This is a follow on from my last post, where I reported that last summer my son-in-law, Gary Rathbun, found a very large caterpillar when we were visiting the "moose pond" on upper Glenrosa Road. When his wife, our daughter, Karen, received my Catch message, she was reminded that she had photographed the adult moth of that species, at their home in California. She sent me this picture.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyalophora_euryalus

Last year, on August 5th, I visited the area of the Moose Pond accompanied by my sons-in-law from Ontario and California, Fred Schueler and Gary Rathbun. Gary noticed a large caterpillar on an alder tree. Just yesterday, when I was organizing my pictures, I encountered a photograph taken at that time. I decided to send it in to E Fauna for an identification and today, I had my answer! It was identified as a Ceanothus Silk Moth (Hyalophora euryalus). The adult moth is very large, 89 to 127 mm, or 31/2 to 5 inches! This larva was about the length of an alder leaf but may have been not yet fully grown. The moth occurs from Baja California to Prince George. It feeds on various trees and bushes.   See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyalophora_euryalus

It was on April 25th last year that I found this unusual plant growing in the Glen Canyon Park. Curious about its identity, I first sent a photograph to my son-in-law, Fred Schueler, in Ontario. He replied that it looked  like an Euphorbia. The only Euphorbias that I knew were the Euphorbia candelabra, huge tree-like plants, that occur in Africa. Next I sent pictures to my friend, Reg Newman. His reply: "It looks like Myrtle Spurge, an ornamental plant that occasionally escapes from gardens."

A few days later, I went again to the park. Now I was able to see clearly that they had escaped from a nearby private garden. A virtual trail of plants lead from the fence-line of the garden. I spoke to a man that I found working in the garden, telling him about what I had learned about this plant and that it had been labelled a dangerously invasive weed, even legislated against in several of the arid western United States.

I then began documenting the infested properties that I saw in the West Kelowna area. They were easy to find; hundreds of patches of Myrtle Spurge could be seen in front-yard rockeries, roadsides and even in small areas of public ground, as seen from the car, as Herb and Martha and I drove along the streets. We spoke to a few people and the story was always about the same, They did not know the plant, only that it was attractive, hardy, and free for the taking. Neighbour gave it to neighbour.

The picture above and the one to the left were taken this year, in the Glenrosa area of Westbank.

Later, I was assisting Martha's sister, Ethel, to dig up irises in her garden in Oroville, Washington,
in preparation for moving and the sale of her home. We came upon a large clump of Myrtle Spurge. Ethel said that she did not know what it was, that some of these plants were on the property when she first moved there but that they had multiplied.

She pointed to the slope from an adjoining property. It was covered with Myrtle Spurge. I told her that the plant should be handled carefully, with gloves, as the plant is brittle and the white, latex-like sap is sticky and very irritating to skin and mucous membranes. Jessie, Martha's other sister who lives in Osoyoos, asked my help in removing the rest of the plants, rather than pass the problem on to a new purchaser. I now regret that I ducked the responsibility, so Jessie tackled the job on her own.

I regret that she was not adequately warned, for she did suffer a great deal from contact with the plant. She developed nasty blisters on her skin, was treated by a doctor (who, incidentally, knew nothing about the plant) and even now, several weeks later, she still feels the irritation from the poisonous sap.

Glen Canyon Regional Park management were informed and during the summer last year, a work crew of volunteers removed, bagged and disposed of all of the spurge plants that I had found in the park. On my trips to the park this year, I keep finding a few young seedlings. Yesterday, I found and removed 15 more (adjacent picture), some very tiny. These very young plants are easily confused with the noxious weed, Toadflax, also present in the area but the leaves of Myrtle Spurge have a more bluish tinge, while Toadflax, with similar form when young, is green.

This afternoon, Herb and I visited the marshy pond on the upper end of Glenrosa Road that I call Moose Pond. We keep a trail camera monitoring the southern edge of the pond, an area  frequented by moose. Today when we checked the camera, we were not disappointed. There was just one picture of a hiker and the rest were all of moose.

Most were nighttime white flash pictures of a cow moose with very young twin calves. She was obviously very protective of them. A couple of the other pictures showed a moose that I judged to be subadult, probably the female calf from the pair of twins this cow had last year. Those pictures were not of good quality, however and so were discarded.

Moose calves grow rapidly. There are 18 days between these two picture of moose, and already there seems to be a noticeable increase in a calf's size. Hopefully, we will get more pictures of this little family.

