I made a very short PowerPoint from the Mount Washington outing we did July 7 under Martin Dollenkamp’s leadership. He is a first class entomologist and regaled us with all sorts of tidbits on butterfly habits.

The highlight was the mating hydaspe fritillaria couple with a third one trying repeatedly to force himself on the mating couple.

The many flowering sub-alpine flowers were a bonus.

Nice views and weather helped make the day a great success. All our thanks to Martin for donating his time to share something close to his heart with us.

Download the slides here (PDF, 2.1 MB), and see a selection of the photos below.

The post Entomology and botany at Mt. Washington, July 2026 appeared first on Comox Valley Nature.

CVN members and the general public are invited to attend the following free online lecture hosted by the Strathcona Wilderness Institute, and facilitated by the Canadian Society of Environmental Biologists:

Title: An Exploration of Arachnids Found in Strathcona Provincial Park
Speaker: Inza Maki
Date: TBD
Time: TBD

See the registration link below.

Strathcona Provincial Park is an area of incredible biodiversity, but the smallest of the creatures there are often left unnoticed. This presentation aims to explore the diversity of arachnids found within the park and help explain why they might be more important than one thinks.

About the speaker

Inza Maki earned a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Victoria and a Diploma in Environmental Technology at Selkirk College. Inza was a Research Student at SWI in 2023.

Registration

“Seating capacity” for the talk is limited, and you need to register in advance. You can check the computer requirements for attendees here.

Register here

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions for joining the webinar.

The post Learn about arachnids in Strathcona Park appeared first on Comox Valley Nature.

We had a brilliant sunny day for our March 13 walk at Kitty Coleman Beach Provincial Park, and thanks to Robbie we enjoyed a fireside picnic lunch!  The herring spawn was in full swing with gulls and sea lions active on the water. We saw a good mix of things: lichens, fungi, new green leaves appearing, and of course the “big fir.” (Not to mention an ant colony.)

Here are a few highlights. Thanks to Veronique for many of the photos:.

1. The big Douglas fir is worth a visit!

2. Dwarf mistletoe on western hemlock. In the genus Arceuthobium (not sure which species).

3. Siberian miner’s lettuce (Claytonia sibirica) is often found in the woods and at the base of trees.

4. Farinose cartilage lichen (Ramalina farinacea).

5. White green-algae coral (Multiclavula mucida) this was one of our more unusual finds of the day!

6. Nuttall’s toothwort leaves (Cardamine nuttallii).

7. Pacific sanicle leaves (Sanicula crassicaulis).

8. Western thatching ant (Formica obscuripes).

9. Botany group: A good turnout!

10. Botany group: On the hunt.

11. Botany group: Post-walk picnic.

The post Kitty Coleman botany highlights appeared first on Comox Valley Nature.

We had a good walk around Roy Morrison Nature Park on February 13, seeing many wonderful things. We focused mainly on winter fungi, but we took a look at a few mosses and other things. We even saw a wooly bear caterpillar!

We saw most of the fungi from my last posts “Winter fungi review, part 1” and “Winter fungi (and a slime mould), part 2” so I won’t repeat those here.

Here are a few highlights. Thanks to Véronique and Shirley for submitting photos.

1. Botanists on a bridge!

2. Western wild ginger (Asarum caudatum). The evergreen heart-shaped leaves are distinctive.

3. Siberian miner’s lettuce (Claytonia sibirica). Lots of leaves showing in crevices at the base of trees.

4. A lovely vase-shaped Clitocybe of some sort, growing on a decaying fallen tree (a cottonwood, we think).

5. Orange jelly (Dacrymyces chrysospermus). Common on conifers.

6. Artist conk (Ganoderma applanatum).

7. Small staghorn (Calocera cornea).

8. Plume moss (Dendroalsia abietina).

9. Hanging moss (Antitrichia curtipendula).

10. Magnificent moss (Plagiomnium venustum). On bigleaf maple trunks; multiple sporophytes.

11. Banded wooly bear – larval form of Isabella tiger moth (Pyrrharctia isabella).

The post Botany walk at Roy Morrison Nature Park appeared first on Comox Valley Nature.

Many CVN members want their gardens to attract pollinators, and carefully select native plants for this purpose. But how much do we know about the pollinators themselves?

As a joint project, the Environmental Youth Alliance and a project named Border Free Bees prepared a booklet in 2017 to educate the public about insect pollinators. You can download it for free here (PDF, 11.5 MB):

Common Pollinators of British Columbia: A Visual Identification Guide

This booklet is a useful introductory guide that you can use to learn about various categories of insect pollinators: honey bee, bumble bee, hairy belly bee, miner bee, hover fly, butterfly, and wasp.

