Flickering between summer and autumn

- 5 mins read

These short spaces between seasons – like the edges of watercolour paint bleeding into one another – increasingly catch my attention and imagination. Summer, fall, winter, spring: we hold these words so close, templates we can stamp over periods of time. But like everything in the real world, there is no clear border between anything. Perhaps the idea of (and desire for) borders is one of the defining ideas of our primate brains?

As you’ve noticed, without my gulls to check-up on my posting here is becoming more sporadic. So… let’s catch up.

Ring-billed Gull

Ring-billed Gull

Ring-billed Gull

The sky was overcast and the sun briefly broke through, dyed tangerine-pink by the haze of forest-fire smoke hanging in air. There wasn’t much light for my photon-hungry lens, but I got one of my favourite photos in recent memory. While you can find Ring-billed Gulls (Larus delawarensis) in the lower mainland year-round, there is a significant influx of these birds during the fall and early winter. The adults are easily identifiable by their ringed bill, yellow legs, and pale eye.

Coyote

Coyote

Coyote

A few weekends ago, we spotted this beautiful coyote (Canis latrans) combing the beach for leftover food from the slovenly primates that frequent it. It was clearly habituated to humans, as the morning was well underway with quite a few people (and dogs) about – most likely a sign this coyote was very hungry and willing to take the risk.

Coyote

Coyote

While it was scouring the sand for food, this coyote was cautious and kept an eye on me.

Lincoln’s Sparrow

Lincoln's Sparrow

Lincoln's Sparrow

A brief appearance by one of my favourite sparrows. In the autumn, Lincoln’s Sparrows (Melospiza lincolnii) pass through on their migration south from their northern breeding grounds. These birds tend to be shy, hiding out in dense shrubs, and I encourage you to savour any chance you get to see one. We catch quite a number of them at the banding station, so I have the privilege of seeing them very close up.

Western Flycatcher

Western Flycatcher

Western Flycatcher

A Western Flycatcher (Empidonax difficilis), until recently known as a Pacific Slope Flycatcher. It was (re-)lumped together with the Cordilleran Flycatcher last year. This bird is hanging around later than most, and will be leaving soon to their wintering grounds in western and central Mexico.

Caspian Tern

Caspian Tern

Caspian Tern

A not so great photograph of a favourite bird of mine. I usually spot a handful of Caspian Terns (Hydroprogne caspia) along Burrard Inlet every year, and hearing their distinctive calls brings me an unreasonable amount of joy. From a distance they can be confused with gulls, but their flight style is noticeably different. If you have the luck to watch one for long enough, you might just get a chance to see it plunge-dive after fish.

Olympic Gull

Olympic Gull

Olympic Gull

Although the breeding season is over, I’m still obsessed with the gulls and reporting all the banded gulls I see. I’ve seen and reported this individual before from more or less the same location. With the the autumn starting, you’ll notice the Glaucous-winged/Olympic Gulls (Larus glaucescens, Larus glaucescens × occidentalis) getting their dingy grey-brown hoods, which you can see this bird moulting into.

Common Blue Mud-dauber Wasp

Common Blue Mud-dauber Wasp

Common Blue Mud-dauber Wasp

While out searching for insects a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this gorgeous Common Blue Mud-dauber Wasp (Chalybion californicum). Like many solitary wasps, these are parasitoids that hunt spiders, which they paralyze and cache with their eggs.

I recently read Wasps: The Astonishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect by Eric R. Eaton and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about these fascinating, ancient (they’ve been around since the Jurassic ~200 Mya), and beautiful insects that play vital ecological roles.

Dragonfly with slug (and fly)

Dragonfly with slug (and fly)

Dragonfly with slug (and fly)

An early morning find – a deceased dragonfly, possibly a female Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis) being inspected (eaten?) by a small slug. The slug is perhaps a young Pacific Banana Slug (Ariolimax columbianus)? And if you look closely at the base of the dragonfly’s wings, you’ll see a tiny fly that I’m not even going to attempt to identify.

Hortiboletus sp.

Hortiboletus sp.

Hortiboletus sp.

Now that summer is over, instead of looking up at rooftops for the flap of fledgling wings, I’m gazing down into the horrible landscaping of apartment buildings and the lawns of the death cult in search of fungi.

Here’s a patch of a species of Hortiboletus I found growing right off the sidewalk here in East Vancouver.

If you thought gulls were confusing to identify… mushrooms will crush you. You’ll learn to be ecstatic if you can ID to genus level. But don’t let that stop you from looking! As with birding or any other exploration of the real world, simply paying attention is what matters: noticing behaviours and relationships is so much more important than the fixation on labelling everything you spot. You’ll learn in due time from experience and curiosity, not from memorizing a book or key.

Hortiboletus sp.

Hortiboletus sp.

… with my hand for scale.

Bolete sp.

Bolete sp.

Bolete sp.

Another mushroom I found that’s in the Bolete order. The give-away is the sponge-like surface on the underside of the cap that has pores instead of the usual gills you’d expect to see.

Banded Canada Goose

Banded Canada Goose

Banded Canada Goose

Finally, here’s a blurry, in-your-face photo of a banded Canada Goose I met on my walk to work last week. I’ve met a few other banded geese along the False Creek seawall in the past, but this was my first meeting with C2V.

Keep an eye open when you’re out anywhere there are Canada Geese and scan the group – with some luck you might find a banded bird. If you do, you can report it to Reportband.gov.

Until next time…