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Rebecca Dart

@rebdart.bsky.social

Animation art director and part-time paleoartist. Living in Vancouver, B.C. 🇨🇦 with a husband, two cats and a few carnivorous plants.

373 Posts12018 Follower562 Folgt
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The China Creek North pollinator Meadow is popping off right now! Thanks to all the hard work and help from volunteers, it's become a space really beloved of the community. If you're ever in the northeast corner of Mount Pleasant here in Vancouver, make sure you come by and visit 🌱

Photograph of a hillside with red poppies in the foreground and purple lupines in the background with trees at the top of the hill.A photo of tall purple, large-leafed Lupines with bright orange, California poppiesA photo of yellow and orange blanket flowers with a small ladybug resting on one of them.A photo of a small parasitic blood bee on the white and yellow flowers of Meadowfoam.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I hope you all have some peaceful and stressless holidays! ❤️ My husband and I don't buy each other Christmas gifts. We just buy our own and then pretend the other gave it to us. So I would like to thank @robinbougie.bsky.social with all my heart as visions of prehistoric forests dance in my head🌲🪴

At the top of the image is a red box of 12 gouache paints from Holbein. It is the irodori Autumn set. In the center of the image is a book called The Princeton Field Guide to Mesozoic Plants. It has a beige cover with images of cycads and conifers.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Late summer at the boulevard garden. As a shoe-box apartment dweller, I'm so grateful to have the privilege of caring for a tiny patch of Earth to help decompress from the day and world events 🌱

A photo of a street receding in the distance with a brick building on the left that the sun is glinting off of. In the foreground is a garden of weedy looking native plants.In the foreground are yellow flowers called Sneezeweed ( Helenium autumnale) There is an out of focus urban building in the background against a blue sky.A close up of purple daisy-like flowers with yellow centers of Douglas Aster.A fuzzy Common Eastern Bumblebee sleeping while clinging to the underside of a seed capsule of a Western Columbine
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

Today's pics from the China Creek North Pollinator Garden are of fuzzy bumblebees and a beewolf. Like the name suggests, the beewolf is a wasp that hunts bees as food for its young. Some of the nectar rockstars right now are Sea Holly, Globe Thistle, Canadian Goldenrod and Yarrow 🌱

A close-up of the spiky, blue Sea Holly flowers with a fuzzy yellow bumblebee near the center enjoying a nectar snack.Two yellow-faced bumblebees on top of a round, blue flower of a globe thistle Yellow Goldenrod flowers against a blue sky with many bumblebees searching for nectar.A black and yellow wasp called a Beewolf on top of a white cluster of yarrow flowers.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

Summer evenings in the China Creek North Pollinator Garden are magical. As the sun sets over this east-facing hillside it illuminates the tops of the plants and reveals thousands of pollinators as pinpoints of light zipping around as they travel from flower to flower. 🌱

This image is a close up of a white yarrow flower head with a small, dark leaf-cutter bee on top.The sun glows on the horizon through the flowers and foliage of a Sea Holly and a Russian Sage plant. The sky is bright blue.A blue globe thistle plant that is being backlit by the Sun with golden grass at the bottom of the screen.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

Took out the microscope to look at some small purple Nepeta or Catmint flowers and buds. You can see the glistening pockets of fragrant oils on the bud that gives it that sage/mint smell. Fortunately the cats couldn't care less about this plant as I'm growing many cuttings on our balcony. 🌱

A very close up image of a Catmint flowers bud that is covered in hairs . You can see small, glistening beads of oil pockets on the surface.Microscopic view of the side of a fuzzy, purple Catmint flower with a dark stamen screen right. Extreme close up of dark purple stamens with white pollen. An extreme close up of a side view of a purple Catmint flower.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

Took the bus up to Whistler. We had a great time exploring the turquoise blue glacial lakes and streams. We walked through a grove of trees where bears like to sharpen in their claws 🐻 (and leave behind big poops).

A shot of a beautiful turquoise colored glacial lake called Lost Lake with snow-capped mountains in the background.Close up of glistening water rolling over a tree branch and the camera lens made all the sparkles different colors.Shot of a wetland area amongst a forest of trees with a couple of trees in the foreground. The photo doesn't capture the hundreds of dragonflies darting back and forth.Close up of a blotchy gray tree trunk with dark vertical scratches caused by a bear sharpening its claws.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

Mountain botanizing! Pacific Coral Root (Corallorhiza mertensiana) a parasitic orchid that doesn't photosynthesize or produce roots. The Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata) is a partial myco-heterotroph. Then our native Columbia Lily (Lilium columbianum) and Sickletop Lousewort (Pedicularis racemosa)🌱

A close-up of the pink seed pods of the Pacific coral root orchid. The flowers have faded.A close up of the nodding pale pink flowers of the Pipsissewa plant with an out of focus forced background.Close up of a beautiful orange Columbia Lily flower The interesting twisted pale pink flowers of the sickletop lousewort with a few leaves.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

