Licorice ferns, Polypodium glycyrrhiza, on old roots dangling down a dripping side hill.
With mosses and powdery lichens. |
Nature notes and photos from BC, Canada, mostly in the Lower Fraser Valley, Bella Coola, and Vancouver Island.
Licorice ferns, Polypodium glycyrrhiza, on old roots dangling down a dripping side hill.
With mosses and powdery lichens. |
"Looks like turkey tail." I've had to say this often, seeing these mushrooms. "Probably turkey tail."
Turkey tail colours are variable, depending on their age, and they are often colonized by green algae. And there are other look-alike species, some also common in this area. So, is it turkey tail, or a copy-cat?
I think this is turkey tail, Trametes versicolor. |
Section of branch loaded with turkey tails. |
1) Is the pore surface a real pore surface? Like, can you see actual pores?Yes: Continue.No: See Stereum ostrea and other crust fungi.
2) Squint real hard. Would you say there are about 1–3 pores per millimeter (which would make them fairly easy to see), or about 3–8 pores per millimeter (which would make them very tiny)?3–8 per mm: Continue.1–3 per mm: See several other species of Trametes.
3) Is the cap conspicuously fuzzy, velvety, or finely hairy (use a magnifying glass or rub it with your thumb)?Yes: Continue.No: See several other species of Trametes.
4) Is the fresh cap whitish to grayish?Yes: See Trametes hirsuta.No: Continue.
5) Does the cap lack starkly contrasting color zones (are the zones merely textural, or do they represent subtle shades of the same color)?Yes: See Trametes pubescens.No: Continue.
6) Is the fresh mushroom rigid and hard, or thin and flexible?Rigid and hard: See Trametes ochracea.Thin and flexible: Totally True Turkey Tail.
1. ¿Tiene poros? ¿Los puedes ver?Si: Sigue adelante.No: Busca Stereum ostrea y otros hongos.2. Mira muy de cerca. ¿Hay de 1 a 3 poros por milímetro, lo que los hace fácil de ver, o 3 a 8 por milímetro, lo que los hace muy pequeñitos?3 a 8: Sigue adelante.1 a 3: Busca varias otras especies de Trametes.3. ¿Es visiblemente velludo o terciopelado? (Usa tu lente, o frótalo con el dedo.)Si: Sigue adelante.No: Busca varias otras especies de Trametes.4: ¿Es el hongo fresco grisáceo o blancuzco?Si: Busca Trametes hirsuta.No: Sigue adelante.5: ¿Le faltan zonas de color con contraste marcado? (O sea, ¿las zonas se diferencian solo por la textura, o representan diferencias sutiles del mismo color?Si: Busca Trametes pubescens.No: Sigue adelante.6: ¿Es el hongo duro y tieso, o delgado y flexible?Duro y tieso: Busca Trametes ochracea.Delgado y flexible: Cola de Pavo Absolutamente Verídico.
Detail of a pile of sun-bleached driftwood on the lake shore. Just because.
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Un poco de un montón de troncos y ramas dejados al borde del lago, blanqueados por el sol. No más porque me gustan las texturas.
Sometimes I'm in too much of a hurry. I kept up a good pace following a trail through the woods beside the lake. Dry woods, young (second-growth? Third?) Douglas-fir trees; the understory was mostly salal, Oregon-grape, and huckleberries, with bracken ferns just uncoiling their early fronds. I saw a trillium. One, very small still. Nothing more.
Coming back, slower now, coddling my gimpy knee, I saw a second trillium and stopped to look at it. And then there was another. And another. Somehow, with each step I took, if I then just stood still for a minute, more showed up. And there were tiny yellow violets.
Down on the coast, spring came earlier. Here, in this long valley surrounded by high mountains, it's just getting started. There were tiny yellow flower buds on the Oregon-grapes; back home, 30 km. as the crow flies, they were in full bloom three weeks ago.
All these trilliums were small and white. |
Yellow violet, probably Viola sempervivens. With duff, Oregon-grape leaves. |
Photo cropped to show the pattern on the dried leaf. |
Huckleberry bush with new leaves, and butterfly. |
View from the shore of Upper Campbell Lake, mid-island, 50°N, -125°W, filling a long valley 221 metres above sea level, mid-April, 2024. The water is low, with plants that I usually see growing with their roots in water, now sprouting through dry mud. On land, the moss is crunchy dry, crackling underfoot. But new, yellow-green leaves on the shoreline trees promise summer shade.
