Yesterday we hiked Goats Peak and checked our bluebird nest box. The trail camera there contained pictures of just one bird, a frustrated Northern Red-shafted Flicker. Maurice crafted the nest box so that the entry hole is just right for bluebirds but too small to allow entry of other cavity nesters, like flickers and starlings.

 I expect that most of the migrating bluebirds have not yet arrived in the area. 

We found a flicker nest hole in a tall pine stump but there was no evidence that it had been used recently.

Forest regeneration is in progress on Goats Peak but it progresses very slowly. The whole northern part of the little mountain was burned in a wild fire that began on July 3, 2009. This picture was taken on August 30, 2009.

Now there are a few pines showing up but they are still very small.

Ponderosas require the heat of a fire to stimulate them to germinate. But is it possible that the tiny seedlings that are thrusting up through the mat of last year's bunchgrass are derived from seeds produced in 2009 or earlier? We found several of these little trees, just one leaf length tall.

These pictures are of another plant that requires fire to germinate and repopulate the burned forest-- Redstem Ceanothus-- a shrub that grows profusely in the burned area. Many of these shrubs appear to be in bloom, yet the normal blooming time is May--according to my observations and the literature references that I found.

The next pictures were taken on Goats Peak in May of 2014 at which time the shrubs were in full leaf. Is it possible that what looked to us like blossoms yesterday are actually dried remnants of blossoms of last year?

 Redstem Ceanothus is a favorite deer food and a maintenance winter food for the local Goats Peak herd of mule deer. We did see several deer yesterday but only at a distance.

As we were leaving the area, some neighbours from Canyon Ridge alerted us to a marmot on the verge of Gellatly Road.

Today, I checked a trail camera that we have monitoring trails used be deer and moose in the upper Glenrosa area. It had been in place for about a month, yet there were only a few pictures on its memory card, several of deer and one of a coyote.