Island NatureExploring nature on Vancouver Island, British Columbia and beyond

Like most naturalists I’ve got a couple of backyard feeders and enjoy keeping a rough tally of the species that come and go. It’s always interesting when something a little unusual turns up, but the regulars make for entertaining viewing. Bushtits come through at least two times a week following some sort of urban feeding [...]

The Tsolum River Restoration Society is celebrating a positive year of conservation and restoration work in the Tsolum River watershed, Comox Valley, British Columbia. Water quality continues to improve, our understanding fish is improving and we have  small improvements in pink and coho salmon and cutthroat trout numbers.  In addition we have been active with [...]

Guest Post by Vijay Somalinga Last summer I was having a conversation with a friend about the native flora of British Columbia. I was quite disappointed when I learned that most of the the flower pictures I had taken that summer turned out to be invasive and non-native species. It was during this conversation that [...]

Guest post by Marcie Callewaert Every summer a Barred Owl (Strix varia) visits our property. He makes himself known with his haunting calls each night and his bold presence perched on a branch or fence post during the day – watching for his next meal. This year, “Hooty” as we have dubbed him, brought a [...]

Guest post by Chris Carter If I had been asked for a list of photogenic wild flowers a few weeks ago, Salal (Gaultheria shallon) would not have been near the top. Salal is best known for its bright evergreen leaves, always in demand by the florist trade. Walking back from the beach last week, I [...]

Guest post by Marcie Callewaert The Somenos Marsh is a renowned bird watching location just north of Duncan, British Columbia. It is home to hundreds of bird species who are year-round residents, and many that just stop by on their migration path. Besides birds; muskrats, beaver and river otter also reside here. The Somenos Marsh [...]

Organizers of a wildlife census in Metchosin, a district on the southern tip of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, are counting results from the reports of fifty taxonomic experts, participants in Metchosin’s April 30th BioBlitz. The local BioBlitz, like hundreds of others that have been conducted around the globe in the last year, took a 24-hour [...]

I was up at around 6 am yesterday to make the drive down to meet a group of birders doing the 2010 Nanaimo Christmas Bird Count. As I scraped the frost of the windows of the car I was hopeful – the sky was clear and it actually felt fairly mild. Weather on Vancouver Island [...]

Slugs are notoriously hard to photograph – the challenge is to have enough depth of field (area of the image in focus) that both the near eye spot and the body are sharp and crisp. Since slugs are often prefer to avoid full sun you end up trying to capture an image in low light [...]

While in the Lower Mainland this weekend I was driving from Terra Nova Park (where I unsuccessfully looked for a Scrub Jay) to Garry Point (where I failed to find a Franklin’s Gull) I came upon the astounding sight of a playing field filled with thousands of Lesser Snow Geese (Chen caerulenscens). I think that [...]