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.

July: "At this Time"

At this time the high meadows are hot and dry. The sienna-red bark is curling off the lime-green trunks of the arbutus (Arbutus menziesii).

The forest is mostly silent now, the songbirds now busy feeding and fledging their young. Calls now, the Pacific-slope Flycatcher, Winter Wren, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Chestnut-backed Chicadee, and the alarm of Robins.

The spring flowers are gone. Among the dry arbutus leaves push ghostly white Indian-Pipe (Monotropa uniflora).

Huckleberries (Vaccinium parvifolium) begin to show and ripen in the heat.

Rein Orchids stand as pillars on the forest floor.

Among the scales of the Douglas-fir cones, tiny mice hide their heads.

In the heat I retreat by kayak to the small coastal reef island with golden patches of drying grass.

Ladies' Tresses (Spiranthes romanzoffiana) hide amid the the broom

and roses (Rosa nutkana) offer their hips to the summer sun.

Listen on small rocky islets for the greeting cries of Black Oystercatchers and Killdeer. In the distance I hear the Tu-tu-tu of passing greater Yellowlegs.

Pigeon Gillemots nest among the drift logs and rock crevasses. They "fly" to the ocean bottom to capture slender gunnels to feed their young.