Towheeblog

July 28, Friday– Sunshine and still air. Nora and I tasted our first sweet wild blackberries today. It’s that time of the year. Sadly I also blogged about the bloom of blue-green algae in one bay of Klamath Lake, an unhappy event for man and fish alike.
Along the South Yamhill in Joe Dancer Park the water’s surface was glistening. The bright sunlight sparkled as it reflected back from the water. Why? Closer looks found many water striders making tiny wakes of foamy wavelets as they skittered across the surface on their eight spindly legs. It was those miniature crests and valleys that caught the light and projected the brighter, whiter frequencies back into the sky.
Some of the more advanced thistles are already sending their seed-bearing fluff into the air. You can see it almost anywhere outside here these days. It may look cottony or fuzzy but to the touch it is silky, enabling it to slid along bare surfaces until it comes to rest somewhere rougher, like a patch of grass or weeds or pocket of leaves. The thistle silk’s texture means it would easily slid right over a rock or sidewalk or along a pane of glass.

The unmown grassy areas are rife with blooming Queen Anne’s lace but there are further flowers hidden in the density: pink and white clover, a wild mint, some gangly cousin of the dandelion, bindweed. Among them a few bees. Though blackberries are ripening the vines are also still blooming. Those flowers and the thistles seemed to be most popular with the local bees.
Recently Nora and I were at Wennerberg Park and there is a small apiary in the corner of a pink clover field there. Those hives were buzzing, hundreds of bees were circling, landing and leaving from the busy bee town.

Finch and chickadee at our garden feeders: