#subalpine

[mountrainiernps]

The subalpine meadows of Mount Rainier are gleaming with red, orange, and yellow fall foliage! Higher elevation areas have already seen some snow and mornings can be quite frosty, but if you bundle up and are prepared for the conditions, it is a great time to get out.

There are a variety of subalpine plants with fall colors, including deep red huckleberry bushes (above, left) and bright yellow wild rhododendron shrubs (above, right).  

Where are you finding fall color in the park?

NPS Photos of fall color along the Bench & Snow Lake Trail, 9/30/23. ~kl

[downfalldestiny]

Spring in the subalpine meadows of Washington state 🌷🌺🌸🌻🪻!.

[misandrie]

A beautiful flower filled meadow near North Bend, British Columbia, Canada

[nimsage]

A beautiful flower filled meadow near North Bend, British Columbia, Canada

[luvarin]

A beautiful flower filled meadow near North Bend, British Columbia, Canada

[lmc-translations]

A beautiful flower filled meadow near North Bend, British Columbia, Canada

[yuricrispi]

A beautiful flower filled meadow near North Bend, British Columbia, Canada

[himekokosu]

Menziesia multiflora

[rabbitcruiser]

Miles Canyon, YT (No. 3)

The Miles Canyon Basalts represent a package of rocks that include various exposures of basaltic lava flows and cones that erupted and flowed across an ancient pre-glacial landscape in south-central Yukon.

The volcanic rocks are best exposed and most easily accessible at the Miles Canyon location where the Yukon River cuts through a succession of flows south of Whitehorse. In the spring, good exposures can also be seen immediately downstream from the Yukon River hydro dam in Whitehorse which was built to extract energy from the cataracts that were the White Horse Rapids. These rapids and the Miles Canyon provided a significant challenge to gold-seekers heading to the Klondike Gold Rush, and also established the upstream terminus for paddle-wheel river boats. Thus, the Miles Canyon Basalts are the reason for the establishment of the townsite of Closeleigh, eventually the City of Whitehorse.

Source: Wikipedia

[newtsnaturethings]

I will never tire of these trees

[pnwnativeplants]

Abies lasiocarpa or subalpine fir

[mountrainiernps]

Krummholz.  If there is one word to describe how whitebark pines deal with living at high elevations, in not so perfect soils, long winters with windy storms, that word would probably be krummholz.

Krummholz describes how trees can be twisted and made crooked by wind and winter weather. Found most often at the highest places that trees can grow, called tree line, krummholz trees are the trees sculpted and pruned, sometimes into amazing shapes. Whitebark pines are very good at krummholz. They can go with the flow of the winds and winter storms found in the high elevations of the subalpine environment. They are most easily viewed at Sunrise, our park’s highest summer road.

Whitebark pines are not tall trees. Without wind sculpting, they tend to be about 16-66 feet tall. They are wonderfully long lived trees ranging from 500 to 1,000 years old. Because they live in areas with not so wonderful soil (kind of rocky), with long winters, lots of snow and wind, whitebark pines are also slow growing trees. But as small and twisted as they may be, whitebark pines have big roles in the subalpine environment. They help stabilize soils, regulate run-off and snowmelt, and provide an important food source to subalpine animals with their seeds.

Currently listed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a Threatened species, the whitebark pine is under threat from non-native white pine blister rust, native mountain pine beetles, impacts from altered fire regimes, climate change, and combinations of all four of these. Scientists have been working on these problems, especially the blister rust, for a while now. Programs are under way to find a way to save these amazing trees even as their numbers decrease across their range and in the park.

Where is your favorite place to see whitebark pines? Have you hiked trails or gone to scenic viewpoints and found some fantastic krummholz shapes in the pines? ~ams

More information on trees in the conifer family in the national park can be found here https://www.nps.gov/mora/learn/nature/conifer-trees.htm . Research done by the North Coast & Cascades Inventory & Monitoring Network can be found here https://www.nps.gov/im/nccn/monitoring-reports.htm .

These photographs are from years past and do not reflect current conditions. NPS/E. Brouwer Photo. View from Sourdough Ridge trail looking through a gap. Trees cling to rocks and cliffs on both sides of the gap. July, 2014. NPS/S. Redman Photo. Whitebark pine in the Sunrise area. Light, almost white, bark visible on trunk. August, 2011. NPS Photo. Close-up of branch of whitebark pine showing 5 needle bundles.

