Looking for coral on the British Columbia coast

The Living Oceans Society is launching a scientific expedition on the RV Cape Flattery to document deep sea coral in Dixon Entrance, the Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. They leave on June 8, and plan to use two submersibles to explore the sea bottom. Deep-sea corals and other slow-growing life forms are threatened by a fishing practice called bottom trawling, which scours the sea floor.
Here's a story from the Victoria Times-Colonist.
Here's an explanatory video:

One of the submersible pilots, Michael Reusher, is blogging about the expedition for Deep Sea News.

Poisonous but pretty

Scientific American has a creepily beautiful slideshow of poisonous mushrooms.

Pied-billed grebes on Green Lake

A pied-billed grebe sits on a floating nest.


Another grebe comes up with a beak-full of brown plant matter, and she (or he) steps off and starts gathering plant matter too. There's one egg in the nest. According to my reading of the bird books, there may be up to six more on the way.


Both birds dive among the lily pads, bringing back more nest material.

Visit here for an update.

Ducklings keep cool

At Green Lake, two ducklings take refuge in the shade of their mother.

More sights at Discovery Park

Salmonberries are ripe.


Pileated woodpecker.


Swift forktail damselfly

Parade of pollinators

Wild roses are blooming in Discovery Park, and an amazing variety of insects are flying up to feed from them. Here's a sampling with speculations on the animals' identities.

Looks like genus Megachile to me, perhaps a leaf-cutter bee.



Genus Bombus. Maybe a yellow-faced bumble bee?



Another Bombus. Red-belted bumble bee, I think.


Flower longhorn beetle and, um, some kind of small stripy not-very-hairy bee. A resin bee, perhaps, such as Dianthidium?

Ladybug on beach pea

Photographed this morning on Discovery Park's south beach.