For Ginty Creek, that’s hot!  For 5 days now temperatures have exceeded 30C – 87 Degrees American.  Night temperatures fortunately get down to about 5C, so that gives us a bit of relief.  For a lot of the time when Matthew was here (see previous post) we had to scramble around doing the heavy outdoor work during the first hours of the morning, then find something to do inside during the afternoon.  Fortunately, shelves and a workbench needed to be constructed in the outer room, and shelves and a major sorting out were required in the delightfully cool basement.  I had not planned on doing these jobs just yet, but the heat meant they are now done and I am very glad of it.

We have had two days of rain since the winter (and only a very small snowpack).  Endless strong winds have turned everything to dust. The pond is drying up.

And even at the beginning of July the grass was turning brown.

The flowers are frying fast.  Here is a potentilla.

The pond lilies will do well as long as their water supply lasts.

There has been a great upsurge of hummingbirds: presumably the young have hatched.  They arrive at first light, even before the robin sings.

They are like bees around the honeypot and their buzzing is an endless drone all day.

They are such amazing birds.  Their hearts beat 1200 times a minute; their wings, which have a shoulder joint unique to the genus, allowing the wing to move in a figure-of-eight, which enables them to fly backwards.  They are supposed to need to eat every 20 minutes to survive and yet they can migrate from New York to Costa Rica in 4 non-stop days.  Their tongues are incredible.  They do not just suck up the nectar.  When the tip hits the liquid, the tongue forks: then the two sides open up, close and trap the nectar, then bring it back into the bird’s body.  This is all done in a fraction of a second.  No one quite knows how they combine this with swallowing…

The heatwave has coincided with the full moon.

Heat waves often produce washed-out sunrises so the colour was not very strong on the mountains.  The following day the colour was a little better but of course the moon was higher.

The moon became a ghost just before it set.  You can just see it.  Note the American kestral sitting on his favourite snag to the right.

Inevitably, the heat wave has brought smoke.  As far as I can make out, a lot of northern BC is burning, but the nearest fire so far is about 100 km away.  Nonetheless, you could smell the smoke, and it all but hid the mountains.

Harry has the best solution to all this heat.

Tomorrow I head into the mountains to do some camping and guiding at Nuk Tessli.  Naturally, it is supposed to rain then…