Fast moving water in mountains

A snowy winter, a slow-starting spring, followed by a few hot weeks and all of a sudden, you have the situation of a whole lot of snow melting at last and surging down the mountainsides into the sea. Lynda Mapes of the Seattle Times has the story.

Save the giant Palouse earthworm

The Wenatchee World has the story about the effort to save the enormous and elusive spitting annelid.

Blue-eyed darner, Discovery Park

Fireweed field, Discovery Park

In one corner of Discovery Park's south meadow is a stretch of fireweed. The pink blooms, in spikes six to seven feet tall attract wild bees galore. I tried, and failed to get a picture of a leaf-cutter bee carrying an actual piece of cut leaf. At least three Anna's hummingbirds and one Rufous hummingbird zipped around. Once in a while one would stop, hover and eat, and then they'd go back to buzzing each other, and doing diving loops.
Meanwhile four species of swallows flitted around and more birds called from nearby trees. And this was at 9:30 a.m., well before fireweed's peak nectar time, which is 1 p.m.

Fireweed is a colonizer of barren places. It's one of the first species to sprout up after a fire or a landslide, and when those busy pollinators are through, and the flours mature, they'll turn into capsules that will burst, each sending hundreds of fluffy seeds into the wind, which will carry them to the next fireweed meadow.

Still three baby grebes, two eggs

I stopped by Green Lake at about noon and found the three baby pied-billed grebes looking lively. (One is on the other side of the parent.)


The parent swam over to meet its mate and they sang a duet until one of the babies swam out to remind them of the task at hand.


It pays to speak up.


One of the babies appears to have a down feather stuck to its face. I guess that can happen when you use your parent's feathers as a climbing structure. There are still two eggs left. I wonder if they'll hatch at all?


Previous posts:
June 3: one egg.
June 10: seven eggs.
June 27:first hatching.
June 28: second hatching.
June 30: three babies

Berry season

It's now the time of year when a walk in the woods is seldom far from a juicy snack. Among the delicacies coming into season at Discovery Park:

Thimbleberry


Red huckleberry


Trailing blackberry (my favorite)


Indian plum, a fruit I like more and more. It tastes kind of like a cucumbery watermelon, but sweet, and so purple it stains your fingers.


Red elderberries. I've never tried these. You have to cook them before you eat them. Otherwise they cause nausea.


Black raspberry. These are edible, though I've never tried them. Someone likes them, though.

Damselfly eats while mating

Damselfly mating is a wonder of flexiblity and coordination. The male uses a special pair of arms on the end of his abdomen to grab the female behind the head, and she bends to touch her abdomen to the sperm stored in his thorax. They can do this while flying around.
Heck, they don't even have to drop what they were eating, or at least this female doesn't. She's holding something to her mouth-parts and munching away.

Photographed in Discovery Park.