From the Reservoir campsite. |
As of February 1st, the provincial snowpack remains very low, averaging 61% of normal (39% below normal) across British Columbia. ... Low snowpack and seasonal runoff forecasts combined with warm seasonal weather forecasts and lingering impacts from previous drought are creating significantly elevated drought hazards for this upcoming spring and summer.
A la fecha del primero de febrero, la nieve acumulada de la provincia sigue muy baja, con un promedio 61 porciento del nivel normal (39% bajo el normal) en toda la provincia de CB. ... Pronósticos de niveles bajas de nieve acumulada y escorrontía estacional combinados con pronósticos de temperaturas de temporada elevadas, además de los impactos sostenidos de sequías anteriores crean peligros elevados de sequía para la primavera y verano.
I walked yesterday on the shore of Upper Campbell Lake; a warm, sunny day, too bright, and I wandered down faint trails in the shade under the evergreens. There, a pair of Steller's jays found me and then followed me out onto the road, back under the trees, making comments ("What are you doing? Get out of here!") when I stopped to look at trilliums, until I returned to the campsite where I had parked.
Mostly, they stayed in deep shade, far above me, but I managed to get a few photos.
Cyanocitta stelleri |
The tail feathers are blue on top, charcoal grey underneath. Adults have bars on the wings. |
Keeping a close eye on me. |
10 days. I've been mostly shut in, sleeping or wishing I were sleeping, promising myself to post "tomorrow", for 10 days. I'm awake now, I think.
Outside, the winter's bare branches are clothed in a pale green froth, pink and white blossoms blow in the wind, the sky and sea are blue, blue, blue. At my door, the spring flowers are almost done, and summer's offerings are leafing out. It's time I got my old bones moving. Weeding and planting to do, salmonberry flowers and pink trilliums to visit along the forest trails.
These photos are from 10 days ago.
Bleeding hearts in deep shade. |
Heather in full sun. |
Peonies rising from the remains of last year's stalks. |
The day was cloudy but warm, around 10°C. I was heading out to do a bit of weeding and edge trimming. Didn't get far. A deer was browsing on the edge of the lawn next door. She stopped to look at me for a long while, not alarmed, just as if she was memorizing my face; "I'll know you next time." And she waited while I went for the camera and took a dozen photos, then went back, calmly, to doing her own edge trimming.
"Are you the one who grows those delicious hostas?" |
Posed against a neighbour's truck. With cherry blossoms. |
And I left her to graze in peace. The weeding can wait.
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Un bonito dia de primavera; no llovía, no hacía frio, aunque el cielo permanecía nublado. Un buen dia para trabajar en el jardín, y salí con la intención de arrancar hierbas malas y recortar los bordes. Y al abrir la puerta, vi la vendadita, pastando en el césped del vecino. Se detuvo para mirarme, sin temor, más bien como si memorizara mi cara: —Te conoceré a la próxima vez que nos encontramos. ¿Eres la que cultivas esas hostas tan deliciosas, no? — Esperó a que fuera por la cámara y se mantuvo quieta mientras saqué una docena de fotos, luego volvió a comer tranquilamente.
La dejé en paz. El trabajo jardinero puede esperar.
Sparrows gettting their veggies:
Immature golden-crowned sparrow, with a beakful. |
Yum! |
Outside my kitchen window, the mock orange and the hydrangea show off new leaves; beside the carport, the perfume of purple hyacinths greets me and the bleeding hearts, tall now, have new flower buds. Inside, a column of tiny ants marches from a crack in the baseboard, and climbs into the cat's dish. Spring is officially here.
I checked out Tyee Spit, hoping for Indian-plum flowers. Not yet; not even buds so far. But there are others:
Oregon grape, Mahonia nervosa. |
Pussywillows, Salix sp. |
Purple dead nettle, Lamium purpureum. "Dead", because it doesn't sting. A member of the mint family. |
Coming right along.
