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nimblenewt.bsky.social
Nimblenewt
@nimblenewt.bsky.social
590 followers 680 following 790 posts
🇨🇦Nature nerd by the Salish Sea. Lichen enthusiast; nudibranchs, liverworts, tiny mushrooms, seaweed, plankton, authors and cats. Also amphibians! And invertebrates...
(Note: any newt-handling photos are only to remove them from roads or other dangers.)
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Another angle showing how knobbly they are! Such lovely weirdos.
A knobbly topped black fungus with a fibrous, hole filled stem grows from a gravel path covered in Doug Fir needles. The black fungus cap is a matte black with a kind of grey patina overlaying it, as if it is dusted with farina like an alpine primula. It feels like a jelly fungus when touched, but the stem, in spite of looking a bit spongy because of all the long holes, feels surprisingly tough. On the left is some black landscape fabric, at the top of the photo is the crenellated base of a black plastic shrub pot. (I know crenellated means the top of battlements, but I spend half my day looking at stacks of inverted pots with the wibbled part upmost, and it would be a lie to say I haven't imagined the monty python Holy Grail french troops shouting insults scene taking place from the top of the stacks, from time to time. So, crenellated!) I wonder what the elves are saddling with this bumpy fungus? Juncos, probably.
November 25, 2025 at 4:37 AM
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After not noticing any nifty fungi for ages, I saw so many good ones at work today - weird since it was the first frost of the year! I think this is Helvella vespertina, Fluted Black Elfin Saddle.
#mushrooms #fungifriends #Helvella
A knobbly topped black fungus with a fibrous, hole filled stem grows from a gravel path covered in Doug Fir needles. The black fungus cap is a matte black with a kind of grey patina overlaying it, as if it is dusted with farina like an alpine primula. It feels like a jelly fungus when touched, but the stem, in spite of looking a bit spongy because of all the long holes, feels surprisingly tough. On the top left of the photo is a cedar hedge, on the top right is the base of a big plastic shrub pot, with some drip irrigation lines flopped in the background.
November 25, 2025 at 4:28 AM
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#NatureBookChallenge
#trees #PNWnature
A blue book is pictured on a wood floor. The book has a green-barked plum twig on it, with pointy scaly buds. The book is called Winter Twigs by Helen M. Gilkey and Patricia L. Packard; it is the revised edition, published by Oregon State University Press.
November 21, 2025 at 1:20 AM
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#NatureBookChallenge
#trees

Jam-packed with knowledge.
The cover of a book with a photo of a Great Blue Heron perched on the grey-barked branch of a conifer, with green needle tufts along the bottom of the photo and a green haze of foliage in the background. The title of the book is Wildlife & Trees in British Columbia by Fenger, Manning, Cooper, Guy, and Bradford. (Published by Lone Pine Publishing, 2006.)
November 18, 2025 at 7:01 PM
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#NatureBookChallenge
#fungifriends
#MycoBookClub since there's no slimemold book club, alas.
A book sits on a wood floor. The book is Myxomycetes: A Handbook of Slime Molds by Steven L. Stephenson and Henry Stempen. The cover is cream, and has a painting of many slime molds in various iterations, some creeping, some fruiting, some about to fruit. The slimes are orange and brown and flame coloured and black with coral filaments. The painting places them on wood and a branch, with a blue sky as background.
November 17, 2025 at 4:15 PM
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#NatureBookChallenge
#InvertBookClub
#inverts

These book posts are supposed to be free of commentary but I've gotta say, this book has solved SO MANY "what the heck is *this* Weird Thing?!?" mysteries for me.
A photo of a pale blue book on a brown wood floor. The books is Tracks & Signs of Insects and Other Invertebrates: A Guide to North American Species by Charley Eiseman and Noah Charney. The cover has a big photo of a black beetle leaving foot tracks on amber sand, and 3 smaller photos: on left, of beetle larval feeding tubes in wood stuffed with frass; at the bottom a white egg case enclosed in a veil of intricate webbing; on the right a golden lepidopteran pupal case on either a piece of twig or grass, with some kind of black fuzz next to it.
November 12, 2025 at 11:16 PM
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Not to be a weirdo, but I love this book so much I made salt and pepper shakers based on two mushrooms it helped me identify, Mycena aurantiidisca (yes I should have made the stem white) and Mycena amicta (which may not have been a conclusive ID but it sure seemed right)🐌
A shiny ceramic pepper and salt shaker set sits on grass at the base of a tree, the one on the left is yellowy-orange and the one on the right a blue with green undertones.
November 11, 2025 at 7:04 AM
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#naturebookchallenge
#MycoBookClub
The cover of a book called The Outer Spores: Mushrooms of Haida Gwaii, by Paul Kroeger, Bryce Kendrick, Oluna Ceska, and Christine Roberts. It has a red and white Amanita muscaria mushroom at the top, a pale lavender Albatrellus flettii polypore on the bottom left, and a white frilly topped Stereopsis humphreyi mushroom on the bottom right. The game is not to editorialise, but this was the best mycology book I found for the fungi I saw in the deep Walbran and Carmanah rainforests on Vancouver Island's west coast.
November 11, 2025 at 6:55 AM
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Sideview. The buds are really pretty, they have little pointy bumps that form a circle when closed, like a mini crown; you can see them on the outside of the petals.
Side view of the passionflower, with the purple and white striping of the wiggly corona filaments more clearly visible. Also a better photo of the leaves, a few passionflowers have similar blooms to P. quadrangularis, but I think these deeply ceined glossy leaves are the most attractive of the bunch. (Sorry again for the blur, it was the dust on the sensor that I noticed too late, when I'd left the greenhouse.)
November 11, 2025 at 2:39 AM
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Passiflora quadrangularis throwing out a hidden slightly mangled flower at floor level - I found it via the pretty fragrance, it filled the greenhouse. The photo doesn't do it justice, potting soil on the sensor again. My favorite weirdo giant flower/ anemone mimic! It's about 15cm across.
#botany
Green deeply veined leaves with a quilted texture are the backdrop for a Giant Grenadilla flower, aka Passiflora quadrangularis. It is a striking bloom! Deep burgundy petals surround wiggly corona filaments that are striped purple and white. Six utterly pollen laden anthers surround four white stigmas that have burgundy stem speckling. It's a bonkers flower, it looks like some tropical anemone that would host clownfish or something. Very fragrant; it's the national flower of Grenada and (if pollinated) grows an enormous long fruit, I've read, but that has never happened with this plant in 12 years, likely because I only have the hummingbirds at this time of year when it flowers, and they only want to feast on the surfeit of tubular flowers in the houses. I'm very fond of this plant!
November 11, 2025 at 2:32 AM
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we're snailposting, post your snails!
A gloriously yellow and glossy brown swirled shell on a 5cm snail stands out against the spring green foliage of a sturdy dandelion. The snail is extended from its shell, downward in the perspective of the photo, its pupils (or equivalent) goggling a bit at the camera. EITHER a Pacific Sideband Snail (Monadenia fidelis) or an invasive Grove Snail (Cepaea sp, possibly C. nemoralis). I *thought* it was a Pacific Sideband snail when I took the photo, but then I got my snail handbook from the RBCMuseum and learned I need to invert them to see if they have an open umbilicus hole (PSideband) or a closed one (invasive grove snail). NONETHELESS, I love this snail, native or invasive. So pretty and skookum!
November 10, 2025 at 5:30 AM
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Darn it! I meant to post this on Hallowe'en - a huge lichen with a sinister expression! At Esquimalt lagoon, 3ft from the high tide line, next to the invasive green crab ID sign. I like its jaunty toupée.
#fungifriends #lichen #SalishSea
A large oval shaped white lichen with two pointy ear-shaped growths at the top has brown apothecia which, to a bemused pareidoleic mind, make it appear like it has eyes squinting in a meaningful (possibly predatory) way, and a grimace-shaped smiley where a mouth might be. Also it has a cheery plant between its ears like hair or a bonnet. It is growing on a rock with beach grass all around it. It is two steps from the ocean lagoon's entrance and next to a beautiful red mat of Salicornia (samphire or glasswort, aka Sarcocornia depending on the reference). The lichen probably grew this huge and got its attitude from all the crap of the resident cacaphony of Herring Gulls, always cheeky and swarming when anyone tries to eat a sandwich.
