Malaspina Naturalists

Goats and the Eldred River

J Alred — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 03:07:45 +0000

March 25, 2012

Clyde Burton led nineteen MNats to the lookout on Goat Lake where we saw the horns, eyes and splendid white coats of two Mountain Goats very clearly through Sharon Godkin’s excellent telescope. Other dots may have been goats. Then we progressed down the hill and on to Mile 34 where a mossy trail led through the woods to the Eldred River gorge. Perched on the rocks, we marvelled at how so much river could squeeze into such a narrow space. Afterwards we drove to where the road ends in a big ditch. Some people hiked further while others watched a continuous series of avalanches and rock falls coming off a nearby peak. On the way back, one car saw four goats in the same place as the ones we all saw in the morning. Having left town at 8am, we were back by about 5pm.

Western Painted Turtle Field Trip

J Alred — Mon, 30 May 2011 05:26:02 +0000

Following the most interesting lecture on these endangered turtles by
Vanessa Kilburn, our field trip took us to Lindsay Park at the north end of
Cranberry Lake, where we were met by Vanessa and her colleague Aimee
Mitchell, as well as photographer of amphibians, Terry Brown and partner
Jude Abrams.

After a brief discussion of the preferred habitat of the turtles, we drove
to the bird sactuary by the lake. Vanessa explained the building of the
turtle nesting beach that she organized last September with the full support
of the city. It is hoped that the turtles will use this patch of soft gravel
to lay their eggs instead of wandering outside the sactuary. From the end of
May to the end of June volunteers will be watching this area for nesting
activities and reporting those to Vanessa and Photographer Terry. A couple
of basking logs were installed close to the shore to provide a convenient
basking place.

Vanessa treated us to some animated demonstrations of turtle behaviour, such
as how they feel the temperature of the nesting area with their outstretched
necks.

There are so many little known facts about the Western Painted Turtle, it is
worth learning more about them.

Spring Wildflowers

J Alred — Mon, 30 May 2011 05:20:47 +0000

May 20th, 2011. 22 people showed up at 8am to meet the previous night’s speaker, Andy McKinnon. Although the campsite was in shadow at first, gradually it warmed up as the sun reached it. Nodding onion, Chocolate lilies, Sea blush, Monkey flower, Shooting stars, Blue-eyed Mary, Death camus, Saxifrage, Saskatoon, Salal, and many others were examined and commented on before the session ended at 10am in time for Andy to catch a coffee at Nancy’s and make the noon ferry home to Metchosin.

Texada Karst Landscape and Caves

J Alred — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 03:54:00 +0000

On Friday March 25th 2011, following his talk the previous evening, John Dove led a field trip for eleven members to Stromberg Falls and Marshall Point. At the Falls, we saw a creek exiting a cave and running into a swallet concealed under our feet. Then we went up to where a sink hole gurgled about 10 metres below us. The group then scrambled down to the foot of the falls before returning to the cars. Lunch was on the sheltered side of Shelter Point as a howling southeaster was blowing into the south facing beach. Afterwards down at Marshall Point we looked at chemically weathered grikes and ran our fingers over a razor sharp edge honed by the mixture of seawater and limestone. We finished just as the rain started just in time to catch the 3pm ferry.

Rambling with Clyde 2

J Alred — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 03:44:56 +0000

On Thursday March 10th, 2011, six people dripped their way around the Lang Bay Fish Hatchery where there were no dippers to be seen as they have all gone up to the mountains to breed in the fast water. We crossed the road to look at the mouth of Lang Creek and on the way saw a killdeer pretending it had a nest, but it was too early. There were very few birds in the estuary so we drove over to Michael Stewart’s place and hiked her back lanes. En route we saw and heard an eagle on its nest. Down on the beach we saw black oyster catchers, mew gulls and glaucous-winged gulls and an Anna’s hummingbird greeted us in Michael’s backyard.

