At Comox Valley Nature’s general meeting on April 28, the keynote presentation by Royann Petrell on “Native Plant Gardening and Carbon Sequestration” was well-attended and stimulated an interesting discussion. Some audience members expressed an interest in seeing the slides again, and Royann has kindly allowed them to be distributed. You can download the presentation here (PDF, 16.5 MB).
For more information about Royann’s work at her Steller Raven Ecological Farm and an event at the farm in June promoting native plant gardening, see this earlier post.
From Hand-in-Hand’s website: “Hand-In-Hand Nature Education is an outdoor educational program located in the Comox Valley and Campbell River that is designed to offer a unique learning experience for children who are walking to 17 years old.”
Jarrett Krentzel, founder and director of Hand-in-Hand and a former Vice President of Comox Valley Nature, recently reached out to CVN to solicit the donation of nature-based items for their annual silent auction. The auction’s proceeds go to their In-House Subsidy Fund which helps children from low-income families participate in HiH’s programs.
If you have nature-related items you could donate, Jarrett requests that you contact him by May 3 at with the following information:
Name of your donation:
Subtitle (optional):
Description of your donation:
Images: Please upload attachment(s)
Fair Market Value (The likely selling price on the market at a specific point in time):
Alternatively, if you would like to make a cash donation, you can do so on HiH’s donation page.
Posted inMiscellaneous|Comments Off on Help out local nature-based education
Nominations for Trees of the Year 2024 ended March 31, and we’ve been busy planning tour routes to help you visit these 27 impressive trees efficiently. Maps of these routes are now available. You can access them using the links in the tables below.
For full descriptions of the individual trees, including tree number, location, a photo, size, and the tree’s story, see this page: Trees of the Year 2024.
Please respect private property boundaries and owner privacy by viewing the trees from public land unless otherwise invited in.
The maps
We have three ways for you to access the route maps using the links in the table below:
The route maps were implemented on the PlotARoute website (plotaroute.com) which has multiple viewing options. See some tips below the first table.
If you would like to have printable information, you can download a PDF version of the plotaroute map.
Note that the Grand Tour route encompasses almost all the nominated trees, which (except for #12 and #27) are also in one or another of the shorter routes.
Expand the map to full screen using the crossed arrows at the top right of the map.
Play an animation using the play icon at the bottom left of the map.
Zoom in or out using the + and – icons at the top left of the map.
The length of the route is given in the bottom margin of the map. You can switch between kilometres and miles.
You can also find these routes any time by going to plotaroute.com and searching for “toty 2024”.
Collections of routes
Each individual route is also included in a plotaroute collection. All the routes in one collection can be shown on one map. In the table below the map, select the route or routes that you want to see. The table below refers to the individual routes by their designations in the first table.
Comox Valley Nature invites the public to our in-person April general meeting as follows:
Date: Sunday, April 28, 2024 Time: 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. PT Location: Main hall of Comox United Church, 250 Beach Drive, Comox Keynote Presentation: Native plant gardening and carbon sequestration Speaker: Royann Petrell
In addition to the keynote presentation, CVN activity leaders will give brief updates so you can learn about our ongoing activities such as birding, botany, and conservation and restoration. If you are new to Comox Valley Nature, find out more about us here. We always welcome new members.
A native plant garden over a grassy lawn is not only beneficial for wildlife and pollinators but also has the potential to sequester carbon. When carbon is sequestered in a garden, carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and held in the soil. The process plays a crucial role in mitigating climate change by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Dr. Royann Petrell (Associate Professor Emerita, University of British Columbia) will provide background material about native plant gardening and some information about an event planned for June 15, 2024 at Steller Raven Ecological Farm. There will be time for questions and discussion from the audience.
Royann worked on a carbon sequestration research project for Project Watershed for three years and became very interested in how the process works. Royann and her husband Sylvain have been rehabilitating much of their 7.5 acre Steller Raven Ecological farm with native shrubs and trees, wildlife trees, ponds and streams, and over the last five years, native Vancouver Island grasses and flowering plants. Plants most suitable for carbon sequestration are long-lived and rooted perennials that are adapted to our wet winters and hot and dry summers.
To date, 95 bird species have been observed on the farm, and many breed there. Recently 16 bee hives have been installed. In early spring the bees collect pollen from willows and native flowering shrubs! Royann is keen to describe her progress and delight in how to plant a carbon-sequestration native garden. Her hope is that native gardening will catch on for the betterment of the Comox Valley.
