8 May 2012
In nature a lake is home to many creatures including worms, crustacean, copepods, phytoplankton, zooplankton, bacteria, viruses, fish of many kinds, water birds of many kinds, aquatic mammals like mink, muskrat, otter and beaver and fishing bats and at last humans.
Do all these creatures own the lake or does the lake own them? I guess its a matter of relativity.
In Sutherland Bay, the City of Kelowna has told people who have moored their motor boats, houseboats, sailboats they can no longer stay there. the City wants them gone. By a decision of council, the Bay, which is the only sheltered Bay uncommercialized in the Kelowna District, and the only partly sheltered anchorage, in use for over a hundred years as common anchorage for all, is now off limits to the general public.
These people are regarded by the City as having no entitlement to safe moorage. They are the unchosen ones, the rejects, the castaways who have no right to the lake.
Allowed is log booming of perhaps a thirds of the bay with bark mulch raining onto the substrate smothering life, and incinerator emissions from the mill which coat the Bay with soot and charcoal, P(a)h's, Bp's and VOC's and sewer and storm outfalls from the city.
The pollution they cause is the smell of money and that gives them more rights to the once common resource, Okanagan Lake.
Just around the corner from the Bay to the north and to the south, Waterfront property owners are allowed to construct docks and boat storage and lifts out into the lake and block public access to the foreshore completely.
These people are the chosen ones. The lake has been saved specially for them. You see, the commons, once belonging to all creatures equally, has now been given to the privileged ones with the most money, the best parts for the richest. Such is the birth-right of the rich. They laughingly usurp the birth right of those who are not.
Its wicked and unjust and should launch a rebellion. #OccupyOkanaganLake #ItsEveryonesCommons. It is the tragedy of Capitalism. Tis the theft of the commons from all species for the privilege of the wealthy.
Copyright 2012 Jorma Jyrkkanen. All rights reserved.
Tags: commons, tragedy, capitalism, Jorma Jyrkkanen
5 May 2012
A day that threatened rain but provided sunshine just when we needed it at lunch was perfect for the 18+/- km hike from Parking to the lakes/return. A bevy of Vultures hung near the road suggesting a dead deer in the ditch.
Follow the Canyon trail til you see a red ribbon saying TRAIL on the left near the end of the wide part of the canyon but before the steep fork to the right. Along the canyon you traverse Majestic cliffs.
And a fabulous forestry grade Ponderosa Pine Plus tree that survived the fire despite most of its neighbours being reduced to carbon and ash.
Then clamber up and over and along ridges running southerly gaining elevation til you hit the lakes at Lat 49 d 43 m 57.9 N X Long 119 d 40 m 47.82 s West. Not for the feint of heart or the unfit.
This first view of the North Turtle lake is followed by a scramble down to the lakes and some log walking.
North Turtle Lake. A small piece of heaven.
Along the way you encounter snakes and dead turtles and even fresh bear scats, large numbers of elk droppings, inceasing White tailed deer and Mule deer and may see California bighorn sheep and Mountain goats. Goodly signs of life and busy swallows attested to the abundant life in the area. Rich and thriving it was.
A Painted(?) turtle perhaps killed by a predator attacked while searching for nesting for its eggs. We debated whether it was a weasel, a coyote, skunk or bear. Without forensic study we would have to settle for 'open file', 'jury out'. The dorsal carapace had been cracked like it had large jaws. My assessment of this site for turtles is that safe nesting habitat and haul out logs in the lake are limiting. The female garter snake smeared herself with cloacal odors by vigorous writhing with herself thinking I was of the bear variant predator which might turn my nose up at a meal if it was foul. If I had been very very hungry it wouldn't have worked but it did make me wipe my hands on the bunchgrass, ever so abundant after the fire. I saw two varieties of garter on this hike, one with black, gray, yellow; another black, gray, yellow and red. I have seen a brown one in the region as well some years ago.
A hike of this duration requires lunch for the beast(s) doesn't(don't) run on water and fresh air alone.
Figuring out the use of the prospectors can opener for organic Costco lentil soup. Thought I might try it. Not a 'vegetarian' which translated into Swampy Cree means 'poor hunter'.
South Turtle Lake is a world class gem. Holes for nesting being in short supply led to scuffles between males for the attention of the female Barrows goldeneye.
The reedy lakes were home to Barrows, Bufflehead, Ruddy duck, Coots, Tree swallows, Rough winged swallows and Violet green swallows. Numerous passerines were moving through chief among them the Yellow rumped warblers and Empidonax flycatchers. Raptors and Vultures plied the skies above.
