WTD#26 - Catching Up to Summer

Well, so much for July.  It's been a hot one and I can hardly remember June, let alone May or April.  I know it was wet for a while and the rivers came up, and then it was dry and they went back down.  Anyhow, whatever the weather was like, we did manage to get out and about, and later even did a bit of hiking in the high country.

The trilliums were in bloom this spring, as they are every spring.  This shot was taken in the Forty-nine Creek area.

This is a northern crescent butterfly, perched on a daisy along the Slocan rail trail.

In the lower elevations the saskatoons started ripening in late June,

followed by thimbleberries in July.

We caught this little house wren flitting about on some fallen trees in the Coolie Lake area.  It finally stayed put long enough for me to focus after I'd shot what would have been a roll of film in the pre-digital days.

We stopped to take in the view of the Slocan and Kootenay valleys from the hang-glider launch site on the Coolie Lake road, with a lovely meadow of yarrow and harebell in the foreground.

I believe this is a (pretty fresh) wolf track in the soft mud on a trail in the Hall Creek area.  The dawg became very interested in the smells along the trail, and I was looking over my shoulder a lot more than usual after seeing this.

Lady fern, also in the Hall Creek area.

Devil's club berries - same area.  Not edible, according to the book, but the plant in general was and still is used medicinally by interior first nations people.  It is a member of the ginseng family.

An unusually dense cluster of beargrass flower heads along the trail to Grassy Mountain.

A Columbia spotted frog tried to blend in with the mud at the bottom of this little pond, also on the Grassy Mountain trail.

Yellow columbine was growing in several sites along the Grassy trail.  This is red columbine which we found only in one small area.

This is one of the "blues" - several species of small butterflies that are almost identical looking.

An accumulation of red twinberry (aka Utah honeysuckle) blossoms in a little streamlet on the way to Grassy Mountain.

Bug on a mountain ash flower cluster.

Black gooseberry was also in flower on Grassy Mt.

As was the western anenome or pasqueflower,

and the western spring beauty.

This is the southwest side of Grassy Mountain.  The summit is the peak in the distance.  It's a nice early summer hike - took us about 5 hours round-trip from the trailhead.

(Including breaks)

WTD#25 - Back-blogged again!

Wow - my last post was in February, and here it is almost August!  Where did the time go?  I guess it's been a busy spring/summer.  Still, the pup has been taking me out into our usual haunts and the jpegs have been piling up on the hard drive, so here we go with a bit of catch-up.

Seems like only yesterday that the dawg was enjoying a cavort in the snow on the rail trail.

And this coyote was hunting mice in a field in Krestova (Dawg was in the car so no chase/confrontation)

Once the snow was gone, the red ants began marshaling on the tops of their anthills.  For some reason there are a lot of them down in the Kootenay Canal area.

This is an American pipit we spotted along the Kootenay River near Selkirk College.  They are local migrants at this elevation in the spring, and will breed at higher elevations or further north.

The ponderosa pines were also blooming along the trail.

Before long the spring flowers began opening everywhere. like this twinflower.

And this cinquefoil.

The bees emerged and started foraging for nectar, like this bumblebee on a spreading dogbane bloom.  I thought I might start documenting our local wild bees until I learned that there are around 400 species in BC alone! So I think it's a project for another lifetime.

We spotted this heron hunting among the cattails on the edge of a beaver pond near the Kootenay Canal.

Thimbleberry flowers attract all kinds of bugs

And the minute you turn your back it seems they are at it.  It's no wonder there are so many of them!

I spotted this pretty moth (as yet unidentified) on a grand fir twig.

Walking up in the Rover Creek area we got a nice view of the Valhallas.  This might be Gimli in the foreground but I'm not certain.

I was becoming engrossed with the reflections in the puddles,

only to look up and see this big fellow on the edge of the road.  Dawg foolishly gave chase, and the bear luckily ran away, giving the dawg an ego boost (and setting an unfortunate precedent).

Meanwhile, back along the Columbia River, the camas was in bloom once more.

So there we are - a quick journey through a season.  What do you think, pup?

"Time for a break."