Adult northern pygmy owls are only 15-17 cm tall and have brown or greyish-brown colorings. They usually have a spotted head and yellowish eyes. They perch near the top of coniferous trees, but are hard to spot because of their color and size. They nest in tree cavities or old woodpecker holes, mostly in douglas fir in our area. As …Continue reading…
Late in the summer we can spot various varieties of coral fungus in the forest. There are many types of similar-looking species, but they are generally referred to as coral or club fungus. The yellow clump is part of the clavaria or ramaria genera, but there are also white, purple, and brown relatives. They all grow in older forests in …Continue reading…
Red paintbrush is common province-wide, then we also find alpine paintbrush at higher elevations. Both are red-scarlet, showy, and easily identifiable. Our area also has a yellowish paintbrush, found in the grasslands and open forests. Some plants even have a faded yellow to white color or a greenish hue. All paintbrush is semi-parasitic, feeding off the roots of other plants. …Continue reading…
p style=”text-align: left;”>This lovely flower is used in Earl Gray tea for its pleasant odor and taste. It is a part of the mint family. We can find it at mid-elevations in the grasslands and forest clearings. The purple-mauve flowers are pollinated by butterfiles in the early summer. It is a perennial that grows 30-70m tall, with single flowers on …Continue reading…
Sagebrush buttercup is the first wildflower to appear in the spring. It will even poke up through the last snows. Within a week to 10 days, yellow bells start to appear. They have drooping yellow bell that turn orange with age. They are perennials that grows from small scaly bulbs. Fritillaria pudica bulbs were prized by First Nations people as …Continue reading…
A tuya is a volcano that erupts under glacial ice. As the lava erupts it cools quickly. If the volcano breaks through the ice, a cap of pillow lava forms on the top. The shape left when the ice sheets recede is a steep sided, flat-topped hill (or mountain). There are 6 of these in Wells Gray and they are …Continue reading…
My first experience with devil’s club was as a teenager hiking in the mountains. I saw a glossy green leaf and instinctively reached for the stem to run the leaf over my hand, but quickly pulled my hand away. Devil’s Club is covered in spines, on both the leaves and the stems. It has large green, shiny leaves and stands …Continue reading…
Aspens populate the edges of our grasslands and occupy open spaces in the upper forests. With white smooth white-grey bark, these deciduous trees are easy to identify, often called trembling or quaking aspens. A lesser known fact is that aspen groves are all connected by a common root system and trees of the grouping are clones of one another. The …Continue reading…
Pickleweed (salicornia) is a succulent that grows on the fringes of salt-marshes and alkali ponds in our area. It is an annual of the saltwort family that grows up around the edges of ponds in the summer, then turns red in the fall. The plant is edible and was used by Aboriginal people as a food source. It is also …Continue reading…
While exploring a hill between Stake Lake and McConnell Lake in June, I came across a hillside of false morels. They are fairly easy to identify. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Mushroom hunters have sometimes mistakenly collected false morels, but unfortunately, they are poisonous. The active ingredient is monmethylhydrazine, and reactions vary from no visible effect to death, but some research also …Continue reading…
On a summer day, I decided to go to the top of Mt. Fleet (article link). It was not a very good hike, but I enjoyed the view anyway. On the way back down, I carefully worked by way down some small cliffs to a cut block. At the edge of the area, out in an open spot, was a …Continue reading…
Down in the Inner Canyon above the Colorado River, desert prickly pear is one of the dominant plants. In April, most of the clusters were in bloom. <a href=”https://kamloopstrails.net/asides/desert-prickly-pear/zion-et-al-087/” rel=”attachment wp-att-5833″><img class=”aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5833″ src=”https://kamloopstrails.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/zion-et-al-087-320×253.jpg” alt=”zion et al 087″ width=”320″ height=”253″ /></a> In the Kamloops area, the prickly pears are lower and smaller and the flowers are a pale yellow. …Continue reading…
While out hiking on the snow on Sunrise Mountain with a friend who is a biologist, he pointed out some specks on the snow and labelled them snow scorpionflies. This piqued my interest. It turns out that they are small dark glossy insects with long snouts. They mostly live in mosses, but come out for hops on the snow when …Continue reading…
While paddling the shoreline of Neskonlith Lake on a hot sunny day, western painted turtles sunned themselves on logs surrounded by water. Over an 11km paddle, about 20 turtles were spotted. Most plunged into the lake as I approached but if I came in drifting, they strained their yellow striped necks out listening for predators, but stayed on …Continue reading…
Late in summer, Inky Gentians emerge high in the alpine areas. The dark blue reminds me of the poem by DH Lawrence: "Not every man has gentians in his house in Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas. Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark darkening the daytime torchlike with the smoking blueness of Pluto’s gloom, ribbed and torchlike, with their …Continue reading…
p>Painted Bluffs Provincial Park has multi-colored bluffs eroded into sinuous shapes. No plant life lives on the mercury (cinnabar)-copper ridges, but there are a few rocky-gravelly (moraine) ridges too. A bit of grass and sagebrush can be found on these, but we were also pleased to see a few Blazing Stars in flower too. Blazing Stars (mentzelia laevicaulis) is a …Continue reading…