On the way back we found these tempting but not good morels. Dried you might eat them but I'd rather eat my worn old hiking boots.
Ten hardy folks embarked and ten hardy folks returned on their own steam and that my friends is a good day. Wood ticks made sure we wouldn't forget our trip. Get em quick before they bite is the rule. Ticks carry Lyme's disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a Rickettsia, an ancient relative to the mitochondria we have in our cells for energy, (obtained from an endogenous symbiotic bacteria that moved into our cells long long long ago). Nasty gene altering yuckies. A friend's daughter had Lymes disease in Terrace, BC. Thanks to my mitochondrial ATP and NAD, I was able to complete this long hike.
Copyright 2012 Jorma Jyrkkanen. All rights reserved.
Tags: Hike, Turtle Lakes, Okanagan, BC, Canada, Jorma Jyrkkanen
4 May 2012
A Chipping sparrow I believe.
Notice how the lateral stripes of the eye have at the back of the head expanded to form the illusion of eyes to ward off predatory attack from the rear.
Note the forked tail of this little chipper.
There were other new comers to Kelowna today and a mom was proudly parading them. 13 in total I counted. Lovely.
I came upon a puzzle also, by what quirk of fate did this chap end up on the cycle path? Was he dropped by and Osprey? Likely had to give it up in a pirate attack.
This hungry osprey hovering may have been the very one to lose his fish.
Down at Brandt's creek is a one legged Red winged Black Bird who has made a life on social assistance begging crumbs off passers bys and seems to be getting on rather well. Neither Sharp shinned hawk nor Coopers has chanced upon his presence apparently.
I call him Long John Blackfeather.
Such was the news on 4 May in the Central Okanagan of British Columbia this fine day.
Copyright 2012 Jorma Jyrkkanen. All rights reserved.
Tags: birds, migration, spring, Okanagan, Kelowna, BC, Jorma Jyrkkanen
2 May 2012
16 Brave souls set out and 15 came back home. One had a different fate. The trail up was steep but we all made it. When planning your hike, do take the time to look at your footwear and ask if it will provide ample support and footing for the long arduous hikes we embark upon. WE are mortals. Keep that in mind.
The Basalt in Boucherie cooled at a moderate rate because the crystals are mid sized. This boulder peeled off the cliff above possibly during the earthquake of 1945 or just by random excision of frost and gravity. Over 50 million years ago this valley was a hot bed of volcanism with Dilworth, Boucherie and Knox blowing their stacks repeatedly over a long time period. I found petrified wood in the lava stratigraphy on Knox suggesting trees grew between eruption episodes.
There was agate in the lava on Boucherie, a handy crystal for making arrowheads and knives for local natives perhaps. I would have used it had I been around in those days. Agate is made of chalcedony quartz. Agates are chemically similar to jasper, flint, chert, petrified wood, tiger's-eye, and may be found in association with opal. Note the smoth extensive uniform biconcave flaking of its crystal, ideal for arrowheads and knives. Boucherie has a very different chemistry to Knox which has no agate that I have run across, supporting the view that the Okanagan Lake basin is an ancient fault line separating distinct plutons.
Intrepid crew of naturalists enjoying a peak experience. Note the other two valley volcanoes in the back ground, Knox on the left and Dilworth on the right.
A lovely Oiseau D'jour graced our presence proving that blue can also be uplifting. Blue birds are not lazy apparently because to fly up a mountain when an easier valley passage was available proves they do not think of such things.
We pass an omen of bad luck along the trail, clearly the end of the trail for one of evolution's marvellous creatures, an old buck with worn teeth.
Probably this very boulder on the south aspect near the summit has according to Roland, been the site of hibernation for lady bugs for a number of years. How odd that a particular insect that only lives several years has a multi-year tradition. Must be mediated by pheromones and precise specs. What do we really know about nature is what this seems to say?
The end is near for one member especially who got a piggy back out and a van ride to the hospital with a broken ankle. Sad but our best wishes ride with her for a speedy recovery.
A bonding experience and a reminder of our fallibility and the importance of being very careful at all times and I might add prepared. When negotiating steep terrain, if you don't have the ankles of a Masai Warrior who runs down antelope over lava til they die of heat exhaustion 19 miles later, its best to have hiking boots with good ankle support.
Bye the way, the evolutionary reason our fur got thin was so we could sweat out excess heat and outrun antelope not so our honeys would look sexy when we got back to the mud huts.
Copyright 2012 Jorma Jyrkkanen. All rights reserved.
Tags: hiking, Okanagan, BC, Canada, Mt Boucherie, extinct volcano, hibernating lady bugs, agate, Jorma Jyrkkanen
1 May 2012
The Fisheries Act habitat provisions simply ask of development one thing, respect, and in return it will provide in perpetuity, sustainable development.
