those big gaudy bills are good for munching shellfish.

Not as tough as it looks

2009-09-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

This insect on a yarrow flower in Discovery Park has a yellow jacket's angles and stripes, but it hasn't got a sting. Take a look: big eyes, tiny stubby antennae and only two wings. It's a hover fly, of genus Spilomyia.

Discovery Park, storm coming in

2009-09-29T18:47:00.001-07:00

I set out with pretty fluffy clouds sending interesting shadows over the water.

I reached the north beach. Hmm, what's that dark spot to the north?

The meadow at the time of the first raindrops. Time to find cover.

And that was the beginning of a (relatively) rare thunderstorm.

Glimpses of red in Discovery Park

2009-09-29T17:29:00.000-07:00

Fall in the lowland Pacific Northwest tends to have low-key palette of greens, yellows and browns, but once in a while, reds emerge.

Fireweed.

Trailing blackberry.

Vine maple, which tends to turn yellow in shady spots.

And finally, a true sign of fall, the ruby red eyes of western grebes, back in Puget Sound for the winter. I saw eight off Discovery Park's north beach.

Change of season

2009-09-10T15:31:00.001-07:00

From Issaquah, some signs of fall.

Licorice fern emerging from a moss mat on a big-leaf maple tree. Like many epiphytes hereabouts, licorice fern's growing season is in the cool, wet part of the year.

Chinook salmon in Issaquah creek.

Thelephora palmata, or "fetid false coral." Fred Rhoades tells me that this smells pungently of some kind of combination of garlic and burning rubber. Shamefully, I didn't notice.

One baby grebe at Green Lake

2009-09-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

There's one fluffy peeping baby left from the latest clutch of the pied-billed grebes at Green Lake.

The young one from the clutch before is still around too.

Previous posts:

June 3: one egg
June 10: seven eggs
June 27:first hatching
June 28: second hatching
June 30: three babies, two eggs
July 1: still three babies, two eggs
July 3: three babies, one egg
July 6: two babies, away from nest
July 21: One baby left, but what are the parents up to?.
August 12:Five eggs in the nest
August 26:Four babies, one egg

Butterflies, Sauk Mountain

2009-08-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

On the way back from Newhalem, we took a hike through the meadows Sauk Mountain, which was glorious. We saw pikas and marmots, heard the haunting tones of a varied thrush and thorougly enjoyed ourselves.

The view (that's the confluence of the Sauk and Skagit rivers):

The flowers (shown here with pine siskin).

...and the butterflies.
Mylitta crescent on orange agoseris.

Um, some kind of blue. Genus Plebejus, I think.

Clodius parnassian.

And a fine looking unidentified caterpillar.

Other kingdoms, Newhalem

2009-08-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

Fungi: The elegant agate-like fans of Trametes versicolor, or Turkey Tails.

Protista: Fruiting bodies of Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa or coral slime mold.

Plantae, Fungi, and Bacteria: come together in the lichen Lobaria oregana. Along with a fungus and an algae, these lichens have nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria. When they fall from trees, they fertilize forest soils.

Raven conversation, Sitka, Alaska

2009-08-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

This video is the latest from The Old Duffer's Nature Cinema, a fine, fine blog.

Green Lake Grebes have four babies, one egg

2009-08-26T20:57:00.001-07:00

As of this afternoon, the pied-billed grebes nesting at Green Lake had four stripy, big-footed babies, and one egg to go. My count last week was wrong.
They're keeping the parents busy.

Previous posts (apart from the one I just deleted for being incorrect):
June 3: one egg.
June 10: seven eggs.
June 27:first hatching.
June 28: second hatching.
June 30: three babies, two eggs
July 1: still three babies, two eggs
July 3: three babies, one egg
July 6: two babies, away from nest.
July 21: One baby left, but what are the parents up to?.
August 12:Five eggs in the nest

Douglas squirrel, Newhalem

2009-08-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

Is that a tail or are you happy to see me?

2009-08-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

I had the good fortune to spend the past weekend camping in Newhalem. My son plucked this little fellow out of the Skagit River. He's a tailed frog, an amazing little creature that lives in rushing mountain streams. The tadpoles have suction cups to hold on to rocks. The tail is how I can tell it's a male. It's not really a tail but a reproductive structure. They fertilize internally, then the female lays the eggs.

