Island NatureExploring nature on Vancouver Island, British Columbia and beyond

One of the questions I often get asked is, “How much does it rain on Vancouver Island? Good question. After all, we live here in a temperate rainforest. And the answer, of course, is “It varies!” But it is a considerable amount. I pulled out some precipitation data from the Environment Canada Weather Office site. [...]

Joining a local natural history club is an excellent way to learn more about nature and meet like-minded people. The Victoria Natural History Society (VNHS) has a number of interesting walks and presentations for both members and non-members throughout the year. Field trips are ranked according to difficulty: Level 1 – easy walking, mostly level [...]

One of the joys of walking the beaches of Vancouver Island is finding a clam shell or two while out on the sand or cobble. For those new to West Coast beach combing, determining the species of bivalve that the shell belongs to can be challenging. Rick M. Harbo’s Shells and Shellfish of the Pacific [...]

We have just returned from a wonderful weekend get-a-way at Pacific Rim, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Winter is our favourite time to visit the west coast. There aren’t too many tourists, and rain or shine we are always dazzled by the area’s natural beauty. Established in 1970, Pacific Rim National Park Reserve [...]

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 [...]

Last weekend Jocie and I collected some mushrooms and made some spore prints. We were lucky to identify a few reasonably conclusively. Today I’m going to introduce you to some of the mushrooms that we struggled to identify. Even though I can’t tell you what these mushrooms are I think that you’ll enjoy them as [...]

We’ve been keeping an eye out for some of the bigger snails during our forest walks this week – they’re much easier to identify than some of the smaller ones that we’ve discovered underneath paving stones and wood. This week we found the shell of a Robust Lancetooth (Haplotrema vancouverense), a fairly common large snail [...]

Is it going to be a mild winter this year in British Columbia? You be the judge. According to some, if the orange band in the middle of a banded woolly bear (Pyrrharctia isabella) is wider than the black bands on the ends of the caterpillar it will be a mild winter. The opposite is [...]

It’s that time of year when the Bigleaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum) leaves are changing colour and falling to the ground. I’ve always noticed the small, circular imperfections on maple leaves at this time of year and have wondered what they were. On the weekend I took a walk in Miracle Beach Provincial Park with my [...]

Up at Paradise Meadows today I had the (unfortunate?) opportunity to photograph some common tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) growing along the roadside. Common tansy is an invasive perennial that grows in disturbed places, road edges and stream banks. WeedsBC reports that the common tansy is problematic especially in areas like interior BC so it was disconcerting [...]