Volunteers will be needed to help out at the June 15 event. A list of volunteer positions will be available for people to sign up at the April 28 meeting. Funding for the June event is from a BC Nature Donor grant.
The nomination period for CVN’s Trees of the Year 2024 event ended on March 31. Once again we’ve seen how passionate and observant you, our community members, are for the trees around us in both our urban and rural environments. This year, you nominated 27 trees to celebrate, including specimens of 11 different species.
Here’s how the nominations broke down among those species, most frequent first:
Douglas-fir (8)
Bigleaf maple (5)
Garry oak (3)
Western redcedar (3)
Sitka spruce (2)
and one each for (in no particular order) western white pine, flowering cherry, grand fir, arbutus, English walnut, and weeping sequoia.
You can read the stories and see photos of all these special trees here.
To whet your appetite, below is a sample of the photos (click a phot to enlarge it). Coming soon will be a post with maps of suggested routes for visiting these wonderful trees in person.
The Botany/Mycology Group had a well-attended field trip on March 12 to the Tsolum River floodplain trails adjacent to the Comox Valley Exhibition Grounds to see signs of early spring growth.
The new leaders of the group, Véronique M. and Karen C., are adopting a new educational approach to field trips. They pre-selected a few species to focus on, with the aim of having group members learn to identify them. To this end, Véronique followed up with an illustrated guide to the focus species as well as to some additional species that were observed.
Title:Seed-based Restoration for Urban Settings on Vancouver Island Speaker: Kristen Miskelly (Satinflower Nurseries) Date: Sunday, February 18, 2024
If you missed this event or would like to see it again, CSEB has made the recording available here. To access it you will need to provide your name and email address.
For more information about this talk, see the announcement in our earlier post.
A new addition by Loys Maingon to our occasional series of long-form articles examines the implications of the discovery of a microorganism in Strathcona Provincial Park that appears to be new to science.
Comox Valley Nature is holding our Annual General Meeting on February 25, 2024 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm in the Main Hall of Comox United Church, 250 Beach Drive in Comox.
The public is invited to learn about CVN and join the Society. The meeting will introduce leaders of the different interest groups who will give short presentations. The interest groups include Birders, Botany, Marine and Shoreline, Nature Photography, Nature Walks and Habitat Restoration. For more information about CVN, see this page and the rest of this website. Also see our Instagram and Facebook accounts.
Some examples of our activities: The Birders Group has weekly field trips and posts its observations on eBird (see this recent example). They also participate in the annual Christmas Bird Counts and Trumpeter Swan counts in the area. The Botany/Mycology Group had a recent outing to Kitty Coleman Park to view fall fungi – see images of their amazing finds here.
CVN’s habitat restoration teams do important work at Courtenay Airpark, Little River Nature Park and other locations. As part of our educational mandate, we host guest speakers who share their expertise on natural history and environmental issues.
General meetings and lectures are normally held on Sundays (most months) and are open to the public, including children and youth.
The AGM is a good chance to join us and get involved in our activities.
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Jocie says “Now that you’ve all digested part 1, here’s part 2 of Alison’s late fall & winter fungi review: the fabulous Polypores!” Click a photo to enlarge it.
Notes on polypore fungi in the Comox Valley, late fall into winter 2023-2024
Polypores are much tougher and more durable than gilled fungi, even the annual ones such as the Trametes species. Many have a shelf-like or bracket/hoof-like growth pattern, others have stipes; some are hard (Fomitopsis, Ganoderma spp.), others leathery and pliable (Trametes, Stereum), others quite soft (Postia and Phlebia). Some have shallow pores on the spore-bearing underside, others are wrinkled, still others smooth. A few have what look like “gills” (see Gloeophyllum below).
Picipes badius, blackleg (formerly Polyporus badius), is found on dead and downed wood, with a smooth, leathery bright orange cap, white underside with small shallow pores, and a stipe that is mostly black (caps and one underside show in photo 9.)
(9) Picipes badius
Clusters ofTrametes versicolor, turkey tail, have been prolific this winter on a range of hosts; see photo 10 plus Jocie’s earlier photos. The various species of Trametes have a white underside with white tiny pores. Another common ruffled shelf polypore is Stereum hirsutum, false turkey tail, with orange cap and lighter border, while its underside is orange and smooth. The specimen in photo 11 shows both cap and underside. Unlike the Trametes species it is found only on dead hardwood, alder here, and often together with one of the yellow jelly “witch’s butter” fungi(Tremella aurantia) which parasitizes the Stereum (no photo of T. aurantia).
