Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 26th November.

We meet at the Ballpark at Gillies Bay at 10:00am

Last week the island was almost entirely snow covered, but there was still a narrow strip along the shoreline north and south of Gillies Bay that had little or none on the ground the morning of the hike.  To avoid getting into conditions of wet and slippery snow underfoot and heavy snow on tree branches we decided to do a low elevation hike this time.  Driving just the short distance to the Mouat Creek Bridge on Davie Bay Road we hiked south taking the old logging road that runs less far inland than the main road to Shingle Beach.  The destination for lunch was a secluded "pocket beach", one of several tiny beaches on this otherwise rocky stretch of coastline.  In the open the recent snow gave the driftwood logs a wintery cap of white as we sat in quite comfortable, bright and windless weather beside a calm sea.

JD.

  

Lunch on a pocket beach near the mouth of Eagle Creek. 

  

Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 19th November.

We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10:00am.

Last week the weather was not too bad but raingear was certainly needed.  We drove south past Davie Bay and parked just before reaching the power line to Vancouver Island.  The hike was to Shingle Beach campground where we sat to eat lunch in the dry under the rustic roof of a small bandstand which was built as one of the facilities for the annual Diversity Music Festival.  

My photo this week was taken on the gas pipeline near Twin Peaks close to a small forest lake.  It's shows a cluster of yellow flowering plants that are classed as noxious and invasive weeds.  This one is called Tansy Ragwort or Jacobaea vulgaris, and is native to Northern Europe including the British Isles. There is a problem with when it gets established in pasture land as it's poisonous to some domestic animals included horses.  Most farm animals don't eat the growing plants because they have a bitter taste, but if dry after cutting as part of a hay crop they are eaten and cause liver damage over a period of time.  The plant has become quite widespread over the southern part of Texada and seems to be increasing along roadsides, old logging roads and along the gas pipeline right of way. 

JD.

 

Tansy Ragwort, Jacobaea vulgaris [or Senecio jacobaea] a noxious weed on the gasline near Twin Peaks.

Next hike.

The next hike will be on Saturday, 12the November.

We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10:00am

My photo this week is one I took on a recent hike. I am often able to put names to the fungi I see on Texada, and I am certainly able to identify some of the more popular edible ones.  However, there are many fungi that are hard to identify even though very striking in appearance and the cluster of bright orange-red ones in my photo are not ones I know by name.  They really glow with colour even on a dull day and in a shady location and it's a mystery to me why they should be this way.  I have no idea if they are poisonous or edible, but they certainly make an eye catching picture!

JD.

 A brilliant orange-red coloured mushroom, species unknown.

Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 5th November.

We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10:00am

Last week we drove up to Bell Farm and then turned north and on down past the White Pine research area to park at the old Russ Creek Bridge.  Hiking along the old logging roads heading north took us through areas of fairly mature forest with a dense enough canopy to limit the shrubby vegetation at ground level.  This gives the forest floor a mainly moss cover over the ground surface and suitable conditions for many different kinds of fungi.  While we continue to get some rain from time to time the mushrooms have been slow to appear so far and not all that many edible ones were collected again this week.  Lunch was on Taylor Bluffs with its view over Malaspina Strait to the mainland mountains, north to Powell River and south to Nelson Island and Pender Harbour. Close to the lunch spot I photographed an odd species of fungus that looks like worms rising up from the ground. Clavaria purpurea, or Purple Fairy Club belongs to a group that includes the coral and club fungi. 

JD.

   

   Purple Fairy Club, Clavaria purpurea in a bed of mosses.