Devils' Club is one of the plants that characterize the wet forest on the north side of the lake. Right now it is showing its pyramidal clusters of shiny red berries. The berries are not edible. The trunk of the plant is covered with sharp spines.

Devil's Club

Clasping Twisted Stalk, another plant in this wet seepage forest, also has red berries. Earlier it had greenish-white bell-shaped flowers. Flowers and berries hang singly from short, slender kinked or twisted stalks, hence the name of the plant.

The slender stemmed bush in the picture to the right has maple leaf-shaped leaves and shiny black berries (mostly hidden by the leaves). It seems to be a currant or gooseberry but I am not confident enough to name it. I should have taken more careful note of its characteristics but I thought that when I got back to my books with the pictures, identification would be easy. Not so!

The large leaves in the picture are of Indian Hellebore. That is a plant that can grow to 2 metres in height, as it did in this area last year. But this seems to be a season that is not as favorable for the plant. We did have frost in the early part of the summer, at least somewhat higher, along Jackpine Road. There the Devils' Club leaves wilted after freezing and they did not recover, so there was no flowering and no fruit from the Devils' Club at that elevation, about 1200 metres. Perhaps the cold spell came at a critical time for the Indian Hellebore also.

Today, I visited the part of Glen Canyon Regional Park that is nearest to Westbank Centre Park, the area where last year I had first found the invasive plant, Myrtle Spurge. In the late summer of last year, with the cooperation of park staff, a number of us volunteers did a "spurge purge". All visible spurge plants were removed, bagged and destroyed. I expected then that the plant would reappear this year from seeds which had already been produced. However, when Martha and I visited the area on 18th May of this year, no new plants were found.

On June 16th, I found just one young Myrtle Spurge.

Today, however, I found a dozen or more young plants, some only a couple of inches tall. I carefully pulled the first two that I found, making an effort to remove all of the long taproot (First picture, above). But since I had neglected to bring gloves and plastic bags, I will have to return shortly to remove all visible plants. This year we must remove them before they produce seed.

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.

On Thursday, Martha and I drove down to the approach to Westbank from the south to inspect a patch of colourful pink plant that we had noticed in the roadside ditch. It was a plant new to me, so I sent pictures to my usual source of help in plant identification, Reg Newman. Reg identified it as Crown Vetch (Coronilla varia), a plant that is often planted for erosion control. That may be the reason that it is growing in this particular spot, since there is seepage in this area which, from time to time results in water flowing down across Gellatly Road, which runs parallel with the highway at this point.

A good description of the plant is found on Wikipedia:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securigera_varia


Wikipedia says that the plant is native to parts of Africa, Asia and Europe and is now found in many areas in North America where it has been planted for soil rehabilitation and erosion control. But it can also become invasive. It is good forage for ruminants but toxic for horses.

On Thursday, July 14th, as Martha and I were leaving Westwood by the west end door, we found a very large beetle, dead on the sidewalk. Curious about its identity, I took photos of it, which I emailed to my source of obscure knowledge, Fred Schueler, my son-in-law in Bishops Mills, Ontario.These were forwarded to daughter, Aleta, who sent them on to her friend Joyce C., a collaborating researcher at Carleton University in Ottawa, Joyce has identified the beetle as "probably Prionus californicus Motschulsky". Its common name is California Root Borer.

 It is a large beetle, approximately 7 CM long. Adult males are more mobile than females, flying considerable distances to find mates. Females exude a pheromone to attract the males. The flying beetles are often attracted to lights and our four-storey  building at Westwood Retirement Resort is well lighted.

The life cycle of this beetle from egg to adult requires about 3 years for completion. Therefore, if someone planted larvae-infested root stock, the adults could be expected to appear some two years later. I am thinking of a possible scenario for introduction of the parasite into new areas. A quick search of internet references has revealed only one report previously from this area,:  see http://www.whatsthatbug.com/2014/08/20/california-root-borer-7/ 

The burrowing larvae of this beetle damage a wide variety of tree species, including cherry trees and grape vines. Therefore, it could be an important concern for this area. Washington State University has an excellent online site describing this beetle, its life history and its importance to the fruit growing industry: http://jenny.tfrec.wsu.edu/opm/displayspecies.php?pn=643

Yesterday, Herb and I visited the bear tree. I had last checked my camera traps there 11 days earlier, on July 2nd and there was evidence that bears had visited the tree on several occasions. Interestingly, all of the bears were small ones, probably one and one-half-year-olds. It is breeding season for black bears and although these young bears are old enough to breed, they have little opportunity when there are several large, mature males in the area.