November 6, 2025 at 4:02 AM
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A boulevard Beech tree brightening this grey day. It's searing my eyes with colour!
A photo of a section of a young beech tree on the sidewalk in front of some shops. The foliage is brilliant yellow suffused with bright ketchup red - the best beech colour I've ever seen! The twigs and branches are grey-brown.
November 3, 2025 at 10:52 PM
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Another:
Image: Pitcher plants in a container, at centre a tall olive pitcher that has vertical red veins, the mid-sized plant has burgundy pitchers with white stained glass picotee, and the low plump yellow pitchers at the lower left are flushing red in the cold (which I bought thinking it was a yellow form of our native Canadian Sarracenia purpurea but now think is a cultivar of one from North Carolina). There are twiggy lichens holding them up and some lichens like Pulmonaria and Evernia insulating the dormant underplanted perennials. In the background are my greenhouses at work and metal benches, with a bigleaf maple that dropped many of the lichens, and a gren hedge. The Long Version: Assorted Sarracenia are pictured planted in a container, bolstered against the autumn gales by licheny twigs that have fallen from the Bigleaf maple and the Horse Chestnuts next to my greenhouses at work, and insulated against the coming frost at the base by more lichen and some mosses that I knocked off the greenhouse roof when I was cleaning the gutters in preparation for Friday's atmospheric river. Underneath (dormant) are the native Mimulus that blooms in spring, and Lindernia and Lysimachias that bloom in summer and also love the boggy conditions. I hadn't noticed how much they'd filled out since August when they were still looking a bit spindly; I planted these last December and am really pleased how they've filled out.
November 3, 2025 at 2:53 AM
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Next year's Sarracenia feature pots at work had a late season burst of growth and are looking peppy in the low autumn light. I filled in tbe bare spots with lichens that blew down in the storm, with anti-wind-gust twigs for support; putting them out on display, for fun, for the last frost free days.
Image: A cluster of tall olive pitcher plants with red midsized stained glass pitchers and then a small bright lemon stout pitcher plant are pictured in a container, interplanted with lichens and mosses. In the background are a green tall hedge, yellow leaved Horse Chestnut trees, a grey spindly Acacia dealbata with peach-coloured blooms, and the grey paddle-shaped leaves of Thalia dealbata. Assorted Sarracenia are pictured planted in a container, bolstered against the autumn gales by licheny twigs that have fallen from the Bigleaf maple and the Horse Chestnuts next to my greenhouses at work, and insulated against the coming frost at the base by more lichen and some mosses that I knocked off the greenhouse roof when I was cleaning the gutters in preparation for Friday's atmospheric river. Underneath (dormant) are the native Mimulus that blooms in spring, and Lindernia and Lysimachias that bloom in summer and also love the boggy conditions. I hadn't noticed how much they'd filled out since August when they were still looking a bit spindly; I planted these last December and am really pleased how they've filled out.
November 3, 2025 at 2:45 AM
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And even though I'm up in Canada, it seems like the booklet might be useful for you; it has some of your beautiful seaweeds including the sea palms (though you obviously know those already from your alt text haha). But the big book is a compendium of wild delights!
A page of the seaweed booklet from the previous post (full description in that alt text) picturing some bladed brown/rust/olive coloured seaweeds with their names, habitats and ranges.
October 28, 2025 at 4:50 AM
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Whoa those are some *lovely* finds! And they're not all wrecked up by the waves on rocks either, usually I just find bits which makes ID more cryptic. It's a great book, highly recommend, and one of the authors also made a handy little waterproof pocket guide of the more common species!
A photo of a waterproof booklet called A Field Guide to Seaweeds of the Pacific Northwest by Dr. Bridgette Clarkston, with a photo of a grey rock covered with Fucus distichus among other algae.
October 28, 2025 at 4:42 AM
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Trying to ID some nifty seaweeds in my new seaweed book, and having the same problem I have when I try to look up a word in a dictionary: I start reading, lose track of time, forget what I was looking up to start with, and then annoy people with weird trivia for the rest of the day.
