Poignant pink cherry and magnolia blossoms now boastfully, gaudily, proclaim the onset of spring. They know the rain can't hold out much longer.
From the aspens above the cherries, Yellow-rumped "Audubon's" Warblers join the chorus of Black-capped Chickadees. Though the aspen flowers are not nearly as bright as the cherries, they make up for it in the bright-colored warblers that hang, ostensibly suspended by small insects, from their branches.
After growing up in Michigan and going to college in Boston, one of the greatest things about living in Vancouver is getting a chance to view the new and different flora and fauna.
Except, most of the species are almost the same.
But not quite.
The Audubon's warblers that bedeck the nearby aspens look almost like the Myrtle warblers common in Michigan. But not quite. The throat color easily differentiates these two subspecies of the Yellow-rumped warbler
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| Yellow-rumped "Myrtle" Warbler. Magee Marsh, Ohio. 5/16/10 |
Earlier this winter, I saw some large green leaves poking their way up through the mud. Without even learning over, I could smell the fresh skunky smell. I thought I knew what they were. Skunk Cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus. Seeing this familiar plant so far away from where I grew up, made me feel as though we were partners on this west coast adventure.
However, yesterday I was out walking, in the rain, of course, and I came upon the Skunk Cabbage plant again. Except now it was blooming, and it definitely wasn't anything like the plant of my youth. Large, resplendent yellow blossoms peered up from the soggy ground.
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| Lysichiton americanus. Vancouver, BC |
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| Symplocarpus foetidus. Waterloo Recreation Area, Michigan. |
These two species don't just look different, though. They also smell different. The yellow Lysichiton americanus flowers have a lovely, sweet smell, while Symplocarpus foetidus flowers smell like rotting meat. This noisome characteristic helps the flowers to attract and trick scavenging insects to pollinate it.
However, the two plants also have similarities. Both have skunk-smelling leaves, and both have a flower with a club-shaped spadix peering out of its spathe, indicative of family Araceae.
However, not all organisms here look similar to those in the East.
Some organisms common in the Pacific Northwest, indeed, could hardly be more different. None of Michigan's common ducks look anything like this.
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| Harlequin Duck Bellingham Bay, WA 4/1/17 |
And while the skunk cabbage flowers taste very different here, I'm confident that the blueberries will taste equally sweet. Spring has barely begun, but I'm already excited for summer.
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| Blooming Blueberry (Vaccinium) spp. Vancouver, BC. |
