The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
June 9, 2014
Salish Sea
Pacific Northwest
My latest walk out in the Iceberg Point seaside meadow community was even more fun than usual - accompanied by fellow kossacks AZ Sphinx Moth and Bisbonian, here on the island for a few days break from the heat of the Southwest. They saw and heard things I hadn't been paying attention to, and it was just a delight to share my beautiful backyard with folks who love nature as much as I do.
What's AZSM looking at while B and Mr O are in deep discussion down at the end of the Point? Follow me below the clump of parched wild onion foliage for currently blooming flowers...
(All photos by me. In Lightbox...click to enlarge)
I've been observing and documenting the phenology here to help discover how global climate change may affect my local natural communities.
Today, on emerging from the woods out into the meadow, we saw bright purple Self-Heal (Prunella vulgaris) nestled in the damp green grass. As you might gather, Self-Heal has been used for centuries by indigenous people in North America, Asia and Europe for its medicinal properties. Modern scientific research confirms its anti-bacterial and anti-viral efficacy (one of the studies here). This low-growing member of the mint family prefers damp soil, and we only saw it in the greeny area next to the woods.
The lush damp area is attractive to caterpillars, like this one on a plantain leaf. Anyone know who this is?
Purple flowers were common today. Patches of Hooker's Onion (Allium acuminatum) were abundant. Earlier in the season, we saw - and smelled - coils of their thread-like leaves; now the leaves are spent and the flowers are blooming.
Another purple onion in bloom: Nodding Onion (Allium cernum). According to Pojar and MacKinnon, Northwest Coast Indians,
including the Cowichan, Sechelt, Squamish, Comox, Nuxalk, Tsimshian, Makah and Kwakwak'wakw, marked the plants in spring and came back in August to dig the bulbs. They were steamed in pits lined with pine boughs and covered with lichens and alder boughs. The Mainland Comox cooked them with seals and ducks to take away the "fishy" flavour. Once properly cooked, the onions lose their strong odour and flavour and become very sweet. - p. 106
Death Camas, a related lily, is just finishing its bloom. We did not see any more blooming Common or Giant Camas.
Also in the Lily family, White Brodiaea or Fool's Onion (Triteleia hyacinthina) has the same growth form, but is not oniony. Its other common name comes from what it was called earlier, Brodiaea hyacinthina. Taxonomy evolves :)
Harvest Brodiaea (Brodiaea coronaria) provided yet another shade of purple in the meadow
as did the much less common Northern Gentian (Gentianella amarella).
All these flowers are newly blooming since May. Oregon Sunshine (Eriophyllum lanatum) had just come into bloom then, and is still going strong now.
Of course I had to take my kossack visitors from the desert over to the hillside of Fragile Prickly Pear (Opuntia fragilis). Their keener eyes saw the first blooms, which are as big as the plant!
Another new yellow flower was the local type of Chick Lupine (Lupinus microcarpus). I had a hard time identifying this one because in most places, Chick Lupine is purple. I went to the Burke Museum Herbarium site and found that in this part of the coastal Pacific Northwest, it is indeed creamy yellow.
Flowering season is ending, and there are many pods now full of seeds. These short lupines form a mat below stalks of spent Sea Thrift (Armeria maritima), which was in full pink bloom in April and May.
The meadow is drying up now, as much golden as green. Succulent Seaside Plantain (Plantago maritima ssp. juncoides) will stay juicy longer than the upland plants, anchored in rocks down by the water. It thrives in salty sea spray.
We heard birdsong in the the grassy contours of the meadow. AZ Sphinx Moth drew our attention to the agitated calling of a White-crowned Sparrow, whose nest we must have come too close to. We took another route.
Another singer in the grass emerged a couple of times, long enough to see. This is a Savannah Sparrow, a summer migrant. I haven't noticed this sweet bird before. Now I'm paying attention, I've seen it elsewhere, like on the beach yesterday. Cornell says:
During the breeding season, Savannah Sparrows eat nutritionally rich insects and spiders. They stalk through grassy areas or along beaches in search of beetles, grasshoppers, and other bugs, as well as spiders, millipedes, and pillbugs, snapping them up in their bill and swallowing them whole. When white frothy spittle masses appear on goldenrod plants, Savannah Sparrows hop up on the plant and devour the spittlebug nymphs inside the foam...Raising young is hard work: a female Savannah Sparrow must gather 10 times her weight in food to feed herself and her young during the 8 days they are in the nest.
The meadow plants are beginning to shift into summer drought mode. Here Trailing Blackberry, or Dewberry (Rubus ursinus), more typically found in the woods, is aggressively sending out vines searching for damper soil. There is some still trapped in the hollow to the left.
The purple Onion and Brodiaea are bright and lush in the still vernally damp spots,
but beginning to wither on the dry rocky slopes.
We'll revisit this meadow again in high summer.
Note: All these wildflowers are native plants.
Earlier phenology reports from Iceberg Point:
- early March
- late April
~
New blooming wildflowers in your neck of the woods? Other signs of changing seasons? What's up in nature in your backyard?
"Spotlight on Green News & Views" will be posted every Saturday and Wednesday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.