RHH's photos with the keyword: pubescens

The Downy Woodpecker, Dendrocopos pubescens, is our smallest woodpecker, under six inches (15 cm). The male has a small red spot on the back of the head, which is lacking in the female. This was photographed in a neighbor's garden.

Another photograph of this beautiful wildflower and orchid. We saw them three or four different locations when traveling through British Columbia and Alberta last summer and this example was photographed near Edmonton.

Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens is our showiest and most beautiful orchid. It is rare in Washington but plentiful as one moves further north into British Columbia and Alberta. This one was photographed in British Columbia west of Mount Robson Provincial Park.

Photographed near Edmonton, this is the Large Yellow Lady's Slipper, Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens. Usually these plants have only a single flower but when we were out orchid hunting in this area last summer we found a number of plants that had two flowers.

While in Edmonton visiting family last summer I went on an orchid-hunting excursion with a friend to several locations in that part of the country. At one of them we saw thousands of these Lady's Slippers blooming, most of them very richly colored. This is the Large Yellow Lady's Slipper which is often paler than the Northern Small Yellow Lady's Slipper. An added note: we are back from our fossil-hunting trip and found hundreds of beautiful fossils including whole Palm fronds and parts of Palm trunks, other leaves, ferns and conifer twigs. The area we were in was opened up by a massive landslide some years ago uncovering fossils in the Cretaceous shale and the Chuckanut Sandstone formations.

More of the Large Yellow Lady's Slippers photographed at one of our stops as we traveled north on the Yellowhead Highway through British Columbia before turning east toward Robson, Jasper and Edmonton. This species is quite variable in color and later that day we would see some at another location with very dark mahogany sepals and petals.

This new set of pictures is of a trip we made last summer to Edmonton to see our son-in-law, daughter, and grandchildren. We took the Yellowhead Highway through Mount Robson Provincial Park and Jasper National Park and made a number of stops along the way for photos. The first stop was an early-morning visit to an area where there are hundreds of these yellow Lady's Slippers growing. The Large Yellow Lady's Slipper, Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens, is very rare in Washington but quite common in British Columbia and Alberta. This fine example shows some of the beauty of these incredibly lovely orchids. They do vary in color, the pouches from a very deep to a paler yellow and the sepals and petals from green to brownish to very dark mahogany. They are also very faintly scented of lavender or old roses.

Taken in a neighbor's yard where a pair of Downy Woodpeckers (Dendrocopus pubescens) have been nesting and feeding. This is the male, identified by the red patch on his neck. He is much shyer than the female and much harder to photograph.