Dabbling In Bryos

Day 184: Lichenology and bryology go pretty much hand in hand, although I've avoided bryophytes as being way too complicated. Still, there are a few mosses I know and love, and a lot of bryos have enchanting multi-syllabic scientific names. Anyone who knows me as more than a passing acquaintance knows my love of words; it was only a matter of time before I fell to temptation. I was given a firm push at the lichenologists' conference when I discovered Bruce McCune had written a field guide to the Pacific Northwest's more common mosses, and of course I find field guides absolutely irresistible. I figured I'd start with something which looked easy (at least I hoped it would be as easy as it looked!). I was pretty sure my fence moss conformed to Dicranoweisia cirrata (ooooh, that's a good one), but the deal was clinched when I stuck a leaf under the dark-field microscope and it looked just exactly like the picture in Bruce's book. Well, that was fun! What's next?

Caterpillars In My Pockets

Day 88: Could my path have been laid before me by my parents who, on the occasion of my first birthday, presented their infant daughter with a planter in the shape of a caterpillar, a cactus growing from the middle of his back? Yes, that's the very item to which I refer, there in the lower right corner of this image. As far back as I remember, collecting ceramic "worms" was one of the joys of childhood. Whenever my folks found one in a shop, they'd buy it and give it to me some time later as a gift. I've lost a few in moves over the years, although I still have quite a few which are almost as old as I am.

"Worms" (as I called them) later became the bane of my mother's existence. She didn't mind so much when I brought home an inchworm, insisting upon keeping it as a pet in a Mason jar, but when tent caterpillar season arrived, it's a wonder she didn't send me out to play stark naked. It was almost a given than when I returned home, any or all of my pockets would be full of wriggling, live caterpillars, dozens of them. I was particularly intrigued by the fact that about 1:100 tent caterpillars was blue instead of orange. Of course I now know that these were two different species, respectively Malacosoma disstria (Forest Tent Caterpillar) and Malacosoma californica (Western Tent Caterpillar), but at the time I simply thought they were worth further study and therefore would spend long hours searching "tents" for specimens. My mother was profoundly unappreciative of my research.

Perhaps it's for the best that as I matured, my passion for natural history became more focused on the subjects of birds and wildflowers, although whenever I spot a "worm" of any sort, I greet it cordially and move it out of harm's way. When the Woolly Bears emerge, I patrol the road in front of my house, shifting them from the pavement into safety. Needless to say, my walks are somewhat shortened by multiple rescues. Woolly Bears are one of the few caterpillars I recognize, but that may change, thanks to a gift from friends of "Life Histories of Cascadia Butterflies." This new field guide covers every...yes, every...species in detail, with photographs of every instar of every caterpillar found in Washington and marginally into British Columbia, Oregon and Idaho. Sounds like I may be coming home with my pockets full of caterpillars again.

My New Favourite Coffee Mug

Day 274: ...and my thanks to Paul John for permission to use/adapt his hilarious graphic, originally submitted to the Bird Phenology Program! It took me a while to find a place to have it printed on a mug, and several trips back and forth before we got it into a form which wasn't either too wide or too tall to fit in the space allotted.

If you're at all familiar with the family of Flycatchers known as the Empidonax complex, this "field guide" will have you in stitches. It begins in the upper left corner with Least and progresses through Willow, Alder, Acadian, Pacific-slope, Cordilleran, Hammond's, Dusky and Gray, culminating in "Buff-breasted with bad backlighting" and "Heavily oiled leucistic yellow-bellied." All the bird heads are identical, an issue most of us have encountered in the field all too many times.

Flycatchers on the west coast are the equivalent of the east coast's "confusing fall warblers" catalogued over several pages in Roger Tory Peterson's book. There aren't as many, but personally, I think they're harder to differentiate.