Good for the sunsets, bad for the lungs

2009-08-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

NASA Earth Observatory has a revealing picture of smoke hanging over B.C. and Washington a couple of days ago.

Dome spiders mating, Discovery Park

2009-08-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

At this time in summer, spiders and their webs get larger and more conspicuous. In Discovery Park, the most often seen types are orb webs, and dome webs.

Here's a dome web.

And here are some more. In most of the webs, a single spider sits upside-down in the middle.

But some had two spiders, who were busy making more spiders. Here's how spider making works: the male (on the right in this picture) carries sperm on his palps - a pair of appendages in front of his fangs. (The male in this pair had red palps, as if he was holding a pair of boxing gloves.) The palps fit into the epigyne, a plate under the female's abdomen.

Both palps and epigyne are shaped so that only males and females of the same species can link up.

Here you can see the male's palps. I thought they looked like tiny boxing gloves. A couple of times, they unhooked, and quickly backed off each other. Then the male would move toward the female, plucking at the web as he came forward, and they'd clasp again.

This web had three. The male is at the bottom. A female is just above him and a second female is in the upper strands. How did that happen?

Osprey and crows eat a fish

2009-08-18T13:58:00.001-07:00

I watched an osprey eating a fish in Discovery Park. As it ripped at the flesh, a variety of birds came by and perched on the same dead treetop. A pair of northern flickers, a goldfinch, some house finches and an Anna's hummingbird came and went, and the osprey went on eating, although it did look up when the hummingbird buzzed a foot from its face.

But when a pair of crows arrived, I thought that meant trouble for the osprey. All the crows would have to do was caw a certain way, and every crow in the neighborhood would swoop in for a mob attack on the osprey. Whenever I've seen crows encounter a lone raptor, that's what happens. But not this time.

Turns out that eating a fish while perched on a tree is a little messy, and the osprey was dropping fish bits as it went.
The crows watched the osprey as it ate.
Every so often the larger of the two would swoop below, pick up a fallen scrap of fish and eat it. Once the crow passed bits to its smaller companion.

You can hardly see it in the photo, but this crow is eating what looked like a bit of fish guts.

When only the tail was left, the crows moved on.

I can see how staying quiet around the feeding osprey gave an advantage to the pair of crows, even though they only ate scraps. After all, if the crows called in a gang, and if that that gang managed to seize the fish, the most those two could hope for is a portion of the fish.
This way they don't have to share the fish they find, they don't risk getting hurt by a big dangerous bird and, because they didn't hassle the osprey, it might let them approach and bum another meal in future.

Found on gumweed

2009-08-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

Gumweed grows on the dunes around the beaches at Discovery Park and attracts an amusing variety of insects.

Yellow-faced bumble bee.

A solitary wasp, I think. Here's a guide to telling if a bee is a bee. It can be tricky.

Another mystery flower feeder. I like the groovy blue eyes.

This wasp had different business. Other, tinier, insects were feeding on this flower head was at work on the flower, and the wasp was laying eggs in the insects' bodies.

Fireweed gone to seed

2009-08-17T19:55:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of summer, it was a swathe of pink, with insects and birds flitting all around.
These days, the fireweed flowers in Discovery Park's South Meadow have given way to fluff, but that didn't stop two male Anna's hummingbirds from chasing each other and doing high speed diving displays over the patch.

Here's a nicer picture from another part of the park.

Heerman's gulls at Discovery Park

2009-08-17T18:20:00.000-07:00

Heerman's gulls breed in Western Mexico and then fly up to these parts from August to December. I like their gray feathers, red beaks and dark feet.

Time to preen and stretch.

More than 300 Humboldt Squid stranded near Tofino

2009-08-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

They're big, they're numerous, and they didn't used to come this far north.
The Globe and Mail has the story.

Green Lake grebes have more eggs

2009-08-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

The pair of pied-billed grebes nesting in Green Lake have new eggs. I could see five. Given that there were none when I last looked in, on July 27, and pied-billed grebes have an incubation period of about 23 days, that means they won't hatch until about August 19.

Settling down.

