Dedicated to my friends (the ones not in Vancouver).

Today, I was planning to bring my Taiwanese friend to visit Richmond Nature Park because I am pretty sure he will enjoy the natural side of Lower Mainland besides the people and buildings. Sadly, due to unforeseeable events, he was not able to come. I still went to the Nature Park (and then the Garden City Community Park) by myself. I took many pictures and they are for all of my friends around the world to show this beautiful place that I live in called Richmond.

Anyways, I haven't come to the Nature Park for quite a while now, so this place is becoming quite unfamiliar to me. The park contains the remnant of the Greater Lulu Island Bog and the soil is very acidic due to the Sphagnum moss species within the park. These mosses can absorb large amounts of water, and they secrete acid to help absorb other scarce nutrients. Therefore, most of the vegetation in the bog must tolerate a high water table and a soil that is low in nutrients and pH.

Some of the plants that are found in the park are: heaths, Labrador tea, salal, native and domestic blueberries and cranberries, cloudberry, Shore Pines, ferns, western hemlock, red elderberry, and sundews.

This was what the sky looked today (for the most part), and then it rained for a little while before back to sunny blue skies again. Quite beautiful. I didn't see a rainbow though. Pity.

Imagine a jigsaw puzzle made from this picture...confusing!

I saw many fungi today, and once again, I am incompetent in identifying them.

Staghorn Jelly fungus (Calocera cornea)

This is one of the interesting creatures that I came across today. Asked for help at bugguide, and the answer seems to be Tachinus spp. (Rove Beetles in the Family Staphylinidae). Mine looks like this one close-up.

I also saw this spider with another spider species by its web. Strangely, they were aware of each other's presence but no fights were happening. I wonder if it is because they were too stressed by the raindrops on their bodies to fight anymore.

Mostly likely a Winter Wren (Troglodytes trolodytes) with the stubby tail in that position.

Unknown accipiter.

Unknown scat.

Douglas's squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii)

Pathway to a magical world...and no, not Disney.

Unknown species.

Downy woodpecker (Picoides pubescens)

This woodpecker seems to have a yellow cap, which narrows down to either American Three-toed Woodpecker or Black-backed woodpecker??

Such a wonderful place for birds. My future backyard will definitely have something like these.

Well-mannered Black-capped Chickadees. Some of them were even lining up to use the feeders.

Very few people were in the park today. Not sure why because the weather was lovely and so were the animals.

I hope I will get time to attend this event in two weeks. Seems to be very exciting!

And bats of BC!!! I wonder if there are any roosts inside the park.

After Nature Park, I went to the Garden City Community Park, which is the first time I've been there. I always wanted to go there because several other bloggers seem to enjoy going there to see the plants and birds.

This is one of the well-known mushrooms that I can identify. I am pretty sure even a brainless organism can do it. This is a Fly Agaric Mushroom, Amanita muscaria. Definitely not a good idea to eat them.

Then I was stumped by another fungus (again). It seems to be a puffball, but it was definitely hard when I tried to poke it with a stick.

Besides being frustrating by my ignorance, I was still able to enjoy the Canadian Geese, as well as the lonely Pied-billed Grebe chick (Podilymbus podiceps).

I know the presence of the grebes in the park from reading Hugh's post, but today, I only saw one chick swimming and diving alone. It was trying to join a couple of mallards, but they swam away from the chick. No siblings or parents were observed, I wonder if they had left (or forgot) this poor little one behind. Hope it will know to migrate south when the winter comes.