common_nature | Entries tagged with places: canada

I'm very lucky to live close to míqәn/Beacon Hill Park in Victoria, BC, Canada, and early to mid-April is the season for one of my favorite native flowers, the giant white fawn lily (Erythronium oregonum). They grow in the Garry oak meadows at the north end of the park (interspersed with daffodils, which bloom at the same time), and I love taking walks to see them. Here are my pictures from some of my walks earlier this month!

Small white lilies in the grass with daffodils and oak trees in the background

A close-up of small, star-shaped white lilies in the grass

( +4 more )

calzephyr

The bird feeder had a visit from grey partridges the other day. I've accidentally startled them before--the sparrows toss seed down from the bird feeder and they don't care for corn--but it was so polite of them to use the sidewalk :-D

EDIT: Alt link in case Instagram isn't working: https://bsky.app/profile/purpleponyart.bsky.social/post/3lii5kvgets2f

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Christine 🦄 🐦🌈🍁 (calzephyr77)

violsva

A small black and white woodpecker on a bare tree branch against a bright clear sky.

I saw this bird while walking home from the library. The other birds around here are also getting more active and noisy, even though there's still most of a foot of snow on the ground and more predicted this weekend.

steorra

Yesterday I went for a walk in the woods with a couple friends. We saw a big fat green caterpillar on the path. It was probably about as wide as my finger. It had rows of little orange dots along its sides that looked like they had little hairs projecting from them. We weren't sure if it was alive, but my friend picked it up with a leaf to move it off the path, and it wriggled.

Later we saw a white-and-black moth on the wall of a restaurant where we were waiting for take-out.

That moth and its wing patterns made me think of a moth of a different sort that I saw in August last year. It was on one of the choir music stands at my church. I took it outside on a piece of sheet music and it eventually flew away. It was dark brown with lighter-brown criss-cross-y patterns on its wings.

If anyone has any tips on what any of these are, I'm interested.

( 4 pictures )

steorra

In the bookshop where I work, I spotted a small orb-weaver spider hanging from a nearly-invisible web in front of some books on display on a bookcase.

After taking a picture, I carefully evicted the spider.

( One picture )

steorra

I was out walking in the city the other day and this snail caught my eye.

( 1 photo )

steorra

This morning I saw a shiny blue-green insect that I'm fairly sure was Chrysidid wasp (cuckoo wasp, emerald wasp). One picture behind the cut.
( Shiny blue-green wasp )
For more pictures and details of my identification process, see this post on my own journal.

facetofcathy

Hello to everyone, I love this community, and I wanted to share some of my urban natural world.

I've been complaining about all the rain we've had--three days without rain since April 15--and much colder than normal temperatures to go with it. The effect of the urban habitat is interesting. I took a couple of pictures to illustrate.( Read more... )

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Common Nature

wonder and joy and mystery in everyday things

Entries tagged with places: canada

April Flowers in Beacon Hill Park

Leave only footprints...

Woodpecker!

A caterpillar and two moths

Bookshelf orb-weaver

Snail

Chrysidid wasp

The results of all this rain

Profile

May 2025

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags