Thanks for these wonderful photos Keith, I don't know about you but I could just sit for hours watching them at play.
This one was about 15 cm long. They don’t get much bigger than that. The largest one I have seen in the yard was 20 cm or so long.
Aaaahh, yes, of course. I didn't manage to get a frontal view, otherwise I could have seen that heart shape they show on their breasts. For the life of me I couldn't remember what it was. The tree creeper is smaller than the Northern Flicker. Thank you for that!
Not exactly in my garden, although we do see flights of them overhead quite often. Canada geese at Celista this morning.
I wish I had a picture to show you. Yesterday, my husband and I were visiting neighbours 2 houses over. The house in between is much newer than ours and occupies a meadow which must have been a favourite with the local deer. I described once watching 3 pairs of male deer battling with their horns one autumn. Chopsticks! Then, yesterday, we watched as 3 females met up in what is left of that meadow with their very young fawns in tow - 2 sets of twins and a single. What a sight! The babies were racing around as fast as they could among the drifts of wild daisies while their mothers looked on indulgently.
I understand that June is the usual birth time for the deer. Several years ago I watched in amazement as a doe gave birth to twin deer right here. But what really surprised me was the speed at which a newborn deer can travel! I do have photos here, but only from the DIY site, which means they are all pixelated. I will post just one which might look OK as long as you don't try to enlarge it.
Here on the coast, our many black-tailed deer are giving birth in May as well. Gardeners are what you might call 'conflicted' because, as much as we admire their beauty, they destroy all our efforts to create a beautiful garden. I have to laugh - the list of plants recommended for gardeners to plant in a deer resistant garden are the same ones as are on my list of least-liked plants.
No doubt your warmer spring weather would have some effect on when the deer give birth. As for the so called resistant plants, it seems that the deer have difficulty reading that list. We asked at Art Knapps in Kamloops if they had any ideas about that, and one lady told us that it really didn't matter what we planted, the deer would likely go after it. And in the Western Garden Book they suggest that Cedar isn't on the deer menu. Not true! They will clean out all the lower growth up to 5 or 6 feet high without a second thought.
And . . . as true connoisseurs, deer expand their tastes over time. I am told that the deer in our area never ate rhubarb until - they did! Only a few years ago, they never touched our native sword ferns (Polystichum munitum) either but now they delight in chomping off the ends of the fronds, thereby uglifying their graceful habit, though not actually killing them. I've heard that deer populations south of us have taken to nibbling on daffodils too - the go-to bulb many gardeners rely on to add colour to their early spring landscapes. As much as I admire their beauty, I am no fan of deer.
The daffodils, or any plant derived from a bulb, seem to be high on the list of deer priorities here. Next year we will know better.
Late this afternoon, in the blazing heat, I was over to the far side of the lot where (maybe) there will be a Japanese style garden...one day. I spotted this little creature covered in pollen and diving in and out of the flowers. He or she was moving pretty quickly, so some of the rapid fire photos are none too good. It looks similar to a green critter that we see here. On my way over there, I spotted three piles of bear scat, which, of course, I'm none too pleased about. It can't be more than a day old. The neighbour, who hasn't been here for about two years, showed up today and did a fair bit of clearing the mess up on his lot. He didn't see any bears today. Maybe it was a mother and two cubs.
I don't think it is either Margot. It's not one of the mason bees I don't think, and I'm pretty sure it's not a spider. I have seen something that is about this shape but it's a bright green. It has shorter legs than most spiders and what looks like a coat of armour. If I spot one of the green guys I will see if I can get a photo, but I haven't seen one for several weeks now. It moves very quickly from one flower to the next, much faster than a bee. Maybe I will search and see what I can find.
Meanwhile - I am looking at the flower - is that a wild mock orange? Is it scented? Mock orange = Philadelphus in your eFlora reference We definitely have it wild down nr Penticton It grows near the rattlesnake den (truly) tho I don’t think it’s a related cause other than warm and dry rocky exposure.
I think it might be the Mock Orange, as there is quite a lot of it on the lower lot. I was standing somewhat precariously on a thin ledge to get these photos, so no chance to see if it had fragrance or not, but I will show you photos of the ones on the lower lot for your opinion. There are several large plants growing, all of which are well out of reach. Photos taken with tele lens on the Canon. (Page 80 in my new plant book!)
Not all have a scent. This one could be Philadelphus inodorus. Scentless mock orange. So don't try and get too close to get a smell of the blooms as it sounds a bit dangerous Keith.
Good morning D! The above photos are of part of a fairly big section on the lower lot, the steep one, which I cannot get to. The photos with the little yellow bug are at the far end of our east side lot. I haven't seen any blooms there before, but then we had some excavator work done there both last year and earlier this year, so there may have been things in the way. That small part is right at the top of a narrow ridge which we didn't touch. I'm not very likely to be climbing back up there again.
If it’s the common Okanagan wild mock orange named for Lewis of the expedition I think - it is scented. At a distance it looks like a blooming Saskatoon (amelanchier) For us it grows on the side of the KVR rail trail (rocky, dry, and hot temp) E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of BC
Ran across some photos taken on June 11th, just 12 days ago. This is the clump of Mock Orange (we think) and it's easy to see how steep that small section is. Also, the neighbour on the other side dug his part of that bank away and it falls off steeply. That's why there's only a narrow ridge there. He actually did put several rocks on his side to prevent a total collapse. You might note that there are no visible flowers at that time and the earliest photos I can find with hundreds of flowers from the lower lot is dated June 16. That's the third photo.