It asks that deleterious substance not be deposited in streams and that there not be harmful alteration, degradation or overall loss of habitat. This is not rocket science, it is good house keeping. If you dump poison in your well you will kill yourself. Fish are part of the well of human life and the life of the ecosystem members we depend upon for health, nourishment and spiritual sustenance. The Ecosystems provide us with free capital in perpetuity if we but take care of them. Humanity did not evolve in concrete and oil and pesticides. We evolved in pristine forests and savannahs where every fruit was edible, every pond potable, and all things were healthy or they rapidly were consumed and recycled.
A healthy planet is one that will sustain us. The Federal government wants to alter the fisheries act to a regressive state where utilitarian values for humans are the only criteria. We learned from DDT and the burning rivers of earlier industrial America and the polluted Great Lakes which the IJC is struggling to recover and huge cost, that nature has to be taken care of at the outset of development.
Chinook, Kalum river, NW BC.
The Fisheries Act has the teeth to do that. Part of Canada's wealth is our natural treasure being clean and abundant life supporting water and its fish stocks. That clean water also supports waterfowl, diving birds that eat fish, eagles, ospreys and swallows that eat insects hatched in streams and the rich and lovely forests, grasslands, fens and bogs, riparian homes of furbearers which trappers depend upon, and forests for moose and deer, wolves and bears which feed so many hunters, especially the aboriginal peoples who live there on the land, and city folks who need recreation and contact with our natural selves, all of whose loss causes irripairable harm to the spiritual happiness of humanity.
We have lost the Cod for lack of political will to protect a single species. Let us not invoke regressive changes to wisdom that would endanger for all time every ecosystem in Canada and by the rivers that flow into the sea, the world.
The Fisheries Act is enforced by Co-managers amongst the Aboriginal Peoples because they understand the respect it imbues for what they value. All Canadians know it is wrong to defile our waterways and all Canadians respect the Fisheries Act habitat provisions. Lets not change it but rather find the political will to apply if more forcefully so that our developments will be sustainable for all time.
Pike, Oxford Lake, N. Manitoba
I taught the Fisheries Act to First Nations youth in Northern Manitoba and one young lady came up to me at graduation and said by learning about it and the protection of our nature, I had given her a reason to succeed and build a career in that direction. She said my course gave her meaning in her life.
I urge all Canadians to support and protect now an endangered future and say no to proposed government changes to the collective wisdom of our ancestors and leading scientists. Keep the Fisheries Act intact. I urge Harper to take his kids fishing in a canoe into the Quetico Wilderness, listen to the mournful call of the loon and chatter of grebes and cry of wolves and ask himself what really in Canada, is our national treasure.
Steelhead, Kitimat, BC
I took my son fishing like my father took me fishing and those were the happiest times of our lives. Its an ancient tradition in our family and its priceless. Its incumbent on all peoples to maximize gross national happiness (GNH).
Jorma Jyrkkanen, BSc, PDP
Biologist/Naturalist/
Formerly Jyrkkanen Environmental Consulting
30 Arpil 2012
Rarely do we see aggression between species, because evolution has provided species with their own niches. At the feeder that all changes and agnostic behaviours are elicited by competition for the same food access points. I was watching a friend's feeders and picked up these nice pics when a Male Goldfinch let fly with the nasty comments.
A rather well behaved male House finch.
A female Goldfinch enjoying sunflower seeds, which by the way are the favoured food of many seed eaters.
Then this perky male Goldfinch came to get his share. Why the bright yellow I wondered?
He laid into the poor White crowned sparrow below with language that was clearly understood as the shocked sparrows posture validates.
Avian language is heavy to body language and scolding calls when ti comes to limited access at food stops. Keep in mind feeders are unnatural. In nature food is usually very dispersed so there is little inter-specific aggression and niches are isolated by evolution which adapted species to their own unique habitats. Delightful catch this pic.
Copyright 2012 Jorma Jyrkkanen. All rights reserved.
Tags: birds, feeders, interspecific aggression, unnatural, Jorma Jyrkkanen
30 April 2012
I chanced upon this handsome dude, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, roosting in a good launch pad in a tall Cottonwood overlooking Sutherland Bay in Kelowna, near the foot of Knox Mountain. From here they take fish and waterfowl. Yesterday I saw one trying to take a loon but the loon was able to stay under longer than the eagle could do tight circles.
Note the black eye ring, a characteristic of the male.
Copyright 2012 Jorma Jyrkkanen. All rights reserved.
