Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 27th July.

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

Last week we drove north for a change, parking near the end of Spragge Road the starting place for a hike to Raven Bay on the east coast of the island. The old logging road drops down quickly and crosses the outflow from Case Lake, a nature reserve with a small population of Western Painted Turtle. After a short uphill section the road heads steadily down through mostly young forest until coming out onto a flat section of the gravel High Road close to Slow Farm.  After going north on the road a short distance we turned right and headed down again on a logging road through more mature forest with Rumbottle Creek on our right.  At Raven Bay the extra low tide gave us an opportunity to check out the beach creatures that are usually well below the surface of the sea. There were exceptionally large clusters of starfish, and quite a few of them were colours other than the common purple.

JD.

 

Some of the different coloured starfish at Raven Bay.

Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 20th July.

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

Pinesap is one of these oddball plants that really catch the eye when their brightly coloured flowers have pushed up from the forest floor.  The scientific name is Montropa hypopitys and it's one of those plants that has no chlorophyl so it has no way to make the food it needs with the help of sunlight.  Instead it uses a particular fungus growing under the ground which in turn takes food from the roots of nearby trees, so you could say it's parasitic on a parasite!  On Texada the most common colour of Pinesap is the reddish brown of the one in my photo, but elsewhere in its geographic range the colour can vary a lot, sometimes yellow and even white.  We saw several clusters of flowers of this species on our hike last week which took us to a viewpoint overlooking the Malaspina Strait not far south of Black Mountain. 

JD.

http://texadatrekkers.blogspot.ca/

          

         Pinesap flowers just starting to push up from the forest floor.

Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 13th July.

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

Last week we hiked very close to the meeting place for a change and with just yours truly and a couple of off island visitors from the Prairies it was a chance to see how the Gillies Bay Nature Trail had been affected by recent gales.  Fallen trees were not too difficult to get around, but the extra growth of the understorey vegetation, especially bracken fern and Devil's Club, made it very difficult to follow the trail in some places.  Eventually we reached School Road, but on a well used deer path and not on the eastern part of the flagged trail!  For lunch we sat on logs beside Gillies Bay Creek and watched salmon and trout fry jumping for flying insects.  One larger trout managed to swallow a large ant that had dropped into the water and could not make it to the shore in time.  It was a delight to see so much creek flow, and an above average number of coho in many of the pools.  Walking back towards the very busy ballpark, Sandcastle Days activities were in full swing, a very noisy robin alerted us to the presence of a Barred Owl on a low branch on one side of the road.  Barred Owls can be very trusting of people and we spent quite some time watching while it scanned the forest floor for potential prey. We didn't seem to bother it at all, and it was still sitting in the same place on the branch as we quietly walked on our way.  

JD

   

A Barred Owl on an Alder branch beside School Road.  

Next Hike — meet at the Community Hall, not Ballpark.

It's Sandcastle this weekend so we will meet at The Community Hall, Gillies Bay.

The Gillies Bay Ballpark area will be far too crowded for us to meet there.

JD.

   

The common Wood Nymph butterfly on evergreen huck.

 

Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 6th July.

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

Last week we drove south towards Davie Bay, then turned left just past Eagle Creek heading up hill almost to Thompson Road.  This is all familiar ground as we have several lakes and viewpoints in this area and can reach Thompson Road from several different directions.  For this hike we followed much of our usual route to Thompson Bluffs, but took a different fork on the Mystery Lake road and had lunch on a rocky bluff on the north side of Broken Logs Lake.  We first visited this lake, the south side that time, quite a few years ago and did not return until September last year when we found a way through the forest to reach the north shore.   We had a couple of very loud bullfrogs to serenade us while we ate lunch.

On the way back down to Thompson Road after lunch we disturbed a mother Blue Grouse with some very young chicks.  The mother flew up onto a nearby tree leaving the chicks on the ground to fend for themselves.  Their best protection from predators is probably to keep stock still and try to blend in with the vegetation, something their plumage helps them to do very well. I was able to slowly approach one of the chicks that had decided it was best to remain perfectly still while I photographed it several times.  Much to my surprise it suddenly opened out it's tiny wings and flew rapidly to a low branch where it made a less than perfect landing.  And I thought it was much too young to fly!

JD.

   

A very young baby grouse trying to blend in with it's surroundings.