Guest Post by Jocie Brooks On one of the last of the warm, summery weekends of September, my mother and I visited Pender Island. Having spent part of my childhood on South Pender, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Southern Gulf Islands. The tranquil ambiance of rolling farmland, rocky arbutus bluffs, and secluded beaches makes these islands special. …
Environmental Issues
Scat Cat!
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never been a big fan of cats, probably has something to allergies. My neighbours however do like cats very much, so much so, that they have somewhere between six and a dozen. We’ve never been able to get a conclusive count on these wily felines. Unfortunately, our neighbours also don’t seem to …
Metchosin’s BioBlitz
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 Metchosin BioBlitz team on top of Sugarloaf Mountain. The local BioBlitz, like hundreds of others that have been conducted around the globe in the last …
A Sad Day for Strathcona Provincial Park
Bedwell Lake is accessible by fairly good trail from the Buttle Lake corridor of the park (if the suspension bridge at the trail head isn’t damaged). BC Parks turned 100 just over a month ago on March 1st, 2011. On March 11, 2010, the BC Liberal government quietly and radically amended the Master Plan of Strathcona Provincial Park, the first …
Progress
Way back in the spring of 2006 I noticed something just south of Campbell River that made me do a double take. Here on Vancouver Island, the pressure to develop real estate is pretty intense, so intense that sometimes nature gets in the way. I’m really not sure how the developer pulled this off but check out the sign and …
Marvelous Mudflat Snails
A couple of weekends ago we enjoyed a sunny trip down island to Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park. This BC Park is a fantastic place for kids and in the winter time the number of people using the trails and beaches are few(er) – note that on a sunny day there are still plenty of people out enjoying the park. The …
Reintroducing Pink Sand-Verbena: A Rare West Coast Plant
After a less than satisfactory morning exploring the intertidal zone at Little Beach, Terrace Beach and Big Beach in Ucluelet (mainly due to the abundance of seaweed) I shifted gears and in the late afternoon. I decided to check out the Parks Canada Pink Sand-verbena (Abronia umbellate breviflora) reintroduction project at the dunes at Wickaninnish Beach in Pacific Rim National …
California Gulls, California Gulls
A flock of mostly Thayer’s Gulls (Larus thayeri). Note the yellow legs of the California Gulls (Larus californicus) in the center of the image. I happened to be down in Parksville yesterday and did some pre-meeting birding at the Parksville Community Park on the waterfront. It was a blustery day but the gulls were out in numbers. Birds are beginning …
Cattails
One of the things that impressed me at Buttertubs Marsh last week was the endless stretches of Cattail (Typha latifolia). At this time of year, the leaves of this plant are a pale brown – new green leaves will emerge in the spring. The flowers, which we generally see as a brown “hot-dog” shape on the end of a stalk …
Across the Strait 2 – BC SkyWatch #4
Sunset at Miracle Beach looking across the Strait of Georgia at the Coast Mountains. It looks like we’ve seen the last of the crisp, cold clear days on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. I took this sunset photograph at Miracle Beach earlier this week while we still had some clear skies. Since then the weather has continued to be cold, with …