Searching for Chipmunks: Manning Park Wildlife

On our last visit to Manning Park, we hoped to find the Cascade Mantled Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus saturatus) , which is known from there. This is a species of restricted distribution in North America, found only in the Cascade Mountains of Washington and BC. The BC Species and Ecosystem Explorer gives its range as: "Cascade Mountains from southern British Columbia (west to the Fraser River, north to the Nicola River, east to the Okanagan River) south to Columbia River in Washington". While our drive through the forest service and park roads turned up a lot of wildlife, there was no sign of any chipmunks at all, and it wasn't until we visited Lightning Lake in Manning Park that we finally found a Chipmunk. But this wasn't the Cascade Mantled Ground Squirrel, it was the Yellow-pine Chipmunk (Tamias amoenus). This is a much more widespread species, and easy to spot in the day use areas of the park. The Explorer gives it's range as: "Western North America, from central British Columbia and southwestern Alberta south to Yolla Bolly Range (now, isn't that a neat name!) and Mammoth Pass in California, northern Nevada, and northwestern Utah, east to central Montana and western Wyoming; elevations of 975-2900 m in California (Sutton 1992; Hoffmann et al., in Wilson and Reeder 1993)."

As it turns out there is a small population of the Cascade Mantle Ground Squirrel up at the Manning lookout on the way to the alpine meandows. We didn't see any when we stopped there, but maybe next time. I suppose I might have to open my eyes to find them. That view is a challenge for someone with vertigo.

Yellow Pine Chipmunks have five distinctive blacks stripes and four white stripes, with the middle black stripe running from the head all the way to the tail.

There are five subspecies of Yellow-pine Chipmunk reported for BC, however genetic work doesn't support these subspecies distinctions (Nagorsen 2005).

Reference:

Nagorsen, David W. 2005. Rodents and Lagomorphs of British Columbia. Volume 4: Mammals of British Columbia. Handbook. Royal BC Museum, Victoria.

Clark's Nutcracker: a forester at heart

When we visited Manning Park a few weeks back, we saw a number of Clark's Nutcrackers. This is a distinctive, fairly large, member of the crow family (Corvidae), and in spots like Manning Park it is often seen around the park lodge, foraging amongst the Columbian Ground Squirrels that inhabit the open lawns, or up near the lookout. What's interesting about Clark's Nutcrackers is that they are very tied to pine trees as a food source, especially to two higher alpine 'white pine' species: whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) and limber pine (Pinus flexilis). The birds store pine seeds for later use, and as a result are the major dispersal agent for these two species. According to Wikipedia, "Clark's Nutcrackers each cache about 30,000 to 100,000 [pine seeds] each year in small, widely scattered caches usually under 2 to 3 cm of soil or gravelly substrate. Nutcrackers retrieve these seed caches during times of food scarcity and to feed their young. Cache sites selected by nutcrackers are often favorable for germination of seeds and survival of seedlings. Those caches not retrieved by time snow melts contribute to forest regenetation. Consequently,Whitebark Pine often grows in clumps of several trees, originating from a single cache of 2-15 or more seeds." Apparently the birds can find their seed cache with ease even after many months, and under a thick blanket of snow.

Limber pine is restricted in BC to a small region in the eastern part of the province, while whitebark pine has a much broader distribution (which more or less matches the breeding distribution of Clark's Nutcracker). However, Pinus albicaulis is a species in decline, a result of infections by white pine blister rust, an introduced fungal disease that is taking its toll on the species. It is also attacked by Mountain Pine beetle, a species that is devastating forests in BC. Clark's Nutcrackers do eat seeds from other pine trees as well as insects and berries, and even suet from feeders. Let's hope that this variaton in their diet means they have enough adaptability to survive the decline of their major food sources.

Clark's Nutcrackers have large strong bills that are used to open pine cones.

View a Canadian distribution map for Clark's Nutcracker.
View the Breeding Bird Atlas of BC map for Clark's Nutcracker.
View photos of whitebark pine from the E-Flora BC photo gallery.
View photos of limber pine from the E-Flora BC photo gallery.
View photos of Clark's Nutcracker on E-Fauna BC.

Whitebark pine and limber pine are very similar in appearance. The E-Flora atlas pages for these species indicate how to separate them.

Everywhere you look it's purple loosestrife--except when it's not

In ditches, in ponds, along creek shores and lake edges, everywhere we turn this last two weeks the invasive alien species purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) is colouring the landscape with great splashes of fuschia pink/purple.


But, then, so is the native fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium), with the same splash of fuschia pinky purple...The Garden City lands in Richmond are alive with fireweed this week, great swaths of pink stretching across the drier areas.



To the novice, it can be confusing sorting the two species out. But the first clue is habitat: one is a wetland species, the other is a dryland species. If you feet are getting wet while you smell the flowers, it's loosestrife. The second clue is the shape of the flowers. Fireweed flowers have noticeable long, emergent stigmas that give the flowers a distinctive look. The third clue is the shape of the flowering spike: fireweed spikes taper noticeably to the tip, while loosestrife spikes are a bit more of a uniform width from top to bottom, although they do taper a bit. For resource managers, knowing the difference between these two species is important if there is species removal going on aimed at invasion control.

