Yesterday afternoon, Herb and I visited the trail cameras that I have in the upper Powers Creek area. There were quite a number of photos of animals stored on the memory cards, including some of deer, bear and coyotes. This picture shows Herb scanning the opposite hillsides with his binoculars, areas where one sometimes sees feeding bears and in a couple of instances, I have seen mountain goats.

This mule deer buck is growing a nice set of antlers. They will be fully grown by the end of August, after which he will remove the velvety covering by working his antlers against bushes and small trees.

A reddish brown or strawberry blond black bear. He has left the trail and is walking directly toward the camera, probably to investigate lingering odours left by our last visit.

This coyote shows all of the typical coyote markings, the reddish brown backs of his ears, the white shield over his back and the black spot on his tail.

Huckleberries are now ripe. We don't have many in our relatively dry area. We used to make trips to the Revelstoke area for good huckleberry picking.

In a patch of damp forest  we also found ripe black twinberries. They are suspected as being poisonous, but their bad taste should dissuade any but a starving person. I know from personal experience!

Monkshood, a plant that can grow to about 2 metres in height, is another plant that we found in wet patches of forest. This plant has a well established reputation as deadly poisonous. The Genus name, Aconitum, is derived from a Greek word meaning "without a struggle".

Monkshood blossoms are usually blue but I have pictures from this area taken two years ago of pink-tinged-white and blue and white blossoms. See the picture to the right.

Yesterday, we did see blue and white blossoms on a couple of monkshood plants but they had been beaten up pretty badly by recent rains.

Pipsissewa is a beautiful little plant that we also found in flower in the forest. Herb speculated that it could find a place as a house plant, however, the book by Parish, Coupe and Lloyd, "Plants of the Southern Interior of British Columbia", caution that transplanting it from its natural environment is not successful, probably because it is thought to be parasitic on the roots of other plants.

I found this spider near the trail when I returned to retrieve my glasses, laid aside while we were scanning the opposite valley slopes with our binoculars. At first it moved very quickly a couple of metres away from the trail but when I followed cautiously, I was allowed to take a couple of close-up pictures. It seems to resemble the Rustic Wolf Spider, of which I read that the female carries her babies at first in a pouch slung under her body, then, as they grow larger, they ride on her back. I see five or more tiny spiders on her back. So this spider is a female. They measure 15 to 25 mm in length.
I will submit a photograph to E Fauna for positive identification.