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Afuera de mi ventana, las hortensias y el filadelfo (Philadelphus sp.) estrenan hojas nuevas; al lado de la cochera, el perfume de los jacintos morados llena el aire y en los corazones sangrantes (Lampnocapnos sp.), ya grandes, las primeras flores empiezan a abrirse. Y en casa, una columna de hormiguitas sale marchando de una grieta en el rodapié y se interna en el tazón de la gata. Es oficial; estamos en primavera.
Fui a Tyee Spit, en busca de las flores de "Ciruelo de indio", Oemleria cerasiformis, uno de los primeros arbustos en florecer; pero no, ni siquiera encontré botones. Pero había otras flores:
Fotos:
Where the Campbell River reaches the salt chuck, it opens out into a series of sloughs and mudflats, prime fishing and dabbling sites for waterfowl and seals. At the outer end, Tyee Spit forms a long, flat barrier, leaving only a narrow exit to the Strait. Its shores are stony; clean, round stones, without seaweeds or shell remnants. The currents are strong here, just south of the exit from Seymour Narrows, where they reach up to 15 knots (28 km/h), and then compete here with the outflow from the river. The water is salt, then fresh, then salt as the tide rises and falls. A challenging environment for little sea creatures. I have never seen a crab here; there are no marine snails, no barnacles.
Yesterday the tide was lower than I'd ever seen it here. On the inner side of the spit, down by water's edge, larger rocks, placed there to support a bird lookout, had barnacles and bits of green alga. I walked down to look. And turned over a chunk of old cement.
The community underneath looked like those tiniest snails that cover the rocks on other beaches, but these were dancing.
Stubby isopods, Gnorimosphaeroma oregonensis. The name is bigger than a half dozen of these. |
It's spring; party time, time to find mates and start the next generation. For the stubby isopods, that means sex changes and harems. The baby isopod hatches as a female. She becomes a member of a harem "owned" by one male, produces one brood, then begins a series of molts which transforms her into a male, ready to find his own harem of immature, smaller females. If the harem's male is removed, or dies, the dominant female in the group becomes a male to take his place.
*New word: conglobate: to roll up into a ball.
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Donde el rio Campbell llega al oceano, se extiende, formando lagunas y pantanos, un sitio ideal para aves acuáticas y, donde llega la marea, para focas. En el extremo la lengua de tierra Tyee encierra todo, dejando solo una salida angosta hacia el mar. Las costas de esta lengua son de piedra limpia, sin algas marinas ni restos de conchas. Aquí los corrientes son fuertes; justo al norte el agua sale del estrecho Seymour a unos 15 millas náuticas por hora, y aquí en la boca del rio, se duplica. El agua es salada, luego dulce, luego salada ... según sube y baja la marea. Es un habitat algo difícil para las criaturitas marinas. Aquí no he visto nunca un cangrejo; no hay caracoles marinos, no hay bálanos.
Ayer la marea estaba la más baja que he visto en este sitio. En el lado interior de la lengua de tierra, el lado que da al rio, unas piedras grandes, colocadas para sostener un puesto de observación de aves, llevaban bálanos y algas verdes. Bajé al borde del agua para mirarlas. Y allí levanté un pedazo viejo de cemento.
Las criaturas que se encontraban abajo de ese cemento se parecían a los caracolitos miniaturos que cubren las rocas en otras playas isleñas. Pero éstos bailaban.
Foto: Isópodos Cortos, Gnorimoshpaeroma oregonensis.
Los isóopodos cortos se hacen una bolita cuando se sienten en peligro, al igual que las cochinillas en mi jardín. Los bebitos, hechos bola, pueden medir solamente 1 mm de diámetro, mientras que un macho grande puede extenderse hasta 1 cm. Los isópodos en este grupo son más chicos; todas son hembras.
Escribí, en 2011, sobre unos que encontré en la playa de White Rock:
Estamos en primavera; temporada de fiestas, dias para buscar pareja y empezar la nueva generación. Para los isópodos cortos, eso incluye harenes y cambios de sexo. El isópodo infantil nace como hembra. Forma parte de un harén controlado por un macho, produce una cría, y luego empieza una serie de mudas que la transforma en macho, lista para buscar su propio harén de hembras. Si se pierde, o si se muere el macho de un harén, la hembra más fuerte se transforma en macho para desarrollar su función.
Foto: viendo más de cerca.
