Time flies! It seems like March is almost gone, and I have barely been out to enjoy the spring weather! Well, yesterday afternoon, I took advantage of a sunny spell to get out to Uplands park to see what I could see. And here is what I encountered!
Time flies! It seems like March is almost gone, and I have barely been out to enjoy the spring weather! Well, yesterday afternoon, I took advantage of a sunny spell to get out to Uplands park to see what I could see. And here is what I encountered!
For the past week, we have been taking care of a golden retreiver, Jackson, who was Maggie’s best friend. Today I took him out to Cattle Point to enjoy the stormy weather. I think Maggie would have approved, although she probably would have swum out in the rough sea (you could not keep her out!).
Wow! Are those rays of glory coming out of my browser window? Yes! Yes they are! It all happened when I loaded up my latest article on Red-throated Caracara biology! It was published in the March edition of the Bulletin of the Entomological Society of Canada, and gives an exciting entomological overview of my research with these loud and amazing birds. So head on over and check it out, and while you are there, check out the rest of the awesome entomological content as well.
The Northern Alligator Lizard (Elgaria coerulea) is one of the coolest vertebrates found In southern Vancouver Island. they are native to the Puget Lowlands south to northern California, and Garry Oak Meadow habitat, such as that found at Mt. Tolmie Park is a good place to see them. I rarely encounter them out and about, but often see them under rocks in sunstruck areas.
These lizards are members of the family Anguidae, so their relatives include such odd lizards as the Glass Lizards. Alligator Lizards give birth to live young, and are quite easy to keep in captivity (as I found out when I was a kid). They make a great display animal for nature houses in parks, as folks are often amazed that we have a native lizard on Vancouver Island at all. Showing them one of these cool lizards might just help to inspire a conservation mindset in visitors to these threatened habitats.
BTW, this lizard is probably the same individual I found last year, albeit with slightly less tail.
It is a popular pastime among us West Coasters to point out our gorgeous spring weather to those of you who are freezing back East. I think that’s just cruel. Nonetheless, I can’t help but notice it is minus three in Toronto, snowing in Alberta and freezing in New Brunswick….Here in Victoria, the snakes are out, the flowers are blooming and we are expecting our first Rufous Hummingbirds any day now!
Here are a few shots from the past couple days in sunny Victoria!
On Friday, on our way to the airport and a meeting with a gorgeous hummingbird, my brother and I stopped quickly at Island View Beach to see what we could see. What we found was a huge number of the Western Thatching Ant, Formica obscuripes (thanks to Alex Wild for the ID!) emerging from their mound, engaged in foraging and perhaps a little spring cleaning. This colony was out in full force, quite different from later in the season when the workers are travelling far and fast on foraging trips. All these workers out on top of the mound were truly an impressive sight.
Yesterday my brother and I got up to the airport to see if we could shoot some planes with his new (to him) 300 mm f4. We ended up photographing a much smaller bird: an Anna’s Hummingbird male! This little guy was pretty cooperative, as he was just perched on his favourite territorial lookout, so we had some good opportunity to mess around. Almost all these shots were taken in the shade of a cedar, so the light was not too dramatic, but nonetheless it was fun!
Yesterday’s great post by Chris Buddle over at Expiscor highlighted the importance of natural history and the people who practice it. I have generally considered myself a naturalist, but the last few weeks have not been very active for me, as I have been engaged in a lot of writing. Luckily, I scheduled a few hours yesterday morning to go out to Ogden Point and Beacon Hill Park to do some nature photography and keep my naturalist cred!
This weekend Catherine and I finally got out for an outing in the woods. Her knee is still bad, so it had to be somewhere with not much hiking involved, so we chose to go to French Beach. This park out past Sooke is getting out farther into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and thus has a bit more of the character of a wild west coast beach than those closer to Victoria. Unfortunately for us, the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and the temperature was much chillier than the previous day. We did manage a bit of arthropod hunting, and had lunch before a spat of freezing rain sent us back to Victoria.
In Victoria, the weather has been getting a bit nicer recently, with a few sunny days in a row. I have not been taking much advantage of the fine weather, but I did get out yesterday in the backyard to shoot a little running crab spider we found at a gas station.
During the shoot, Catherine and I saw a female Culiseta incidens mosquito, which is not an unusual species to find this time of year. These mosquitoes spend the winter in protected locations such as caverns, basements and hollow trees, where they live off their fat reserves in a state similar to hibernation. This state, in insects, is known as diapause, specifically reproductive diapause. This diapause state is induced by a certain reduced light cycle during the sensitive stage, which for many mosquitoes is the final larval instar and the pupa. In Culiseta, as in Culex,reproductive diapause is characterized by hypertrophy of the fat body (the bugs pork up on sugar), seeking dark places (for overwintering), and aversion to bloodfeeding (they don’t take bloodmeals). This environmentally-induced and hormonally-maintained state only lasts part of the overwintering period, and for many of our northern Culex, Culiseta and Anopheles only lasts until mid December.
This means that anytime springlike conditions come about, such as this late-February fine day, the females can come out of their overwintering site and take a blood meal. This female came out and did so on me, and if things go right for her, she can use the protein from my blood to nourish her first clutch of eggs, which she will lay in an egg raft.
These overwintered females are the first active bloodfeeding mosquitoes out there, so have a look for them when springlike conditions prevail. Enjoy some special time with one or two of them sucking your blood, as the next species to emerge will be the far more numerous and ferocious Aedes and Ochlerotatus which overwintered as eggs.