The Next Hike

Check here every week for details on the next Trekker hike!

Friday, March 29, 2019

Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday 30th March.
We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10:00am.

Last week our hike was a little shorter than usual as we needed to finish in time to attend a meeting about a shellfish project at North-east Bay.  We started off on School Road at the Ballpark and headed uphill along the old logging road that passes Cape Sheaf Lake, turning off before that to reach a nice grassy bluff with a view towards Gillies Bay. The return route to the starting point used some of the new mountain bike trails that criss-cross the forest on the slopes below the bluffs.

My photo this time was taken earlier in the month when I noticed some caterpillar tents on a conifer, in this case a hemlock tree.  For many years we have had regular tent caterpillar invasions that mainly affect deciduous trees and most often our common Red Alder which are sometimes totally stripped of foliage.  This time the food was the tough needles of a conifer and the tent had a much darker appearance as can be seen in my photo.  Also these are a different species of moth with long brown hairs and are not smooth, but I don't have a name for them yet.  I also noticed they were not being killed by late overnight frosts.
JD.


A different kind of tent caterpillar that had established a fairly large tent on the branch of a hemlock tree.

No comments:

Post a Comment