Island NatureExploring nature on Vancouver Island, British Columbia and beyond

Miracle Beach Provincial Park is a spectacular place to take kids tide pool exploring—the wide expanse of sand allows for plenty of running in bare feet and the warm shallow tide pools are great for wading and searching for sea life. This weekend I took Alden and Clara up to “the beach house” and kept [...]

A great day out birding for the Comox Valley Nature spring bird count. Like Christmas Bird Counts, the spring count is an attempt to tally as many species as possible while trying to document the number of individual birds in the count area. Unlike Christmas Bird Counts, the weather is generally a little better. I [...]

Despite a painfully stiff back (which I threw on Thursday wrestling with the kids), I made the trek to Ucluelet in order to join the April 29, 2012 WildResearch pelagic trip out to La Pérouse Bank. At the end of the day, this 7 hour off shore tour was nothing short of “shear” birding and [...]

Earlier in April, Jocie and I spent an enjoyable day without the kids revisiting Comox Lake Bluffs Ecological Reserve. The last time we hiked out to this ecological reserve was in May, 2008 with Comox Valley Nature (note the year on the web page is incorrect). Alden was just coming up to age 1 at [...]

How to be a Better Birder Derek Lovitch Princeton University Press Paperback 192 pages 2012 I’ve been birding ever since I moved to the West Coast nearly 20 years ago. Back then my strategy was pretty basic. My first field guide was a National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America (I think [...]

It is not often that you see a living horse clam on the surface of the beach unless you have taken the effort to dig one out yourself. That’s why Jocie and I initially thought that the Pacific gaper (Tresus nuttallii) that we found at Miracle Beach was dead. We quickly realized otherwise after touching [...]

This is the time of year on Vancouver Island to get down to local riverside trails and check out the spring wildflower bloom. One of my favourite places to walk is the the Canyon View Trail in Campbell River. We usually start this moderate 6 km loop trail at the John Hart Generation Station and [...]

The white fawn lilies (Erythronium oregonum) at Pipers Lagoon Park in Nanaimo, British Columbia are in full bloom this week. Jocie and I were doing a bit of botanizing last week and were astounded by the display. The dense carpets of white nodding heads and mottled leaves underneath the Douglas firs were hard to miss—the [...]

If you have a chance, pull over at the Government Wharf in Fanny Bay and enjoy the show. The floats just off the dock are a regular haul out for California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) and are usually far enough away that the sea lions can sleep in peace while on lookers can watch without [...]

One of my favourite places in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve are the dunes at Wickaninnish Beach. It is unusual to see many (if any) people in the dunes so it is easy to imagine the wildness of the place, despite the signs and tracks of people who have gone before you. From a botanical [...]