The foothills of the northern Rockies are littered with abandoned homesteads.
This is along one of my favorite moose haunts in the Pintlar Mountains where
I radio-collared wolverines back in the day. Note the dead and dying pine trees,
killed by beetles whose laraval stage is no longer limited by extremely low winter
temperatures.
We also spent some time with a breeding pair of American Dippers this week along
a snow-melt fed creek brown with tannins. Dippers are the only truly aquatic songbird,
and like most dippers, this pair made their nest out of moss affixed under an overhang
at the creek’s edge, perfectly inaccessible to predators. If there is one species vulnerable
to climate change, it’s certainly an aquatic songbird whose livelihood depends on snowpack
and low water temps to nurture the invertebrate prey this female searches for.
Unlike noctuid moths, these geometrid moths hold their wings flat against whatever
surface they’ve landed on, one based on their own wing color. Although not a perfect
match, this little emerald has chosen at least the right color range. North America is
blessed with 1,400 species, the larvae of which are lumped into the layman’s moniker
of “inch worm”. Some geometrid populations have changed color match environments
darkened by air pollution.
Last but not least, is a lovely little patch of shooting stars (Dodecatheon pulchellum), a
plant whose Latin binomial literally means “twelve beautiful gods”.