Benjamin Kilham, whose two books on bear behaviour I have, says that during the breeding season, small male bears may actually be afraid to leave their scent messages where they may be found by the large males, afraid that they may be hunted down and killed. Comparing the pictures, I saw that in the last 11 days three different small bears had visited the bear tree area, but only one of these, the one pictured above, dared to leave his (or her) scent. One of the three just passed by on the trail, one sniffed at the tree then turned away but this little bear, the one pictured above, climbed the tree to get up to the level marked by the largest male bears. But when he (or she) left, it was in a hurry!

 Pictures of a cow moose appeared on three of my cameras in the area, recorded over a period of three days. At this season, I expected to see a calf with her but the one smaller moose that had also visited the area appeared to be too large to be a calf born this year, probably a year and a half old. One of the cameras had recorded two blurry pictures of this animal passing the bear tree at full gallop, as if fleeing from some predator.

The next two pictures stored on that camera, taken some six hours later, showed three coyotes that seemed to be following the young moose's trail.

On several recent visits to this area, I have not seen any deer. Today, however, while driving, we came upon two mule deer, one a mature doe, seen twice--


---once on our way into the area and again when we were leaving, when she just lay there, chewing her cud. The other deer was a yearling.

Trail camera pictures often tell a story. This picture of a Bald Eagle with a fish was taken at a log across the creek in Glen Canyon Park on June 9th, 2013. Another picture, presumably of the same eagle, was taken at the same log three minutes earlier. Apparently the eagle had left and returned with this fish that it had just caught. I have not identified the fish. It seems to be an overall black colour. I was surprised to learn that an eagle would be hunting so late at night. Furthermore, I had never seen a fish like this in Powers Creek.

In reviewing some of my old bird pictures, I came across this one of a male Audubon's Warbler feeding a juvenile Cowbird. The picture was taken in Glen Canyon Park on July 23rd, 2012.

This is typical behaviour. Female Cowbirds lay their eggs in other birds nest, leaving all responsibility for incubation and rearing of the young Cowbirds to their foster parents.

The unknown blue butterfly of my blog post of June 23 has now been identified and published in E Fauna. It is an Arctic blue (Plebejus glandon megals).

This second picture shows it feeding on coyote scat.

Another unknown, the yellow flowering plant shown in my post of June 27 has been identified as the now common invasive plant, Yellow Hawkweed. I am embarrassed that I did not recognize that one!

Yellow Hawkweed

This close-up picture was taken by Karen.

The "unknown plant", pictured at the end of my last post, July 4th, 2016, and before that, on May 28th, has now been identified by E Flora as Dove's-foot Geranium (Geranium molle). See: http://science.halleyhosting.com/nature/gorge/5petal/gerani/geranium/dove.htm

As far as we know at this time, this may be the first report of its occurrence in the Okanagan.

It is a beautiful plant, but an invasive,  native to the Mediterranean area but naturalized in other parts of Europe. Wikipedia says:  "It is an introduced species also in North America, where it is known as Dovefoot Geranium or Awnless Geranium. It is a noxious weed in the Pacific Northwest and quickly forms a groundcover on open areas, among grasses, and in planting beds.


Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geranium_molle#/media/File:Geranium_molle-01_(xndr).jpg

On Saturday, July 2, accompanied by Martha (photo at left)--Karen and I returned to the bear tree area. We hoped to get more pictures of the Red-naped Sapsucker family that we had found two days earlier. When we arrived at their nest hole in the aspen, we were surprised to find that the nestlings had fledged and now were moving about with their parents and feeding at the sap wells that the adults had drilled into the birch trees.

The lower bird in the picture to the right is a juvenile.

This day we also found a second family of Red-naped Sapsuckers, just two or three hundred metres from the first.

The next picture shows a juvenile sapsucker at the  sap wells on a birch tree and also, on an adjacent tree--at the source of the sap and insects that feed upon it--is a Rufous Hummingbird (lower right corner).

Martha's camera was busy too. She took the above photograph and the one of Karen, at left.


In addition to the exciting observations on birds, Karen drew my attention to two plants, Showy Daisy and Striped Coralroot.

Showy Daisy

Striped Coralroot

This plant is a saprophyte, entirely without chlorophyll and it gets its nutrition from organic matter in the forest soils. Initially an overall pink colour, it is now in the seed production stage and the blossoms have been replaced by oval seed capsules.

And finally, here is an unknown plant that we found. I would appreciate suggestions as to its identity.