[drhoz]

#1910 - Wahlenbergia albomarginata - New Zealand Harebell

More of @purrdence’s sightings from her NZ trip - the next few are all going to be sub-alpine plants from Aoraki Mt Cook (used as The Lonely Mountain in The Hobbit movie).

Native to the eastern side of the South Island, from lowland to subalpine in tussock-grassland, on river terraces and amongst rocks. There’s a few hybrids in cultivation, that do quite well in rock gardens. 

[justgetclosertome]

Salt Lake City Retaining Walls Landscape Inspiration for a large traditional drought-tolerant and full sun hillside retaining wall landscape in summer.

[brennen-french-arts]

The MacRegor’s Honeyeater is a reclusive species, living in isolated pockets on the island of New Guinea. They nest in the crowns of trees in cloud forests and subalpine Dacrycarpus forests at elevations between 2,800 - 4,000m. They are monogamous breeders, with mating pairs laying a single pink and spotted egg per season.

[vestaignis]

Болотная сова (Asio flammeus) – среднего размера сова: длина ее тела колеблется от 34 до 42 см, вес самцов - 0,23-0,39 кг, самок - 0,24-0,43 кг. Крылья у нее длинные, ноги украшены пучками из перьев, на голове расположены маленькие вертикально стоящие "ушки" из перьев.

Болотная сова распространена очень широко, она обитает на всех континентах, кроме Австралии и Антарктики и населяет соленоводные болота, прибрежные равнины, хвойные леса, тундру, трясины, поля, прерии, высокотравные степи (часто с солончаками), луга (в поймах рек и озер), гористые местности и субальпийские луга, сельскохозяйственные угодья и парковые насаждения. Во всех местах обитания болотная сова придерживается открытых пространств.

Большую часть рациона этой птицы составляют мелкие грызуны (мыши, полёвки, лемминги, крысы, хомяки и ондатры), кролики, землеройки, летучие мыши, птицы (кулики, крачки, мелкие чайки, жаворонки и дрозды), насекомые (кузнечики, жуки, гусеницы) и иногда рыба.

Охотится болотная сова в любое время суток, низко паря над открытым пространством. На добычу она обычно нападает с полета или из засады и несё�� ее в когтях. Болотные совы – моногамы и образуют постоянные пары. Самец привлекает самку на свой участок красивыми пируэтами в воздухе. Иногда в брачных полетах участвуют обе птицы: они гоняются друг за другом, сцепляются когтями или в шутку борются. Гнездом обычно служит расчищенная самкой ямка диаметром до 40 см на вершине плоской кочки среди густой травы или тростника. В кладке 4–7 яиц, которые насиживает самка.

Swamp Owl (Asio flammeus) – medium-sized owl: its body length ranges from 34 to 42 cm, the weight of males is 0.23-0.39 kg, females - 0.24-0.43 kg. Her wings are long, her legs are decorated with tufts of feathers, and small vertically standing "ears" of feathers are located on her head.

The is very widespread, it lives on all continents except Australia and Antarctica and inhabits saltwater swamps, coastal plains, coniferous forests, tundra, bogs, fields, prairies, tall grass steppes (often with salt marshes), meadows (in floodplains of rivers and lakes), mountainous areas and subalpine meadows, agricultural lands and parkland. In all habitats, the swamp owl adheres to open spaces.

Most of the diet of this bird consists of small rodents (mice, voles, lemmings, rats, hamsters and muskrats), rabbits, shrews, bats, birds (sandpipers, terns, small gulls, larks and thrushes), insects (grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars) and sometimes fish.

The swamp owl hunts at any time of the day, hovering low over an open space. It usually attacks prey from flight or from ambush and carries it in its claws. Swamp owls are monogamous and form permanent pairs. The male attracts the female to his site with beautiful pirouettes in the air. Sometimes both birds participate in mating flights: they chase each other, lock claws or jokingly fight. The nest is usually a hole cleared by a female with a diameter of up to 40 cm on top of a flat hummock among dense grass or reeds. There are 4-7 eggs in the clutch, which are incubated by the female.

Источник://www.ebirds.ru/vid/225.htm,/bigenc.ru/c/bolotnaia-sova-bb9577,/zoogalaktika.ru/photos/aves/strigiformes/asio-flammeus, //www.mos.ru/news/item/86280073/,://ecology.polotsk.museum.by/node/42982,/russia.birding.day/v2taxon.php?s=423&l=ru.