Los isópodos adultos tienen 7 pares de patas; los juveniles solo tienen 6. En esta foto solamente veo 6 animales con 6 pares. Tienen ojos compuestso, visibles en algunos en la foto.
Video: hace años hice este video de un isópodo que medía alrededor de 1 mm.
Después de sacar unas fotos, volví el pedazo de cemento a su sitio cuidadosamente. Y venía subiendo la marea. Todo estaba bien en su mundito.
I was standing in the snowy forest, nose to a tree trunk, when a woman came over the hill. She called out to me, "Where's the trail?" Without turning away from my bit of old bark, I pointed; over there, to my right, her left. She nodded, then backtracked before turning towards the trail, giving me a wide berth; there are weird people in this forest, don't get too close.
I never get tired of looking at lichen. Not weird at all. Here's what I was looking at:
Cladina sp., probably Reindeer lichen. |
Pixie-cup lichens, Cladonia sp. Tiny, leafy squamules, and tall fruiting bodies. |
Cladonia, standing tall. There are also some tiny white barnacle lichens. Zoom in. |
In that halfway time between winter and spring, when it doesn't know whether to rain or snow, when clouds come and go, giving glimpses of blue sky and sunshine that never last. At Eve River (Parallel 50.3°N.) the snow was ankle deep, crusty on top, melting into the mud underneath. New snow dusted the hilltops; on the lower slopes, the trees had shed their load, standing with only their feet covered by the white blanket.
Up top, the trees looked like groups of walkers. On their way somewhere; to a "happening" (old word from the 60s) on the far side of the hill?
No-name hill, 1200 m. |
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Era esa temporada "a medias", cuando el dia no se decide si va a llover o a nevar, cuando las nubes van y vienen, dejando aparecer por momentos el cielo azul. Por momentos, nada más. En el rio Eve, al Paralelo 50.3°Norte, la nieve llegaba a mis tobillos; congelada y sólida en la superficie, derritiéndose, mezclándose con el lodo debajo. En los cerros, había nieve nueva, pero en las laderas ya no se veía en los árboles; solo les cubría los pies con su cobija blanca.
Allá arriba, los árboles parecían grupos de caminantes. ¿A dónde iban? ¿Hubo algún evento al otro lado de la cumbre?
Foto: desde el rio, mirando un cerro sin nombre, 1.200 m. de altura.
Every now and then I come across these huge, messy, broken mushrooms. They're dark brown, sometimes almost black, almost shapeless, looking like stacked cow pies. And they hide in the darkest corners of the forest, where they blend in with crumbly, rotten wood, or the duff at the roots of old trees.
We came across a couple on top of a stump where trees have been felled, allowing sunlight to penetrate. And these still have kept their shape.
Old Dyers' polypore |
Second stack. |
Stacked cow pies. |
Taken with flash. Without, I couldn't see the yellow. |
Image by sooillus, Creative Commons. |
Young fruiting bodies are little more than yellowish, velvety blobs. (FungusFactFriday)
A yellowish, velvety blob. |
When the mushroom first emerges, the entire surface is covered in velvety yellow tissue that stains brown immediately when touched. This is the mushroom’s actively growing surface. As a testament to this fact, the stains on the tissue don’t last long; within an hour or two bruised areas become bright yellow again as new growth covers up the injury (amazingly, this can happen even after a mushroom has been picked). (FungusFactFriday)
Al principio, cuando el hongo apenas brota, toda la superficie está cubierta de terciopelo amarillo, el cual se vuelve café de inmediato al tocarlo. Esta es la superficie que está en crecimiento activo, lo que se puede comprobar viendo que las manchas en el tejido no duran; dentro de una o dos horas las areas entintadas vuelven a recuperar su color amarillo brillante, con tejido nuevo que cubre la parte dañada. (Sorprendentemente, esto puede ocurrir aun cuando el hongo ha sido cortado.) (FungusFactFriday)
Backyard birding ...
A sunny afternoon, almost spring. The lawn is green, the flower beds and veggie garden still bare. Seedling pots laid out, with seed packets promising summer goodies. Under the shrubbery, scuffling through last year's leaves, pecking at loose soil, gathering seeds tossed by the homeowner, the lbbs (little brown birds) are celebrating. Bouncing, hopping, scratching, chattering. They take turns at the birdbath. Some call from the trees overhead. Hummingbirds zip here and there, perch momentarily on the tips of bare branches, zip away again.
We sit on the far side, under the deck. When we stand, the birds melt into the shrubbery, waiting silently until we sit down again.
The camera sees better than my old eyes do. They're all lbbs until I see the photos on the computer screen. Then they become white-crowned, gold-crowned, fox sparrows, juncos. Then the colours show up; green, red, gold.
House finch? |
Glittery green Anna's hummingbird female. |
It almost looks like she's standing on air. |
Fox sparrow and junco. |
This one has an orange head and throat. |
Three lbbs. Fox sparrow, junco, house sparrow? |
Golden-crowned sparrow. |
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Pájaros en el jardín ...
Es una tarde asoleada, a principios de la primavera. El césped está verde, los jardines — flores y verduras — siguen desnudos. Macetitas ya sembradas, con sus paquetes respectivos anunciando las delicias prometidas para el verano. Bajo los arbustos, revolviendo las hojas muertas del año pasado, picando la tierra suelta, juntando las semillas ofrecidas por el dueño de la casa, los pajaritos (LBBs, los llamamos en inglés; pajaritos cafés) celebran el dia. Saltan, brincan, rebotan, parloteando constantemente. Toman su turno en el baño o llaman desde lo alto de un árbol. Los colibríes van y vienen, se paran por un momento en el mero punto de una rama, vuelven al aire y desaparecen.
Nosotros nos sentamos debajo de la terraza, al lado opuesto del césped. Cuando nos paramos, los pájaros se esconden entre los arbustos, y se mantienen en silencio hasta que nos sentamos de vuelta.
La cámara ve mejor que mis ojos viejos. Todos los pájaros son LBBs hasta que los miro en la pantalla de mi computadora; entonces resultan ser gorriones de cabeza blanca, de cabeza dorada, zorruno, o juncos. Entonces aparecen los colores: rojo, verde, amarillo ...
Fotos:
Down there, in the mud, the sun is shining.
Or should it be, "Up there"? |
Tomorrow, I said. Ten days ago. Sorry about that. I've been feeling my age, shut in watching the rain through my windows, unable to manage a post. Better now, I think. And the sun came out yesterday, too.
I met this raven and its mate at the rest area beside Roberts Lake; I've seen the two there before several times, always in the same tree overlooking the picnic tables. I had a can of cocktail weiners in the car, emergency rations in case of car trouble; I shared it with the ravens. (They got most of them; I ate three.) When there were none left, this raven gave me a disapproving glare, as if I had been holding out on them.
"Is that all? Stingy!" |
I've been unable to post for over a week. Now where was I? Oh, yes; looking at mushrooms and lichens. And some rocks.
These are the last of the small finds on that hillside of mossy rock, sorted by age; fresh and new, old, ancient.
A very tiny mushroom, with moss, old Douglas-fir needles, and a bit of ice. |
Leaf lichen and dry twig, both bleached almost white. |
Pale pistachio green rock ooze. They tell me it's epidote. |
Another vein, and some sprinkles. |
And tomorrow, if all goes well, I can move on to the Deer Falls side hills.
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Hace más de una semana que no he podido hacer un post. Y ahora, ¿dónde estaba? Ah, sí; mirando hongos y líquenes. Y unas rocas.
Estas son las últimas de las fotos que saqué en esas rocas envueltas en musgo. Las he organizado según la edad; algo fresco, algo viejo, y lo viejísimo.
Nests full of eggs. Eggs that look like dried beans. And some like little buttons. Nests a half-centimetre across. Eggs that will give rise to no birdies.
Bird's nest fungi, of course. And the "eggs" are spore cases.
Nest found near Echo Lake. |
There can be as many as 30 million spores in a single peridiole (Hassett et al. 2015), so an individual bird's nest fungus fruiting body could have more than a billion spores! (AskIFAS, U. of Florida)
Nest found near Elk Falls. |
Puede haber hasta 30 millones de esporas en un solo peridiolo (Hassett et al, 2015) por consiguiente un solo ejemplar del hongo nido de pájaro podría contener más de un millón de millones. (AskIFAS, U. de Florida)