It took a while, due to COVID-19, but we finally managed our BV Naturalists outing to Malkow Lookout on Saturday, June 20th. It had been raining throughout the week, but Saturday morning was fair.  Eleven members of the club showed up at the trailhead parking lot (Brigitte even courageously rode her bicycle from town) . We split into two groups to respect our Phase 2 social distancing guidelines, with Mel Coulson, Evi Coulson and Anne Hetherington leading the group who wanted to focus on birds, and Sybille Haeussler leading a smaller group concentrating on blooms.

 

The sun held for over two hours and the mosquitoes mostly left us alone, allowing for some excellent photo opportunities across the Luther Family’s cow pasture,  through the poplar gully, and up to the Nageli meadow.  With all the rain, the plant life is exceptionally lush this year. The birds were also abundant and noisy, but rather difficult to see through the dense foliage.  American Redstarts (Setophaga ruticilla) were particularly exuberant, perhaps due to several large groups of recently fledged young.

Mel Coulson submitted this list of bird species seen and (mostly) heard:

1. American Kestrel
   

   Swainson’s Thrush (Catharus ustulatus). R. Neftin photo

2. Wilson’s Snipe
3. Rufous Hummingbird
4. Red-breasted Sapsucker
5. Olive-sided Flycatcher
6. Least Flycatcher
7. Western Wood-Peewee
8. Warbling Vireo
9. American Crow
10. Black-capped Chickadee
11. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
12. Swainson’s Thrush
13. American Robin
14. Cedar Waxwing
15. Orange-crowned Warbler
16. Yellow-rumped Warbler
    

    Calliope hummingbird (Selasphorus calliope) male on a black twinberry stalk. T. Portman photo

17. American Redstart
18. Northern Waterthrush
19. Clay-coloured Sparrow
20. Lincoln’s Sparrow
21. White-throated Sparrow
22. White-crowned Sparrow
23. Dark-eyed Junco
24. Brown-headed Cowbird
25. Pine Siskin

 

also  26. Calliope Hummingbird (captured at right by Tina Portman)

The next day (Sunday, June 21), Rosamund Pojar made the same trip and reported the following additional species:

1. Ruffed Grouse
2. Dusky Flycatcher
3. McGillivray’s Warbler
4. Purple Finch

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5. Common Raven

Botanical highlights included the heavy growth of arboreal lichen draping the spruce trees.  These old-growth specialists grow particularly well in moist, nutrient rich environments on conifer trees located within the drip zone of a poplar tree, as in this photo captured by Brigitte Kloosterman:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A special treat for photographers at this time of year are the chocolate lilies (Fritillaria camschatcensis), also known as northern rice-root, because of its starchy rice-like bulblets that were such an important source of early spring carbohydrates for Indigenous people across northwest BC. 

 

 

And we can’t forget the bugs. Here is a photogenic selection, courtesy of Tina:

And then suddenly a monsoon rainstorm struck, turning our trail into a river of mud.