This is the first year that we found a tiger lily on Leaning Oaks--and this is it. One lone stem with a single flower.  Lilium columbianum can have up to 30 flowers per stem. It ranges from B.C. to northern California and is commonly found in damp open woodlands and meadows from sea level to subalpine and  prefers well drained sandy soils. This surprise was under a tangle of ocean spray, Garry Oak and grasses in a rather rocky area. 

The bulb that tiger lilies grow from is a white  fleshy corm that has sections or scales sort of like a garlic bulb. The bulb is edible and was steamed, baked, mashed, boiled, eaten on its own, mashed with salmon roe, put in soups, dried in cakes and then used as seasonings; a lot of ways. I think that this corm is safe here. 

Mostly I was very excited as it meant that there was another easy showy flower to highlight after I thought that we done them all and that there was a few days reprieve from having to ID the six jillion grass species that are out there! 

California Quail (Callipepla californica) are noisy, visible parts of the avifauna of Leaning Oaks.  We have several pairs using the property this breeding season.  Some years they disappear for the winter months, and some years we have large groups visiting the bird feeders throughout the year.  They almost always successfully hatch chicks here, but some years the chicks succumb to wet weather and other years they are preyed on extensively by Cooper's Hawks.

California Quail are introduced species here, brought onto Vancouver Island as a game bird.

Western Ash Borer (Neoclytus conjunctus) is a handsome black and yellow beetle with long back legs that look like they were borrowed from a grasshopper.  It is a member of the Long-horned Beetle family and its larvae burrows into dead and nearly dead wood.  It feeds on Western Ash and Oak, but most commonly on Vancouver Island it uses Arbutus (#30).  It is often seen when arbutus firewood is being cut during the beetles flight season in late spring and early summer.  In flight the black and yellow stripes mimic a wasp, which is a good strategy. Peering at it's face (third photo), one wonders why it would want to mimic a terrier. 

There is a useful Oregon State University  extension note  by  M. Bennet and D. Shaw on diseases and insects found on Arbutus that can be found here.

What lurks beneath the bubbly mass? We had featured the Meadow Spittlebug previously (#117) and I had assumed that was what I was going to find, that common European introduction. Except that if you peer at the bubbles in the photograph to the left you can see that there is a bit of red showing. The keys and information on identification that we could find was mainly for the adults, so even this very spiffy nymph, it was difficult to get further than the genus. However, it was found below Douglas-fir, so based on host preference, it is quite likely to be Aphrophora permutata. They range from the Douglas-fir forests of southern B.C. to California. 
Apparently this genus holds the record for the number of nymphs in one goop of spittle; 100 in a glob 25 cm long! Or so says Andy Hamilton on BugGuide.  

Do check out the Meadow Spittlebug account for the story of the foam.  It really is cool! 

This is the most common and wide spread member of the Family Gnaphosidae. This is the family with the double exhaust pipes out the back, also known as spinnerets. Gnaphosa muscorum is rarely found in the open, but spends the day under logs and beneath the leaf litter, in moss and dirt, coming out at night to hunt. It is Holarctic in distribution, there being different subspecies as you circle the globe. 

Thanks (again!) to Darren and Claudia Copley for help with identification. 

This is a common fly in the early spring, with adults nectaring on a variety of meadow flowers here at Leaning Oaks.  They are round furry-looking flies that are very adept at hovering.  The adults are most  noticeable in March and April.   Bombylius major has an interesting life history;  the larvae are parasitoids on solitary bees, such as the Miner Bees.  Eggs are laid in or near the burrow of the bee and the larvae hatch and actively seek our the bee larvae in the burrow. In parts of Britain this group of flies are known as Beewhals, because of the long, tusk-like proboscis. 

Leah found two of these handsome lady beetles last week by beating the branch of a Douglas-fir.  Branch beating , where you give a branch a sharp rap or three with a stick and have the invertebrates on the branch fall onto a sheet or into a net, is a great way to see things you've completely overlooked.  Including Painted Lady Beetles (Mulsantina picta).  This is an extremely variable species, which ranges in colour from bright red to yellow to  solid brown.  These mottled individuals are particularly handsome.  Regardless of the colour the pattern on the middle section (the pronotal markings) of this  beetle is distinctive.  Yellow marking on the underside are also a good identification mark.
Not much is known about this lady beetle, it is assumed to eat scales and aphids and is found in conifers across North America.  

