Nature Photo of the Week

Calliope Hummingbird, Stellula calliope
Dianthus barbatus (Sweet William)

Little Star

"Tell me I'm talented, Tell me I'm cute,
Tell me I'm sensitive, Graceful and wise,
Tell me I'm perfect---But tell me the truth."
~ Shel Silverstein (1930-1999)

Barkerville Trip Continued....

with a few more interesting plants that were in bloom along the trails and at our campsite.

Bracted Lousewort (also known as Wood Betony)
I was drawn to its colour and lovely fern like leaves.

I think this is called Black Twinberry (Shrub). Both the paired tubular
yellow flowers (shown above) and the berries have bracts at their base.

Hawkweed - termed a noxious weed by some in areas
where it is becoming more common and invasive.

Hooked Buttercup - named for the hooks on the ends of the seeds.

Street scene at Barkerville (1860s British Columbia heritage gold rush town) - A quick look through the guest book reveals that visitors from as far away as the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Scotland, England and Nova Scotia (Canada) arrive here every year. Many of the miners were from Scotland, England, Ireland, China, Germany, Wales, the United States and eastern Canada.

Nature Photo of the Week

Field Scabious (Knautia arvensis), a member of the teasel family

These are the same wildflowers that you see in my previous post. I have not come across them anywhere else but in this dry, sunny location where they grow in profuse splendor. Each flower "button" is a dense cluster of small single flowers. On the day that I was here, the bees and butterflies were oblivious to onlookers as they went from flower to flower, busily collecting nectar.

Tranquility

This particular spot is the quiet end of the lake.

There is very little human activity here, and the waterfowl can raise their young in relative peace. When we arrived a mother duck was escorting her brood of ten or eleven along the shoreline.

White Pelicans return to this interior lake every spring. This one has seen us and is paddling further out into the lake.

At Home

This lone deer has become almost like the neighbourhood pet. We saw her yesterday as we were coming home. Most days she's either browsing by the side of the road or in the field.

Today I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon tidying up the garden.

This is our toad friend. His home is this drainage pipe. Usually he scurries away whenever we approach, but today he stayed long enough for a picture.

Orange on orange. There's a butterfly in these tiger lilies; you can just see its wings.

Wildflowers Around Barkerville

These are some of my photos from a recent camping trip to Barkerville (an historic B.C. gold rush town of the 1860s). Elevation: 1290 metres (4200 feet). Located 88 km (55 miles) east of Quesnel, B.C. on Highway 26. The elevation at Quesnel is 474 metres (1555 feet).

Five-leaved Bramble (Dwarf Shrub)

Showy Pussy-toes (Sunflower family)

Marsh Valerian - numerous small white flowers with protruding styles and stamens.

Thimbleberry (Shrub) - the petals have been described as resembling "crinkled tissue paper".

Sitka Burnet (Rose family) - the European species of this flower is red-brown in colour, hence the name "burnet" or "brunette".

Bunchberry (Dwarf Dogwood) - very conspicuous and widespread along the edges of the trails.

White Bog-Orchid (also known as "scent-candle") - found at low to high elevations.

In the Garden

The other day I became fascinated with first one, then two Fritillary butterflies fluttering over the garden.

Enter Fritillary A

In this scene we see a small orange butterfly restlessly flitting from strawberry leaf to potato leaf, back to strawberry leaf, again to a potato leaf, then once, twice around the garden until a much larger Tiger Swallowtail butterfly suddenly appears and chases the creature off.

Unfortunately (for the spectators), the swallowtail doesn't linger, and after a brief visit to the Sweet William flowers abruptly flies away. At this point, the play seems to have ended when surprise, surprise the Fritillary returns and eventually comes to rest near the lemon mint.

Enter Fritillary B.

Unlike the first butterfly, this Fritillary is very interested in the Painted and Ox-eye Daisies at one end of the garden. Now the first Fritillary approaches the other creating a momentary flurry of wings in the surrounding stillness. This immediately leads to a pursuit the nature of which, I imagine, has something to do with love.

And this ends my tale of two butterflies.

Ever curious about the origin of names -

Fritillary is from the Latin word fritillus meaning dice-box or checkered (markings on wings)

To view or join please visit Today's Flowers.

Lazy Summer Day

It's going to be a hot day....let's enjoy it.

I've begun reading Flower Hunters by Mary Gribbin & John Gribbin, a book about the "earliest botanical adventurers". Now that the garden tasks are more or less taken care of, I hope to immerse myself in it for most of the remainder of the day.

Tiger Lilies beginning to bloom

Wildflowers

Western Columbine and a foraging bee - these flowers also attract the hummingbirds.

Vetch - Legume family, vine-like. I'm not sure what kind of bee this is.

Columbia Tiger Lily - native to Western North America.

Red-Osier Dogwood - a very attractive shrub in all seasons.

Wild Rose - one of our most abundant roadside flowers.

Paintbrush - the red parts at the base of the flower are really bracts or modified leaves.

Fun Photo ~

Hidden treasure to be claimed later - put here by a elf perhaps or did Sammy Squirrel come to help me harvest the strawberries?