Island NatureExploring nature on Vancouver Island, British Columbia and beyond

We’ve had some fairly wet weather over the last week and the mushrooms are loving it. Fall is a great time of year on the West Coast for the mushroom enthusiast and Jocie and I took the toddlers out to “look for mushrooms.” An excellent place to find a variety of mushrooms in the Comox [...]

Yesterday I noticed lots of Chocolate Slugs (Arion rufus) while walking at Seal Bay Regional Park. Most were simply crossing the trail, moving from one forested side across the relatively easy going “smooth” path to the other. Later in my walk I found some amanitas and once I spotted one group of these mushrooms, I [...]

Two cool fungi that I’ve found in the woods this winter resemble small antlers poking out of the ground or wood. They are distinctive and easy to find if one looks actively for them. Carbon Antlers (or Candlesnuff Fungus) Carbon Antlers (Xylaria hypoxylon) is a small distinctive black fungus that is forked at the top [...]

One of the bonuses of doing a bird count is that you often end up in places that you haven’t been before. Such was the case yesterday when I was scouting out Seal Bay Regional Park which is in my assigned count area. I usually access Seal Bay from the main parking lot on Bates [...]

Back in early November we took a family hike around the Karst Creek Trail in Strathcona Provincial Park. At the end of the trail we found a number of dried up, old “mushrooms.” At least that’s what we thought they were initially. However, a little detective work solved the mystery quite quickly. Before I tell [...]

While mushrooming before the current cold snap we came across some Common Puffballs (Lycoperdon perlatum) along the roadside in Miracle Beach Provincial Park. Like the name suggests, this puffball is one of the typical puffballs commonly seen and is widely distributed in North America. There are several types of puffballs but those in Lycoperdon are [...]

If you keep your ear to the ground you never know what you might see on your next walk in the woods. The Brown Clustered Ear Cup (Otidea alutacea) looks like delicate ears poking up through the moss. In actuality, it is a cup fungi. We found a group of these cup fungi growing in [...]

You have to admit that the Amanitas are distinctive. One of the easiest to recognize is the striking red and white Fly Amanita (Amanita muscaria). This mushroom is the classic “toad stool,” and considered both poisonous and hallucinogenic. As Arora puts it, the Fly Amanita is “esteemed by both maggots and mystics” but he goes [...]

I have to admit that I’m fascinated with all the mushrooms that I’ve been discovering this fall (and now early winter). I found these Jelly Creps (Crepidotus mollis) growing on a dead tree in an open lot a few blocks from our house. The older ones were larger and smoother, and pale ochre in colour [...]

Earlier in November we enjoyed some mushrooms at Merville Woods, a second growth forest characterized by mixed conifers including pines. This post features a few more mushrooms that we found there. One was a mushroom that we had identified on a previous walk at Woodhus Slough but others remained a mystery even after creating a [...]