Herons...

 

 can't read.

Emerging.

Yellow pond-lilies, also known as spatterdock, reaching up through the shallow, clear water of Yew Lake, Cypress Provincial Park.

The plants start out neatly spaced,

but eventually unfold to form a jumbled carpet on the surface.

Not to be confused with the fragrant waterlily, an eastern North American species that can become invasive.

NOT SAFE to eat.

Today we went to the mall.

We stared at colourful things, our expressions puzzled.

Some of which stared back, expressions disdainful

M&Ms Sphinx!

I don't know what this was about.  I could have read the signage, but I was in a mall, and in malls, I put my brain on Sleep Mode as a means of coping.

At least I read this sign.

Plants of the Yew Lake Trail: sluggish herbs and shrubs.

 Vaccinium sp. and deer cabbage.

A neat thing about having mountains nearby is that you can pretty quickly change your surrounding flora and fauna--by going up.  Continuing from the previous two posts, here I present some of the plants of the local subalpine.   In the above photo, the plants of note, at least to me, are an unidentified species of Vaccinium, (a blueberry--mid- and upper picture, small oval leaves), and bottom right, deer cabbage, which grew in profusion along the banks of small streams and seeps.

 Bog laurel, Kalmia polifolia.

Going up is like going north, and boreal gets boggy.  Some of the same plants we find in our local sea-level sphagnum bogs also live in subalpine wet areas.  Thus heaths-a-plenty, one being whatever  Vaccinium that was, and another being bog laurel,

and another being, (I'm pretty sure) pink mountain heather, Phyllodoce empetriformis.

Plus a couple more shrubby ones that I've not seen down below, false azalea, Menziesia ferruginea, and

white-flowered rhododendron, Rhododendron albiflorum. Someone didn't have to work very hard to come up with a Latin name that time.

This delicate pinky, not a heath, is subalpine spirea, Spirea densiflora.  Its congener, hardhack (S. douglasii), which has steeple-shaped flowerheads, forms daunting plantations in damp, disturbed, sub-subalpine sites throughout the Lower Mainland and beyond.

Ho-ho, Cornus canadensis (bunchberry).  A specimen clump right on the trail.  It's also called dwarf dogwood, for reasons of both appearance and relatedness.

And finally a favourite old oddball, skunk cabbage, Lysichiton americanum. There were large patches around and creeping into ponds, and small clumps near seeps.  What's interesting is the time-lag.  900 meters below, where we live, skunk cabbages flower in late-March and early April.  Up here in ear-pop, nosebleed-land, they flower a season later.  And the blueberries on the mountain are just now flowering.  At sea level, they have been bearing ripe fruit for a few weeks.  You can see how this might make spring and early summer a difficult time for bears, who want to go where the berries are.  Changing elevations changes things for them too, and often not in a rewarding way.

Where the snow is.

Last day of July, it isn't on the ski slopes.  This is Cypress Bowl, where in February 2010 there wasn't much snow either.  Snow had to be trucked from halfway across the province and dumped on the hillside from helicopters, or some other means, to provide substrata for several Olympic events.  Perversely, this winter, the mountain had oodles of snow.  So much that there's still a lot left.  Tromping around on snow in 25C heat is crazy fun.

In shady parts of the forest, mounds remain, one or two feet deep.  This small, oppressed-looking Mountain Hemlock must have spent much of the past six months completely buried.

Large patches remained on hiking trails.  A jogger nearly wiped out at this spot. 

Snow hole!  I was trying to figure out how this would form.  Perhaps something dark had been lying there, and its heat differential melted a hole.  Or perhaps bear pee.  Or snow weasels.

The forest was alive with the sound of gurgling.  Snow and heat = melt.  Much water is finding its way down the mountain.  And it is very cold.

Over the bridge and up the hill.

The sun seems to be hanging around for a bit.  In celebration, we headed to the North Shore mountains.  This required the traversing of a few bridges, including the venerable Lions Gate.  Three lanes, two going one way, one the other.  The middle lane changes direction, allegedly depending on traffic flow.

Here's the bridge from halfway up the hill, elevation about 435m.  I neglected to bring my 18-55mm lens, and the 70-300mm doesn't really give a sense of the grand, expansive view. 

Point Grey and UBC.  And boats.

We went to Cypress Bowl, where Olympic things happened last year, elevation slightly over 900 m. In past visits, we have seen bears meandering on the ski slopes.  This time, none.   We walked a few trails, saw Chestnut-backed Chickadees, which are much more difficult to photograph than Black-cappeds, Turkey Vultures, Ravens, and Jays (Steller's, no Grays).  We botanized and played in the snow.

The way back down was made treacherous by gaggles of cyclists.  They were reaching speeds of 70 km/h on the straight stretches.  Those going the other way were somewhat slower.   I prefer cycling in Richmond.  There's something to be said for flatness.