1 April

 Today's return to the Forest and Wetlands may have not been as successful as last week's.   I stupidly forgot to bring my binoculars and my phone.  The phone is what I've been using for close-up photos and some views of scenery.  The photos in today's installment were  shot with a long lens, intended for wildlife photography.  The quality of the photos reflects this.  

I'd anticipated more changes in the season than were apparent this week.  The change of altitude from the shore to the marsh must delay the advance of the season, although some differences from last week can be seen.  A friend who joined me certainly was a very helpful second observer.  

The variety of mosses and fungi within the Hamilton forest is remarkable.  It's going to be a good project to begin to identify them.

In the Bryophytes of British Columbia, Wilf Schofield wrote: 

British Columbia possesses the richest diversity of any political division in Canada. It is also greater than the combined bryoflora of all of the United States west of the Rocky Mountains..

Hamilton Wetlands and Forest provides a generous introduction to this species.

This is what I found described as a veiled polypore, a fungus that grows on dead wood and contributes to its decomposition.

Two striking and abundant mosses.  

 

 An assortment of new residents or visitors appeared on our walk.

If the reader enlarges this photo, it will be apparent that the white spots are little web-like nests.  I'm not sure what they contain, but will monitor them each week to see what hatches.  I've submitted the photo to iNaturalist, but as of yet, have no clarification.

This turkey vulture soaring above the marsh is a more easily identified new arrival.

This is the first nesting pair we've spotted.  The marsh is prime nesting real estate for waterfowl, and we'll see more in the future.

The Wetlands and and Forest are also an example of high-density housing.  Much of the foliage is home to a variety of species.

The webs (perhaps cocoons?) pictured in moss above are a case in point.

Although this tree is quite plainly dead, the work of the bark beetles preceded its demise, and it's now home to moss.

This tree shows itself as home to at least two different species of moss, and has been drilled by woodpeckers.  Four species, at least?

This alder has been a source of food for a sapsucker, who has systematically drilled rows of holes to draw insects to the tree.  In addition, the alder is an exclusive host to a lichen which shows in the white splotches in the photo.  

Moss grows on a downed Douglas fir.  There must be a living tree nearby that provided food for a squirrel.  I debated the possibility with myself that these bits of a fir cone were from a grand fir, the cones of which fall apart while still at the top of a tree and leave a similar scattering.  On enlarging the photo, the typical three-pronged bracts of a Douglas fir cone are visible.  A squirrel has had a nice feed here.  

Today's walk has shown some examples of high-density housing in this area.  (It's the only high-density housing that I'll ever want to see developed here!)  Any number of organisms live together here and share their resources.  A  lesson of sorts?

Finally, not because it fits with these observations, but because it marks the changing season, 

there are tiny budding blossoms on the huckleberry.

Finally, a quote from Gerard Manley Hopkins' Inversnaid :

What would the world be, once bereft

Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,

O let them be left, wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.