April: "At This Time"

April is emergence.

Leaf buds push fresh green leaves to open in the spring sun.

The four sisters drape and await a slow adage.

In the darker forest a Trillium shows full bloom,

 and in the Gary Oak meadows the Camas flowers spread in blue carpets of colour.

The Coast Salish people harvested the edible bulbs of Camas but were careful to avoid Death Camas, the cream coloured flower in front. Easy to tell the difference now, but when the bulbs were harvested after the flowers were gone.

It is surprising to find some flowers have already gone to seed.

New pine needles erupt from their sheaths

In East Sooke the light is soft and the quiet evening air carries a loon's wail.

The warblers are arriving. An olive-green warbler gleans the shrubs for insects.

Often, the first warbler of spring, the Orange-crowned Warbler is notable for its lack of obvious field marks.

Another watcher enjoys the birds ...

The fertile stems of the Common Horsetail (Equisetum) are seen only in early spring. The spores producing bodies are in the cone-like tip.

A Sunday morning walk from Oak Bay down Rockland Avenue to Cook Street passes gardens in bloom.

At Clover Point the tide is out and the crows are turning rocks to find a snack beneath.

Resting Dunlin are reluctant to fly as they save their energy for the long flight to the breeding grounds

Social flocks of Black Oystercatchers peep together along the reef

and a River Otter grooms and stretches in the sun.

November: "At This Time"

November brings cool wet days. On Mount Wells, the mist rises up and wraps the firs in wet gray cloaks.

 

The lichens that drape the Garry Oak have lost their dry brittle look and are flourishing in the moist fall air.

Along the Chain Islands migrating shorebirds dot the reefs. 
Hundreds of Dunlins accompanied by Black Turnstones, Surfbirds, and Black-bellied Plovers perch shoulder to shoulder on the rocks. Three species of cormorants, Double-crested, Brant's, and Pelagic, stand like dark sentinels among flock.

Three Short-billed Dowitchers remained for a week in Oak Bay before continuing on to their wintering grounds in Mexico.

The last scarlet leaves of the Choke Cherry are brilliant against the forests of Matheson Lake.

Hooded Mergansers and other ducks are returning from their breeding grounds to winter along the coast of Vancouver Island.

Harlequin Ducks gather along the rocky shoreline where they dive for snails, limpets and chitons.

 

 

The Red-breasted Nuthatch, the Winter Wren and the Song Sparrow are our winter companions in the Gary Oak meadows of Victoria.  

 

The tidal rush is strong past Beechy Head creating eddies and backwaters that shelter and feed the fish, the birds, sea lions, seals and orcas.

In the Sooke Hills, the forest is now wet, wet, wet. Mary Vine Creek is high and fast as water rushes over the rocks.

The Bird's Nest fungus waits for the rains of fall to release its spores. The eggs within the nest are spore packets waiting for a raindrop to splash them out.