On a Lifelong Journey to Learn my Place
Plants
After a quick walk around Totem Park this morning to check on shorebird activity (it was pretty quiet), I spent most of this sunny (but not quite as warm as the past couple days) day wandering around in muskegs with Kitty checking out sphagnum mosses. Kitty is heading south for a workshop, so I took … Read more
More Photos to come – still processing It seems like it’s getting into the peak time for shorebird migration, but things are still seeming a little slow. It’s possible that a lot of birds can and will still show up, but I wonder if the lack of inclement weather recently has allowed birds to push … Read more
Red Huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium) stems are typically green, however if a plant is growing in a place with lots of sun exposure, some stems (especially the outer ones) will get a fair amount of red in them. My understanding is the red comes from anthocyanins that help protect the plant from sunlight in excess of … Read more
This week the daylight seems to have caught me by surprise. I guess it’s already a month past equinox, but for some reason I hadn’t adjusted to the reality of the sun setting after 8pm. I’ve been following my patterns without thinking about it much, but since they’re a bit keyed to the amount of … Read more
A few days ago I was walking through the park and happened to notice this yellow cedar sapling. I do not know of any (other) cedars growing within the park boundary, though there could be one or more mixed in the forest at the upper end. I don’t know how fast they grow, but I’m … Read more
I took a walk around Totem Park this morning to check on flowers and shorebirds. New for the season was Fern-leaf Goldthread (Coptis asplenifolia) blooming in the spot where they grow behind the maintenance area. It had been a few days since I last checked there, so they probably came up a couple of days … Read more