A photo of the cover of Pacific Seaweeds by Louis Druehl and Bridgette Clarkston, featuring a lovely roiled pile of beached bull kelp in front of some grey rocks that are strangely free of both barnacles and winkles, unlike all the wave-bashed rocks around here that are thick with them (also limpets). It's a great book, it is teaching me about my very first epiphytic seaweed find!!!
October 28, 2025 at 1:56 AM
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The trees kept their leaves through the first storm! Yay for being in the rainshadow of the Olympics, it blunted the wind.
A canopy of multiple Japanese maple trees with green, red, orange and yellow leaves. The small orange leaved tree has very feathery and dissected leaves, the red- and green-leaved trees have sturdy small palmate leaves. The yellow leaved trees are in the background, leaf detail unknown. Their trunks are all stark black against the grey autumn sky.
October 25, 2025 at 2:54 AM
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Wild sky tonight as the front rolls in. Feeling lucky to be in the rain shadow of the Olympic range; up Island they're going to get 140mm in the next few hours, with huge winds. Goodbye bright fall leaves! Hello westcoast storm season.

#SalishSea #BCStorm
The black outline of conifers frames the edge of the photo, with the sky above split by a roiling backlit river of clouds to the west, where two fronts are colliding. Dark clouds are surging up below the cloud river, and pouring over the Malahat ridgeline.
October 24, 2025 at 1:15 AM
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Today was gloomy, so here's some seaweed that looks a bit like an octopus:

#phycology #SalishSea
A grey rocky tidepool filled wirh reflective water has a chunk of wave battered and time bleached Turkish Towel seaweed (Chondracanthus sp.) - at least I think it is - looking a bit like a small textured octopus as it is moved by the waves. Various other seaweeds are in the top of the tidepool, including rockweed (Fucus distichus) and sea lettuce bleached white, by age and maybe the colder season being the end of its life cycle? I'm not sure. It looks a bit like kleenex; the snails are feasting on it.
October 21, 2025 at 2:56 AM
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Happy tough survivors in tiny places! A collection of thriving lichen on a collapsed fence rail at Cattle Point, exposed to the full blast of storm winds and salt spray off the Straight.

#lichen #fungifriends #SalishSea
A fallen fence rail in close up is revealed to be coated with a minty crustose (possibly leprose? I'm still learning) lichen, interspersed with pretty grey-white patches with distinct black outlines and black apothecia, making them look like islands in a minty sea. A knot in the wood (in the centre of the photo) is occupied by a bright mustarf coloured lichen in a dense frilly, spongy tuft, with patches of yellow all around in the deeper crevices. Above it there is a very similar lichen but a deeper pumpkin orange colour. It is a happy thriving community in spite of the exposed location with constant wind and sun and sea-spray!
October 18, 2025 at 7:26 PM
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Lowering clouds this afternoon at the shore.

#clouds #SalishSea
Grey clouds roil with odd bulges across the sky, their dark intensity backlit by the beginning of sunset across the bay. They evoke a bread-dough that has risen and is now being punched down before a second rise. At the bottom of the photo the treeline and the tops of houses peek out; the water of the ocean is not visible.
October 17, 2025 at 2:22 AM
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The pumpkin reminds me so much of the tormented homeowner from the animated NFB film "The Cat Came Back" - though I concede a hefty dose of pareidolia is needed to make the jump without first adding the googly eyes😏
An animated man with a large nose and panting mouth, tongue extended in exhaustion, pants desperately in the ruins of his cartoon living room, complete with shattered windows and torn wallpaper. Somewhere nearby but out of frame, a cheerful cat plots his doom.
October 13, 2025 at 10:37 PM
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The series did get a reprint! In 2003 by Penguin! That's how I got the third book, after years of futile searching in used bookstores I found it on the shelf, shiny and new, in Munro's books! I wonder if your letter contributed to the reprinting?🙂
A photo of the Penguin edition of Pamela Dean's book The Whim of the Dragon, against a wood background. The cover shows a stone room with ornate windows, with a glass orb in the middle of the room with the image of a dragon inside the orb. The colours of the room at first seem like light from the sunset, but upon scrutinizing it feels like the swirl of colour is coming from the orb. The bottom of the cover reads: The Final Volume of the Secret Country Trilogy.
October 12, 2025 at 5:19 PM