December, 2013 - Pensacola, Florida to Campbell River, British Columbia

Yes, this month saw a transfer; I moved from Pensacola to Campbell River, leaving college in Florida to come to the northwest of Canada for Christmas break. Near the beginning of the month, on the Pensacola Christian College campus, winter, as far as Florida is concerned, was in full swing. Yet, given a cold spell, there were still reptiles about. Of particular interest were the little green anoles (Anolis carolinensis) which seemed to appreciate sleeping higher up off the ground, weather permitting. The tennis courts near the men's dorm was a great place to witness this. Surrounding the courts was wire fencing and, sleeping on the links, were several anoles. Why they sleep higher off the ground like this, I don't know, but it could be that they are trying to avoid predators. It is also interesting that anoles change their colour in different situations and, while sleeping, they become very pale. These lizards were observed within the first couple weeks of December.

The fog just makes the moss covered branches that much more pronounced and captivating.

This photo illustrates how the fog infiltrates the forest. It is also obvious that the forest is very wet; characteristic of the west coast temperate rainforest.

The two pictures above are my sister and some snow
berries. The snow berries bear evidence of a spider's past
presence. The moisture in the air makes the spider web
bellow very well pronounced. Clearly this web as been
abandoned for some time. The lack of maintenance
demonstrates this, but it certainly does not detract from the
beauty of the web. 

Arriving home on Vancouver Island found it unchanged; cold, wet, and dark. Nevertheless, I did miss this sort of climate and the family decided to go for a walk in the dark foggy rainforest. There wasn't much wildlife out, but there was some sign of animal life. I think I enjoyed it more simply because the fog, floating through the forest, made for beautiful photographs.
As some of the above photos illustrate, it had a beautiful layering effect on the scenery. Enabling focus on certain features that normally wouldn't be so noticeable or pronounced in nature. For example, a little spider's web would normally go unnoticed. However, the moister in the air gave the web's silk a damp, grey, beaded effect. This alone would have helped pronounce the web better against any backdrop, but the fog created a natural blur, a hazing, to the background. Thus, the web is far more pronounced than it otherwise would have been.
It was a good walk, even if the family did speed off without their dear photographer. That was on the sixteenth of December.

Later on, on the twenty-seventh, I went for another walk alone. I had plans to explore one of the beaver ponds up Woods Creek, but it turned out to be mostly dry (I think the stewards of the creek break the dams so that the coho salmon can get up the creek adequately). I was also going to take a winter sample of the mud on the ponds bottom, but I had to take it from the creek bottom instead. I couldn't see any life under the microscope.

The moss, growing up the edges of
these bushes, look like they are
framed in gold, being backlit by the
warm evening sunlight.

The second purpose of my hike out was to do a warm-up birdwatching trip. Why? You remember my old post on the homepage (back in November I think)? I talked about the book The Big Year. Well this is going to be my own little "big year." Starting on January first, I'm going to start counting all the birds I see.

I have an attraction to moss on rocks
and trees, if you haven't noticed.

Bewick's wren, lower right hand
corner, feeding on a spider egg case
or something like that.

I'd have to say that my preliminary exploits were a great success in December; a total of seventeen species were counted. I also saw a few squirrels and a surprising amount of invertebrates.
I think my great success was due to a number of successive factors. First, the sun came out. Those golden shafts of light, streaking through the moss covered bows of hemlock and maple awakened the insects. At least three different species of little flying insect were seen (perhaps some gnats and others which I did not identify) and a small spider hung from the rim of my hat. These bugs brought out the birds.

Golden-crowned kinglet, lower
right hand corner.

Golden-crowned kinglet, lower right
hand corner.

Varied thrush standing in the
dappled light of the red alders.

Many flocks of kinglets and chickadees were seen along with a pleasant variety of wrens (including Bewick's). Larger birds, such as varied thrushes, whistling low and tranquil through the quiet wood, were also present in flocks. It was one of those rare winter days when everyone seems to be out.

This little guy was dangling from the
rim of my hat. I've no idea what
species he is.

It was very enjoyable, and got me hyped up for next month. I am concerned however, given that I will only be in Canada another two weeks, that I will not be able to make some of the birds I saw in my practice run. The Bewick's wren and the red-breasted nuthatch may be hard to get again.

I'm feeling squirrelly! There were a
few of these little red squirrels in the
woods. Too bad they can't be
counted as birds!

Bird photography is a hard thing for me. First, I only have a two-hundred millimetre zoom maximum. That means, when the bird is small or distant, most of the photos come out as barely identifiable specks. It works if your sole purpose is merely identify the bird, but if you want a really good shot to show friends, it amounts to about nothing. Oh, well. I'll post the very best of the specks here (see the kinglet, wren, and varied thrush photos above.

A very cool fungus.

Certainly the most common were the golden crowned kinglets. They especially enjoyed feeding in the moss-draped bows of the western hemlocks. It had the potential to be a beautiful picture but, alas, my zoom has a low success rate for capturing very small birds. The varied thrushes were much larger birds (about four times the size of a kinglet), but they are much more shy- the same problem was encountered for them.
Originally I had plans to try and photograph every species I encountered, but this preliminary birding trip has illustrated that, without the proper gear, such a task is next to impossible.

This was kind of an "artsy-fartsy" kind of photograph. The blurring around the edges of the stump (created by zooming out at a lower shutter speed) almost cary a time machine sort of feeling. Like high speed into the future sort of thing. Perhaps it is suitable for the last picture of 2013. Here we go into the future.