Hummingcrow & Co.

  Pollinator Week: BC Bees & Wanna-bees

A happy bumble bee enjoying the offerings of a camas / kwetlal flower

A couple of years ago, Kate and I began our journey towards becoming certified Pollinator Stewards thanks to Island Pollinator Initiative's wonderful webinar series. The first session enlightened us about the importance of pollinators to food production and biodiversity, with a special focus on BC's native bees.

  Artistic Inspiration: Drift Body

My friend Scott recently started publishing a beautiful quarterly zine series called Drift Body filled with wholesome, enchanting original poetry & prose alongside inscriptions from ancient Orphic tablets. I recently received the first issue and carried it with me down to the water below one of my favourite nearby wandering spots, Fort Rodd Hill, to read alongside a couple of old birthday cards & writings that my grandfather sent me two decades ago.

#Meanwhile: The ants go marching... with larvae  

Millions of female worker ants carry the queen's larvae through a vast, treacherous landscape (known to us as 'the garden'). Watch them go...

  ...Who Calls?  

Last week, as we were working in the garden, we suddenly heard a loud, spooky & exasperated-sounding voice ask, “Who, who, who, WHO COOKS FOR YOOOOUUU?!”*

“We cook for each other, actually...” we replied, timidly. “Who, who, who's asking?”

The answer to this question was perched upon the branch of a nearby Douglas-fir:

  A Morning Surprise

Early one morning, while making my way back up the Hill after weeding and watering, I realized that I hadn't quite completely emptied my watering can—so I began sprinkling the remnants on a few thirsty-looking shrubs.

As I shook the last clinging drops from the container, I was startled to notice a curious pair of eyes peering up at me from a few feet away behind a rock:

Encounter with Sleepy Young Ravens  

The other day, while taking a stretch break from the anti-ergonomic act of photographing tiny lichens on a rocky slope, I looked up to find I was being silently watched:

I could tell it was a juvenile raven because of the fleshy pink “gape flange” at the base of its beak.

I watched as it rested there: quietly preening, yawning and occasionally blinking its spooky nictitating membrane at me.

  Accrowdion

This was my first attempt at making a sculpture using Sculpey (Original) polymer clay. I made it for the Metchosin Art Pod's Bird and Song art show.

There were a few learning curves in the making of this musical bird, all of which I write about & provide pictures of in the original post, as well as the painting process of the sculpture, which is described in Part II!

  Path to Enlichenment | Part I: Sweet Pixie Cups

Meet the mealy pixie cup lichen:

As described in this well-written broadcast, these fairy-dust-coated miniature goblets do indeed look as though they were set on a table of bright green moss, waiting to have single raindrops fill the cups so they may be gulped down by tiny wood sprites.

Each Cladonia chlorophaea (Flörke ex Sommerf.) Sprengel is created from a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae. Put simply, the fungi creates the structure, and the algae provides food through photosynthesis. Each granule of fairy dust, or soredia is made up of a few cells from each of the two organisms. The lichen are reproduced when the granules are spread, which can happen in a variety of ways: perhaps a strong wind, or a drop of water plunking into the cup & splashing onto the surrounding earth, or a passing deer trampling a patch of them.

More luscious pictures & thoughts: