It is very exciting to hear the first rustle of the leaves and dry grasses in the spring as the snakes emerge and the little ones head out to explore the world. The gartersnake that we see most frequently at Leaning Oaks is the northwestern or Thamnophis ordinoides. They are very variable in colour from the ones seen above to a drab plain brown. They feed on slugs and earthworms -a happy thing for the garden! The females can be nearly a meter in total length. The small, blunt nosed head that is not very distinct from the rest of the body help to distinguish this species from the other two gartersnakes that are found on Vancouver Island- and B.C.. They are also the most terrestrial of the three species.
We had an amazing experience one afternoon as we watched a Great Horned Owl slowly, slowly stalk an adult northwestern garternake, grab it and then start at the head and feed it slowly lengthwise down it's bill - all while the owl stood on a bench below our vantage point from an upper window.
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House Wrens (Troglodytes aedon) are spring and summer birds for us at Leaning Oaks. Our earliest record is from the first week of April and the latest is the third week of August. We have records from almost every year we have been on the property, however some years it is just a bird or two briefly stopping in during spring migration. Some years however, we have birds that breed on the property, using one of our nest boxes. They aren't easily overlooked early in the breeding season as they are very vocal with wheezy, chattering, complicated songs that are produced many, many times a day. They are not only industrious singers but ambitious nest constructors as well, with many long sticks and pieces of grass stuffed into the nest boxes, nearly filling them. I found this elongated spotted beetle crawling deep through the moss in the middle of April, so probably one of the earlier ones. We found a key online, http://www.discoverlife.org/20/q?guide=Ladybug that was pretty easy to use and (hopefully) accurate. Lady beetles have a larval stage where they look like a teeny tiny spiky alligators. Both the adults and the larvae are voracious feeders --particularly on aphids. The scientific name of the 13 spot is a mouthful, Hippodamia tredecimpunctata. A little way from the meadow, in dappled shade and often near the base of a Douglas-fir, Trientalis borealis ssp. latifolia sports a starry flower on a oh so slender stalk--the flower appearing to float above the broad leaves. Indian Potato, another English name refers to the small, elongate pink tubers that were gathered for food by the First Nations. They are apparently a good source of starch. I am going to have to remember to go out and photograph the seed capsule - the description is that it looks like a little tiny soccer ball. Barred Owls (Strix varia) are new arrivals to Vancouver Island, with the first record on the island in 1969. Since then it has become a common owl, in a wide variety of habitats. Barred Owl increases seem to be correlated with the decline in Western Screech-Owls, which have gone from being the most abundant raptor on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, to one of the rarest.
As I write it is just starting to get dark, and I can hear alarm calls from American Robins, Black-headed Grosbeaks, Spotted Towhees and Dark-eyed Juncos - the Barred Owl we photographed for this blog two nights ago is likely back in the yard. This is by far the most common butterfly seen on Leaning Oaks early in the spring. It has two generations per year, the first being the most abundant. Celastrina echo can be seen nectaring on most of the meadow spring flowers, and often perches on grasses. It is found through the southern fifth of B.C. so it is likely that it is quite cosmopolitan in it's choice of food plants.
Orange Honeysuckle (Lonicera ciliosa) is one of two species of Lonicera that we have at Leaning Oaks. It is the earlier blooming of the two. Unlike moth pollinated honeysuckles, our native honeysuckle vines are pollinated by hummingbirds, and their showy flowers and large nectaries (but no perfume) are typical of hummingbird pollinated flowers. It is one of the few native vines in our area, and can climb up into the canopy of small trees. Here they grow up Garry Oaks and small Douglas-fir trees. One of the emblematic wildflowers in the Garry Oak meadow is Camassia quamash. The blue swaths begin sometime near the end of April and are usually finished by the May long weekend. The bulbs were a very important traditional food . Carbohydrates were in short supply and the bulbs were a coveted source. Fields of camas were passed on between families, the death camas "weeded" out and the ground cleared of rocks, sticks and other debris to provide the best growing conditions. The bulbs have to be cooked for long periods of time to break down the long chained inulin into something that can be digested.
It is interesting that this quote from Lewis (of Lewis and Clarke) was mid June; long after our camas have dropped all of their "blumes".
For us, American Goldfinch is a bird of spring and summer. Our first birds of the year usually arrive in the third week of April and are gone by the end of September. This is in spite of the fact that small numbers winter on Vancouver Island and the Leaning Oaks avian welfare system ensures a year round supply of sunflower seeds. They are among the dozen or so species that like to bath in the gravel filtration beds that we have set up to remove nutrients from the pond and keep the water clear and free of algae. I have this image of a game of Russian Roulette where there are people out harvesting the rich bulbs of the edible blue camas and never quite knowing when they may accidentally dig up the the similar Toxicoscordion venenosum bulb that grows in the same locations, but contains the alkaloid zygacine. To avoid this, local indigenous people would remove the plants from a local harvest area when they were in bloom and more recognizable. This would make harvesting less risky! The leaves are also poisonous and have been deadly to grazing cattle in the spring where the death-camas is out before other forage is available. We have a few locations where the creamy death-camas is a lovely counterpoint to the abundant blue camas; generally in slightly moister areas. |
AuthorsTwo biologists on a beautiful property armed with cameras, smart phones and a marginal knowledge of websites took up the challenge of documenting one species a day on that property. Join along! Posts and photographs by Leah Ramsay and David Fraser (unless otherwise stated); started January 1, 2014. Categories
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