The youngster from the last clutch was fishing alone at the north end of the lake.

Previous posts:
June 3: one egg.
June 10: seven eggs.
June 27:first hatching.
June 28: second hatching.
June 30: three babies, two eggs
July 1: still three babies, two eggs
July 3: three babies, one egg
July 6: two babies, away from nest.
July 21: One baby left, but what are the parents up to?.

Slave raiding ants

2009-08-08T19:12:00.001-07:00

The anthill is about two feet tall. It sits near a roadside in Ruckle Provincial Park. Three inch wide tracks radiate around it, cleared by hundreds of ants on the colony's business, which turns out to be more than gathering food.

The biggest ants here, the ones with the imposing jaws, are members of a species (Formica aserva or something similar)that raids other ants (also of genus Formica), carrying off pupae. When those pupae emerge, they join in the work of looking after the colony.

I saw at least two other kinds of ants in this colony.

Northern alligator lizard, Russell Island

2009-08-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

So fun to see, I took two pictures.

the mad cone bomber

2009-08-07T21:04:00.001-07:00

Excuse the soft focus. Douglas Squirrels don't do a lot of standing still. This one woke us up most mornings, felling cones from a nearby Douglas Fir and chattering shrilly. Once in a while, a cone would hit tent nylon.

Pea crab

2009-08-07T20:39:00.001-07:00

Found a pair of pea crabs nestled in a tube under a rock. I'm not sure what built the tube, but it wasn't the pea crabs. These odd, double-wide crabs insert their soft bodies into tube worm tubes, clam shells, shrimp burrows, anywhere that will allow them shelter and a flow of plankton and detritus. They're freeloaders, but not exactly parasites. It appears the scientific term is "commensal indwellers."

Red crossbills on long-dead alder

2009-08-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

I came across a pair of red crossbills as I was walking along the beach near my parents' place on Saltspring Island. I took some pictures of the male. What a pretty guy.

They were on a dead alder that had been stretched across the beach for at least the last five years. I guess they were eating insects because there's no way that tree has seeds on it.

Hello, beautiful

2009-08-04T09:07:00.001-07:00

We spotted this magnificent banana slug sprinting (by slug standards) across the grass on Saturday.

Grasshoppers

2009-07-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

Check out this post from Rock Paper Lizard.

Merganser Pond, Saltspring Island

2009-07-31T10:33:00.001-07:00

On the other side of Ruckle Provincial Park, the campgrounds are jammed, and people line the sandstone shoreline watching the ferries go by. But here in the woods: nobody. My father and I broke cobwebs across the trail as we walked up at 11 a.m.

Nestled among the cedars, a pond, abuzz with dragonflies: eight-spotted skimmers, blue-eyed darners (at least I'm pretty sure they were blue-eyed darners. I never saw one stop.)

Also meadowhawks mating...

They were leaving their eggs among the duckweed, which doesn't strike me as a very permanent spot. They must overwinter as larvae.

...lyre-tipped spreadwings...

...and duets of bluets.

And once we'd stayed still and looked long, we found we were surrounded by dozens of Pacific tree frogs, most of them small enough to perch on a fingernail.
Perched among the duckweed, they were hard to spot.

Here's a closer view.

Many of them perched on blades of sedge.

Here are a couple more tiny froggy pictures.

Where the giant yellow amoebas roam

2009-07-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went up Rattlesnake Mountain, near North Bend, Wash., and had a delightful hike through the woods. We saw a couple dozen of these:

This is a slime mold: Fuligo septica, or if you prefer the common name, dog vomit slime mold.
What we're seeing is the mobile, amoeboid form of the slime mold, one giant oozing, branching, decaying wood devouring cell. At the right stage, and on a diet of wood chips or beauty bark, it can look so much like dog vomit that it triggers calls to the veterinarian.
Here's one that is a little further along in development:

There's a black, bruise-like blur in one spot where spores are forming. Eventually, it'll go through a series of changes, ending up as a blue-black sporing body.
Also coming into bloom on the forest floor was Indian Pipe. Indian pipe is ghostly white and fungus-like because it doesn't get its energy from sunlight. Instead, it uses a fungus as an intermediary to get energy from nearby trees.