24 June

 A visit to the Forest and Wetlands just three days past the Summer Solstice.  The woods were full of birdsong, but also full of foliage, so the birds were heard more often than seen.  

The light in the forest was magical.

The cat's tail moss glowed in the summer light.

Huckleberries are ripening.

Their tiny and sparse fruit remains tart, but refreshing.

The red elderberry is also ripening.  

They're not really very good as food for humans, although by next week the bird population is likely to have cleared the entire area of them.

We hadn't seen the pathfinder in bloom before.  

Here is yet another "photo of record," showing the pathfinder flower bearing its odd, tiny fruit. 

The water lilies are starting to bloom.   At a guess, by next week they're be quite showy.

There were many dragonflies, but they were very active and hard to photograph.  This damselfly settled briefly.

From what I could gather from iNaturalist, I think  it's a Pacific forktail.  

Of course there was a red-winged blackbird on this alder.  This one is in slightly transitional plumage.  There's still some rust showing on his back and wing feathers, but he's already a very handsome bird.

The marsh is beginning to turn bronze.

At this stage in the season, the colouring looks to be the brown of the flower scales on the tips of rushes.   

It's less evident in this photo, although enlarging it shows reddish-brown clusters on the rushes.

Mount Arrowsmith, to the southwest of the marsh, is looking quite bare of snow.

It looks as though this summer will be one in which water-retaining marshland is exceptionally valuable to its inhabitants and to people and critters downstream.

After sitting on the dock and watching dragonflies, we headed back.

The hardhack, or spirea, is coming into bloom.  Pollinators will soon appear in abundance.

A bank of foam flower has been blooming for over a month and is still showy.

This, which a local botanist would call and "elder alder" demonstrates the way in which trees host an increasing number of life forms as they age.  The emerging branches from the main trunk are the alder's continued growth once it becomes too old to transfer growth hormone to its upper reaches.  But there is also an assortment of mosses that have settled on it, which are themselves showing their reproductive stages.  

The forest is incredibly vital.  Even this stump, of a tree logged off long ago, is home to mosses and two promising little huckleberry shoots.