As the Phacelia fades in the pollinator garden, the Clarkia blooms and becomes the star of the show. One of my favorite things about this PNW native flower is how every plant has a different pink color scheme, but also how the Leaf-cutter bees cut notches out of the petals to use in their nests 🌱🐝🌸

A down shot of an area of wildflowers. Orange California poppies and pink clarkia also with blue globe gilia and bird's eye gilia.A close-up of a Clarkia flower that is light pink with dark pink markings on the inside pedal.A shot of Clarkia flowers that are dark pink with a light pink inner edge of the petalA red and pink Clarkia flower where the petals have been cut by leaf-cutter bees. They carry the petal pieces to their nests to make a home for their babies.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

Parkbus is a service that helps us car-less city dwellers get out into nature. They had a special deal for only $30 round trip from Vancouver to the Othello Tunnels in the Coquihalla Canyon and also the town of Hope, which leans into the fact it's the filming location for the Rambo movie First Blood

A shot from inside a large tunnel carved out of solid granite. Looking on to the entrance of two other tunnels in the distance.A river that is bending around a large rock wall covered in Douglas Fir trees. There are mountains in the background.A shot of a fast flowing river flowing through a steep rock canyon wall.A wooden statue of Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in the movie First Blood.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

After removing over 200 invasive blackberries and a metric ton of Reed Canarygrass, the public pollinator garden that we took stewardship over last year is really starting to come into its own. Special thanks to the volunteers that help make it happen 🌱

The blue flower in the foreground is called Cupid's Dart. The yellow daisy-like flowers in the mid ground are Woolly Sunflowers. There are the seed heads of Meadow Brome grass falling in from the left hand corner.This is a shot of a field of wild flowers with trees and a building against the sky in the background. The purple flowers are called Lacey Phacelia. There are also red poppies, blue gilia, bird's eye gilia and California Poppy in bloom. An orange and black painted lady butterfly on a pale pink yarrow flower with strands of grass in the foreground.A wide shot of a pollinator garden in a public park with a paved zigzag path.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

The flowers of the Sarracenia, also known as North American Pitcher Plants are my absolute favorite. They are so elegant and graceful for a plant that devours insects for a living 🌱

Bright yellow-green flowers with a lot of dangly bits hang their heads in a dark background.The orange red flowers of the North American pitcher plant hang their heads on tall stems in front of a dark background with a lighter balcony railing at the bottom.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

A large mosasaur finds a meal in a Komoksodon kwutchakuth. Named in honour of the K'ómoks people of BC and the word for shark, kwutchakuth, in the Comox language. The diving birds are Maaqwi cascadensis whose fossils were found on Hornby Island here in BC. Ma'aqwi means "water bird" in Coast Salish.

A digital painting depicting an ancient underwater predator called a mosasaur with a shark in its mouth. The ocean is blue, however red blood is coming out of the shark's mouth. A school of small fish are eating the blood while diving aquatic birds hunt after the fish. Rays of sunshine filter through the water screen right.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

Hello Vancouver iNat users! The China Creek Pollinator Garden is now an iNat project: China Creek Park Pollinator Garden 2025. Which means any observations of insects (and other invertebrates), birds, mammals and plants will be recorded and we can demonstrate the importance of urban green spaces.

Logo for the China Creek North Pollinator Garden. It shows a graphic design of a butterfly on an orange and white flower with a caterpillar on the flower's stem. The background is a graphic representation of the zigzag path on the site.An area of a map that is blocked in showing the parameters of the iNaturalist project at the China Creek North Pollinator Garden.
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

There's not much I can do about the state of the world, but one thing I can do is to get people to look at more bugs. I'll be handing out bee-ingo cards while working in the Pollinator Garden once the flowers are up. If you get four in a row you get a sticker.

A bingo card with a grid and inside each box is a digital painting representing a pollinator found in Vancouver.A digital painting of a bumblebee in the center of a clarkia flower. There are other insects such as an inchworm an ant and a ladybug on the flower. It's on a blue background with a rainbow and the text reads "love the bugs,grow native of plants"
Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

Happy Valentine's to @robinbougie.bsky.social Over 30 years of marriage he is my rock and the most wonderful person I've ever met. His strengths are my weaknesses and vice versa, we are stronger together than apart. Our sappy pet names for each other are Tender Bear 🐻 (that's me) and Sweet Frog🐸

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Rebecca Dart@rebdart.bsky.social · last yr.

Wowsers! Thank you for all the new follows 😃 I really appreciate each and everyone of you. I'm hoping 2025 will offer me more time to post personal art. I've also been busy taking the Vancouver Master Gardeners course, which is through the Van Dusen Botanical Garden. It's been a nice distraction 💚🌿

In the foreground are the green glossy leaves of an evergreen Magnolia with a pink seed head in the middle. In the background there is the head of Quetzalcoatlus pterosaur in the shadows with a golden highlight.