In BC, the two species have very different ranges: fireweed is found throughout BC, but purple loosestrife is found only in the very southern part of the province.

Visit the E-Flora photo gallery for purple loosestrife to get a good view of the shape of the flowering spikes.

Visit the E-Flora photo gallery for fireweed to get a good view of the shape of the spikes on this species.

Butterflies in BC: Parnassius claudius

Butterflies are always interesting, although here in the delta species numbers are somewhat depauperate--we see few species on any given day. But in the Hope area, the number of butterflies jumps dramatically, and there are many species present there that are not found in the delta. One of these that we came across last weekend was Parnassius claudius (Claudius Parnassian). Along the Sumallo River road, these butterflies were plentiful on patches of ox-eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare). This is a very pretty butterfly with translucent wings and large orange spots (you can see in the photo enlargement that the plant petals are visible through the butterfl's wings). Colour pattern can be variable, but they all have a distinctive general look. Although in E-Fauna BC, larvae are listed by Guppy and Shepard as feeding on bleeding hearts (Dicentra formosa), the adults we observed (and there was quite a lot of them) were concentrated on ox-eye daisy, so perhaps this is also a larval food plant. We noticed only one bleeding heart plant in the area. Ox-eye daisy is an introduced species in BC that is abundant along roadways and open disturbed fields. Its use by this native butterfly is interesting. The ox-eye daisy was intermixed with native Penstemons and very armomatic introduced clovers (what a scent they fill the air with!). But is was the daisy that the butterflies were clustered on.


Visit the E-Fauna BC photo gallery for this species.

Thanks to Cris Guppy for identifying this new butterfly for us.

References:

Guppy Crispin S. and Jon Shepard. 2001. Butterflies of British Columbia. Royal BC Museum, Victoria.

Grouse: Dusky and Sooty in the bush

Ornithologists have recently separated the Blue Grouse into two species: the Dusky Grouse and the Sooty Grouse. Both species are present in Manning Park. Males are relatively easy to identify if they are displaying, and on the road to the lookout in the park, we saw one male Dusky Grouse displaying, showing off his red yolk--which is distinctive. Along the Sumallo River area near Hope, we saw lots and lots of female grouse with young as we traveled the forest service roads and other access roads. Our best guess is that these were more likely to be Sooty Grouse, but we really can't be sure. They were certainly very tame, lingering on the roadways, posing in nearby shrubs, calling softly to their young. The young were more cautious than their moms, taking their time to break cover and cross the roads, but even so they didn't move far from us.

Male Dusky Grouse. This bird was displaying and had a red 'yolk', making identification easier.

Female grouse, probably a Sooty Grouse. This mother grouse waited in the road for her chicks to cross, 'talking' to them the whole time.

The chicks took their time in crossing, keeping an eye on us as they crossed.

This mother grouse called her chicks to her after they crossed the road, then climbed a nearby shrub to keep an eye on us while her chicks 'disappeared' in the vegetation below her. She sat like this, fifteen feet from us, for quite a while.

Tailed Frogs: Habitat Specialists

Last week we wrote about finding a Pacific (Coastal) Tailed Frog tadpole. This past weekend we went back to the Hope area to search again and managed to catch an adult tailed frog. Once again, our high tech tools (hands, a plastic baggie and, this time, a little fish net) worked well. The adult frog was found higher up on the slope this time, but in a similar step pool in a narrow, fast flowing creek in shade. When you follow these river valleys searching for suitable small, cold water creeks, it quickly becomes apparent that the habitat type itself is uncommon. Especially when you consider that these frogs are habitat specialists and need little cold water creeks that stay water-filled with rushing water throughout the summer. Most of the creeks that we saw in the area had dried up. The permanent ones were few and far between. An interesting lesson in biogeography, rare species and rare habitats.

What beautiful camouflage!

This shot shows the 'tail', and the yellow in the eye.

Red Squirrels in Manning Park

On Sunday, we spent some time watching this Red Squirrel foraging in a lodgepole pine tree at Manning Park. We wondered what it was doing at first as it would run out to the tips of the branches, stretching as far as it could as they bent under its weight, then it would run back again. Finally we managed a clear view--it was harvesting pine cones and taking them away for storage. This species keeps caches of food, or middens, for winter feeding--which is their major survival strategy. Usually they harvest cones in August and early September when the seeds are ripe, and store them in the middens (the dampness of the middens probably inhibits germination), but maybe the very cool temperatures on Sunday prompted some early harvesting. The hail only added to the chill in the air.




Notes:

Grizzly bears eat seeds of conifers and will often raid squirrel food caches.

Red squirrels also eat fungi (storing them in tree branches), nuts and fruit, and are reported as major predators of forest birds, feeding on eggs and young birds. They are also reported to prey on newborn Snowshoe Hares. Read more about forest bird nest predation by Red Squirrels.

Eder and Pattie, in their book Mammals of British Columbia, say that Red Squirrel caches can sometimes be as big as a garage. That would be something to see!

Read this informative article about Red Squirrels in Ontario.


References:

Eder, Tamara and Don Pattie. 2001. Mammals of British Columbia. Lone Pine Publishing, Edmonton.