Forest Greens

J Alred — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:11:48 +0000

On Saturday, February 5th, 2011 Wendy Cocksedge, who spoke to us last year about the forest greens used in the floristry industry, escorted four of us along the Willingdon Trail where we identified Scouring rush, Salal, Trailing blackberry, an early Skunk cabbage, small leaves of Sweet Cecily (we think), new Salmonberry shoots, Oregon-beaked moss, Red huckleberry, Sword ferns, Lady ferns, Deer ferns and Frog-pelt lichen. On the way back, Wendy told us about how tapping Big-Leaf maples for their syrup is becoming a big industry on Vancouver Island. We also saw some magnificent Harlequin ducks and Red-breasted mergansers in full breeding plumage. Douglas squirrels chattered at us and one took a peanut almost out of Elizabeth’s hand.

Rambling with Clyde

J Alred — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:10:12 +0000

Our resident naturalist, Clyde Burton, took seven members to Gibson’s Beach and Sliammon waterfront on Wed. Feb 2nd, 2011. Gibson’s Beach produced three herons in the trees and Glaucous-winged gulls almost at our feet. We stayed only long enough to separate the different age groups.
At Sliammon we saw several hundreds of gulls, the majority being Thayers. Among them were Glaucous-winged gulls, Mew and one Herring gull. In addition, all three mergansers were there, Golden-eye, Bufflehead, various scoters, Mallards, Gadwall, Green-wing teal, American widgeon, Black oyster catchers and Black turnstones plus Two killdeer. Crows and Ravens also blessed us with their presence. We stayed by over an hour till the wimps among us were driven away by a cool breeze.

Naked Eye Star Gazing

J Alred — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:08:51 +0000

On Tuesday, November 23, 2010 Christine Woolcott met with six would-be star gazers for an indoor get acquainted session. Using simplified diagrams, Christine showed us how to use Orion to find Taurus, the Pleiades, Auricula (?), Capella and her three goats, Castor and Pollux, Procyon and Sirius. A few nights later we went out in the evening but, although we could see some of these constellations, clouds obscured others. A second indoor session was held a week later but after that the cloud cover never lifted and our teacher took off for Arizona from where she e-mailed to say she could see everything! A spring sky indoor session has been scheduled for April 8th.

Winter Twigs with Shirley Cole

J Alred — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 02:41:22 +0000

On a surprisingly sunny Sunday morning, Nov. 7th, 2010, nine of us met Shirley Cole in the North mall parking lot. While waiting for departure time she showed us and explained various twigs, some with leaves still attached, as well as a beautiful collection of pressed leaves of shrubs we were going to look for. We carpooled along Duck Lake Road and hiked to Squirrel Crossing, at the Northern end of Duck Lake.
Under the bridge and along the easy hiking trail we found: red huckleberry, saskatoon, Pacific ninebark with its shedding bark, salmonberry, hardhack (also known as steeplebush), red-osier dogwood which has attractive red stems, and silver-grey barked cascara. Shirley almost ended up in pool of standing water reaching for a branch of Pacific crab apple. Finally, on the way back to the bridge, we were happy to see a false azalea bush.

This was a fun outing and, thanks to Shirley, a very informative one. It will be interesting to find these shrubs in the other seasons when they have foliage and berries.

Report provided by Heidi Rohard.

Mushrooms with Brigid Weiler

J Alred — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:22:46 +0000

Thirty-three people turned out for the mushroom workshop with Brigid Weiler of Cortes Island. Brigid’s picture appears on page 145 of David Arora’s All that the Rain Promises and More… This eclectically illustrated handbook is available locally from Breakwater Books along with his larger reference book Mushrooms Demystified.

Brigid brought a few representative species which she talked about briefly before dividing us into groups which were each led by an experienced mushroomer who came with her. We fanned out into the Penticton woods mainly, where we picked for an hour and then returned to the United Church hall. We then spread our collections out on the tables in categories and Brigid talked about them while the group leaders cooked up some of our catches for us to sample. Most were much tastier than store bought mushrooms.

In addition to discussing which were edible and which not, Brigid also showed us several samples of wool died with mushrooms. There were some lovely red, purple and gold colours.

She is a dynamic speaker who would be willing to come again next year.