(10) Trametes versicolor(11) Stereum hirsutum
The Postia caesia group, blue cheese polypore (photo 12), is a soft spongy shelf-like fungus on dead conifer logs, with white and bluish-green colouration on the slightly hairy cap and white angular or maze-like shallowish pores on the underside. According to MacKinnon and Luther, edibility is unknown — it only looks like blue cheese.
(12) Postia caesia
In photo 13, Rhodofomes cajanderi, rosy conk, is just developing. It will take on the form of a hoof-like conk with zoned cap, almost black in the centre and pink round the rim, with pink pores on the underside. In the upper part of the photo there are diminutive “hoofs” in the making. The red droplets however were stunning.
(13) Rhodofomes cajanderi
Gloeophyllum sepiarum, conifer mazegill. Photos 14A and 14B show the bracket-like polypore whose underside has what look like blunt gills. The orange on the cap of this example is much brighter than the more common reddish brown.
Comox Valley Conservation Partnership brings together environmental and stewardship groups to create a strong voice to protect our watersheds and forests ... See MoreSee Less
Take the survey, your voice matters!🌎Your Voice Matters on Climate Change. What are your thoughts on the impact and priorities within our community? Take a short survey and share your feedback. Visit www.engagecomoxvalley.ca/climatestrategy#ComoxValleyRD #ClimateAction ... See MoreSee Less
🌸On Wednesday May 15th from 10 am to noon, join CVN Naturalist Karen Cummins as we explore diverse habitats in the two sections of Little River Nature park. This walk will take you past ponds and salt marsh, over beach plain and estuarine plain and offer a chance to view a provincially designated sensitive stream.🌸This approximately 2km, 2 hour ramble will feature spring flowers growing on the native beach plain, including Menzies Larkspur, Blue Eyed Mary and Bare-stemmed Desert Parsley. 🌸This area is a relatively new park and lots of restoration work has been done by CVN volunteers to remove invasive species. This work is ongoing and volunteers will be engaged in this work while we visit the park🌸Don’t miss this opportunity to enjoy these spring wild flowers!🌸email for more information or to get your name on the waitlistComox Valley Regional District - Local GovernmentCV Land Trust & Conservation PartnershipCity of Courtenay... See MoreSee Less
🌸 On Saturday May 11th at 1.00pm join an experienced Naturalist for a walk around the Courtenay River Airpark. Learn about the history of the park, and how this neglected space has become one of the most popular walking spots in the Comox Valley. 🌸You'll see native plants such as Red Flowering Currant and Garry Oak. The park is also a favoured spot for birding, with migrant and resident birds benefiting from the diverse plant life that now edges the estuary. 🌸All this is a result of the ongoing habitat restoration work, carried out by a dedicated team of volunteers, led by Frank Hovenden🌸 Book early to reserve your spot, by following the link in bio🌸For more information, to add your name to the waitlist or to cancel your reservation please email City of CourtenayComox Valley Regional District - Local Government... See MoreSee Less
🌳Nominations for Trees of the Year 2024 ended March 31.🌳Imagine our surprise when we received two separate nominations for the smallest, youngest and most vulnerable Western Red Cedar. At approximately 8-9 years old, it grows improbably amongst the ropes of a piling in the Comox Estuary, against the backdrop of the Comox Glacier with its roots entirely out of the water at low tide(#12).🌳Contrast that young survivor to the mature Cedar growing along the Royston to Cumberland Railway Trail (#14), or the mature Cedar (#9) , entwined with a Hemlock tree on the One Spot Trail, growing from a nurse tree. Both of these locations are more typical habitats in which to find healthy Western Red Cedar, and both are offered a measure of protection by virtue of their location near recognized trails.🌳We’ve been busy planning tour routes to help you efficiently visit all 27 impressive trees that were nominated this year. Maps of these routes are now available. You can access them at comoxvalleynaturalist.bc.ca/🌳To view full descriptions of the individual trees including location, a photo, size, and the tree’s story go to comoxvalleynaturalist.bc.ca/trees-of-the-year-2024/... See MoreSee Less