Now (April to June) is the time to be looking for the large skipper,   Erynnis propertius   nectaring on Garry Oak meadow flowers including camas, vetch and alliums.  Propertius Duskywings are just about exclusively tied to Garry Oak habitats. In B.C. that means that they are found on southern Vancouver Island and a few spots on the mainland. The larvae feed on the Garry Oak leaves and require the leaf litter below the trees to overwinter. Males will hang out on hilltops waiting for females. The dependence on Garry Oak meadow habitats means that this species is on the provincial Blue List (S3) because of a small range through the province and the threats that are associated with that habitat. The can be fairly abundant where found, although we rarely see more than an individual or two at anyone time and we haven't seen them every year. 

I always thought them a bit drab for a special species that we should get excited about - but looking at this glowing individual in the evening light at the top of the hill, I take that thought back. 

The subspecies of Yellow-Marsh Marigold we have at Leaning Oaks is   Caltha palustris var. palustris   and is introduced from Europe.  We orignally planted a single plant of this, along with a white flowered subspecies and a double-flowered form.  This one has naturalized around the edge of the pond and we now have several dozen of them and they put on a good show in the early spring.  In the Britain the plant is known by a myriad of colourful common names including mayflower, May blobs, mollyblobs, pollyblobs, water blobs, horse blobs, water blobs, water bubbles, balfae and "the publican".  Marsh-Marigold comes from the habit of using it to decorate churches at Easter,  where is was "Mary's Gold".  

Chipping Sparrows (Spizella passerina ) are the smallest sparrows that visit Leaning Oaks.  They are uncommon summer visitors here,  and to our knowledge have not bred on our property, although we have seen newly fledged young very close by.  This year provided our earliest spring record, with a pair on the lawn eating dandelion seeds on 23 April.  Our latest record in the year is the 2oth of July, so they don't linger here very long.  I have spent a lot of time listening to  recordings and searching for calling Chipping Sparrows, some of which sound an awful lot like (some) Dark-eyed Juncos.  Despite diligent study, I still make mistakes and feel far more sure of an identification when I see the bird involved.  Small, dapper and pale with a bright rufous cap, they don't look anything like a junco - fortunately.

Aack! Unbelievable! Rant, grumble, curse, stomp, stomp, pull, curse. How can there still be bloom sized broom anywhere on the property, let alone within easy sight of a main trail? When we arrived at Leaning Oaks 17 years ago, we faced a meadow of broom, thick and tall and blooming. What has ensued has been a non-stop (well, except when I did a severe back thing while pulling) commitment to annihilation of Cytisus scoparius.

We have seen tangible results - the meadow wildflowers are much thicker and widespread without the shading and space-sucking broom. It has been SO rewarding to see these increase over the years.

There are reasons that it is so pervasive.  The green, photosynthesizing stems enable the plants to continue happily along despite leaf loss due to drought or herbivory.  Each plant can disperse an average of 18 000 seeds and these seeds can live in the ground for up to  30 years after being spectacularly catapulted up to five metres away from the plant. I have seen figures like 42,000 seeds and 60 years, but there is a tendency for hyperbole when it comes to Scotch broom. 

Captain Walter Grant, a "homesick Scot" that lived in Sooke seems to get most of the blame for the introduction of this plant in 1851 from seeds that he picked up on the Sandwich Islands. It was the next owner of the property in 1853, Anne Muir, that apparently insisted that the three plants that had sprouted be kept as they reminded her of her home in Scotland. This plant that is now is found on much of the island and mainland to the Kootenays and south to California had multiple introductions. John Murray writes that when he arrived in Fort Victoria in 1849, there was at the base of Beacon Hill a "here and there growing luxuriantly, a bunch of broom".  This introduction is attributed to Governor James Douglas and some seeds that he had picked up in Oregon.  It is also thought that seeds arrived via the rocks and dirt that were used as ballast in ships.  The ships would dump this load willy nilly and was a source of many plant introductions here and particularly on the east coast. The late 1800's were a great time for an invader that loved disturbed soil and freshly logged patches - this was happening all around southern Vancouver Island!

Scotch broom was planted extensively along road ways, banks and below power lines for stabilization; it was perfect as it grows very quickly and is drought tolerant, spreads (duh) and the long roots do a great job of holding the soil.

For a fabulous read on the human history of broom and the myriad of ways that broom, and other European seeds were easily available and the people behind the broom,  "Glistening Patches of Gold" by Troy Lee.  I could go on and on with the tidbits that I learned from this essay.