It begins with some general information, including a diagram of basic insect anatomy. Then the section for each of the seven categories includes a description, a diagram, and clear labelled photos of a few examples from the category.

This is not a field guide, but it’s a fun way to enhance your knowledge of the insect pollinators that visit the flowers in gardens and in the wild. For those who want to identify the insects more specifically, this guide can lead beginners to the correct section of their detailed field guides.

The post Identifying insect pollinators: a visual guide appeared first on Comox Valley Nature.

Title: An update on the checkerspot butterfly recovery project
Speakers: Jennifer Heron and Chris Junck
Date: Sunday, April 10, 2022
Time: 7:00 p.m. PT

This webinar is facilitated by the Canadian Society of Environmental Biologists and is open to the public (see the registration link below).

Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha taylori) had a historical range from Hornby Island, southeastern Vancouver Island and south into Oregon. The species was thought to be extirpated in Canada by 2000 since no checkerspots were found on the last known sites on Hornby Island. However, new populations were found on Denman Island in 2005 and near Campbell River in 2018.

The checkerspot butterfly is federally listed at Endangered and the decline is likely due to habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. Checkerspot butterflies need open sunny meadows where they can find suitable host plants (food for larvae and nectar-producing flowers for adults), such as woolly sunflower, common camas, small-flowered blue-eyed Mary, wild strawberry, sea blush, and yarrow. Meadows in Helliwell Provincial Park on Hornby Island have become less suitable for butterflies due to invasions of non-native plants and encroaching forests.

The Taylor’s Checkerspot Butterfly Recovery Project is a collaborative effort to restore Taylor’s checkerspot populations in British Columbia through habitat enhancement, captive butterfly rearing and release, monitoring, public outreach, and other activities. More information: https://goert.ca/beautiful-and-hopefully-bountiful-butterflies-in-helliwell/

About the speakers

Jennifer Heron is a Provincial Invertebrate Conservation Specialist with the Species Conservation Science Unit of the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. Jennifer has been working on invertebrate conservation topics beginning with her MSc in 1998 studying ants in the Okanagan. She works with other invertebrate specialists and conservation and stewardship groups to develop conservation status ranks and recovery-planning approaches for invertebrate groups, and to achieve common public outreach goals. She is the chair of the Taylor’s Checkerspot Recovery Project Team and also co-chairs the Arthropods Specialist Subcommittee for the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC).

Chris Junck is a conservation biologist with a BSc in biology from the University of Alberta. He was a member of BC’s Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team (GOERT) staff from 2002 to 2015 and currently serves as a director on the board, a voluntary position. He has reported on recent recovery activities for checkerspot butterflies in Helliwell Park on Hornby Island including the removal of Douglas fir, replacing the invasive plants with native species, and the introduction of checkerspot caterpillars.

Registration

“Seating capacity” for the talk is limited, and you need to register in advance. You can check the computer requirements for attendees here.

Register here

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions for joining the webinar.

If you are new to Comox Valley Nature, find out more about us here.

Although CVN lectures are free, donations of any size from non-members who attend are always appreciated ($4.00 is suggested).

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Before the spring growing season explodes, take a moment to check out some colourful rose hips! [Click a photo to enlarge it.]

Our native Nootka rose (Rosa nutkana) has nice round red hips all through the winter months. These are a high source of vitamin C, so it’s OK to nibble the hips. However, beware of the large, coarsely hairy seeds that aren’t very palatable.

The dog rose (Rosa canina complex), is a similar looking, pink-blooming rose from Europe, with oval-shaped hips that typically taper at each end.

Dog roses often have golf-ball-sized galls known as the mossy rose gall or “robin’s pincushion,” caused by the larvae of a certain gall wasp. Here’s a bit of information that I found about mossy rose galls on the website of The Wildlife Trusts in the UK:

The Robin’s pincushion (also known as the ‘Bedeguar Gall’) is a gall caused by the larvae of a tiny gall wasp, Diplolepis rosae. The gall is widespread and common, and can be found developing on the stems of Dog-roses during late summer; it acquires its reddish colour as it matures in autumn. Each gall holds many grubs, which feed on the gall tissues throughout the winter and emerge in spring as adults. Only a tiny number of adults are male.

Dog rose and another European species, sweetbriar (Rosa rubiginosa), are tricky to tell apart without examining leaf details. Both of these species have curved, downward pointing spines.

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