Tags: birds, birding, raptors, Bald eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, Okanagan Lake, Kelowna, BC, Jorma Jyrkkanen
30 April 2012
Thanks to Elke for the tip I was able to get these lovely shots. Five fishing buddies passing by headed for a favourite fishing hole, nesting turf somewhere north of here and chanced upon this spit near the Westbank Yacht Club for a night's rest while the flying weather was sub-optimal. It may also be a spot long in their collective memories as a safe refuge for weary travellers.
Sunshine at last and time to preen and flex those muscles.
Time to head for the launch pad and get up into the sunshine.
Goodbye Westbank Yacht Club spit.
Thanks for gracing us ornithology Aficionadas with your lovely dignified presence. Pelecanus erythrorhynchos. Another marvel of evolutionary creation.
Copyright 2012 Jorma Jyrkkanen. All rights reserved.
Tags: birds, ornithology, White Pelicans, migrants, West Bank, Okanagan, BC, Canada, Jorma Jyrkkanen
29 April 2012
Right in the city of Kelowna, a pair of Red tailed hawks have upgraded a multi year nest and appear to be on station attending to eith young chicks or eggs. I saw a head poking out probably sitting a month or more ago so presume success.
I take this picture as evidence that there is a brood on the way in this nest and declare it active.
Good news for human relations with wildlife. I suspect there are at least another two nests of this species in the City limits, one on Knox and one along the Mission Greenway. Provision of large nesting trees and clumps with adequate security by our City planners will help to ensure this interesting and symbiotic relationship will continue into the future.
Copyright 2012 Jorma Jyrkkanen. All rights reserved.
Tags: Red tailed hawk, buteo, Munson's Pond, Kelowna, city planning, Jorma Jyrkkanen
29 April 2012
A few pics of our day. Exemplary leadership and trail selection by our leader Bruce.
The canyon is largely ecological reserve, some private property and a bit posted as No Trespassing. Climbers love it. I got shots of them from the bottom. I mentioned as we were driving in we had seen Lewis's Woodpeckers in the south aspect large Ponderosa pine, full of nesting holes, acting territorial on a previous occasion and these habitats are in danger of being lost to development, logging and of all things from what we saw, Starlings.
A climber from the top on a two pitch ascent. This climber had stopped about a third of the way up and was turning back.
We scattered across the canyon rim at one point for a delightful vantage point and I got this shot. We saw a Bald eagle soaring overhead, probably a male out for a sail but ever watchful for a meal while his mate incubated. I have seen paired Golden eagles in the canyon in prior years.
The forest as was pointed out by Bruce was Larch and Cedar in places. There are very many Larch varaints adapted to to a wide range of conditions, this species being found across the taiga, boreal forest, specific montane regions. Ponds and lakes along the Canyon floor harbour amphibia including frogs who were croaking their spring love songs while we were there. Didn't see the Alligator lizards I saw on a previous visit. Alligator lizards look very similar to their cousins in the UK to which North America was joined when the lizards ancestors were one.
An Audubons warbler just passing through the region, searching near the ground for feeding opportunities amongst emerging insects. I noted several on our trip. John pointed out a singing vireo, and a Townsend's solitaire. Small green birds were passing through but I didn't get close enough to ID them for sure, possibly kinglets. We heard the yanking of nuthatches and hard thumping of a Pileated woodpecker, keystone species for provision of nesting for so many cavity dwellers. I heard a singer I thought might be a rarer bird but wasn't sure of the species. I am still learning to ID BC birds by call and have a long way to go. Photography definitely helps as does the shared experience of the club members.
An delightful blue epiphyte, Clematis is doing well in the ecological reserve.
At lunch I was updated by one of our members on a global DNA digital database connected to satellites which could just touch an organism, compare it to the database and tell the relatedness of a species at once. I think it is called the barcode project.
I added that depending on the depth of resolution of our perspective we are all one or distant cousins or near family. If you look at our quarks and ask what are they related to then the entire universe is part of us. If you look at the energy contained in them, then we are connected to eternity. If you look at creatures encoded by DNA then almost all life on earth possibly shared common kin at one point. We are made up of our inherited features from genomes we acquire by linear kinship and other genomes we acquire by lateral sources as for example from diverse sources like bacteria and retroviruses and every time our ancestor organisms entered an endosymbiotic partnership during its acquisition of complexity.
A great hike amid wild and beautiful and rare scenic opportunity and good company.
Copyright 2012 Jorma Jyrkkanen. All rights reserved.
Tags: Cougar Canyon, Okanagan, BC, hiking, naturalists, Jorma Jyrkkanen
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