From an email by Jocie to the Botany Group on December 31. Click a photo to enlarge it.
Here are a few wintery photos from Miracle Beach Provincial Park.
1. Black Creek view.
2. Cones of western red cedar.
3. Cones of western hemlock.
4. Orange jelly spot fungus (Dacrymyces chrysospermus).
In a fascinating and amusing article titled “Life Over Limb: Conversation with a Taildropper Slug“, CVN member Véronique McIntyre describes this unusual creature and how and why it manages to sever its own tail section and still survive. Read the article here.
This is the second submission in a new facet of this site devoted to long-form writing from CVN members, following the publication yesterday of a book review. Each of these contributions will have its own page on the site and be introduced by a blog post (like this one). You can access these contributions any time using the new blog post categories “Articles” and “Book Reviews” in the sidebar, or the Search box, also in the sidebar.
In the initial contribution to a new facet of this site, CVN member Tony de Castro has shared his review of the book Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery. As a longer form article the review has its own page on the site. You can read the review here.
Comox Valley Nature, facilitated by the Canadian Society of Environmental Biologists, recently presented the following webinar:
Title: Conservation Implications of Clearcutting around Strathcona Provincial Park
Speaker: Loys Maingon
Date: Sunday, January 15, 2023
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.
Nominations for Comox Valley Nature’s Tree of the Year for 2023 are now open. Some key features of the contest:
You can nominate a tree any time between January 15 and March 15. Visit our Tree of the Year page to learn more about the contest and to access the nomination form. There you will also find some details of the nomination rules (which have not changed from last year’s). Or go directly to the nomination form here:
Tree of the Year Nomination Form
After nominations close, we will publish an illustrated list of the nominees on this website, along with maps of their locations. We encourage you to visit as many as you can, preferably by cycling or walking, before you vote.
The voting period will start April 1 and end May 31. Watch for additional details at that time.
Comox Valley Nature is pleased to host the following free lecture at our January online meeting:
Title: Conservation Implications of Clearcutting around Strathcona Provincial Park
Speaker: Loys Maingon
Date: Sunday, January 15, 2023
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).
BC’s forests have been so intensively and unsustainably clearcut over the past five decades that even the Premier has publicly acknowledged that they are “exhausted.” This is synonymous with the international designation endorsed at COP15 of “degraded forests.” Strathcona Provincial Park now stands as a virtual ecological island in a sea of clearcuts. This has important economic and ecological implications for the region and for the management of Strathcona Provincial Park. The government’s stated commitment to “30% by 2030” presents a unique opportunity to complete the 12% advocated for in the 1989 Larkin report, and add a further 18% to the park, if only to meet our obligations to future generations.
Loys Maingon is a retired registered professional biologist and research director for the Strathcona Wilderness Institute. He is a former president of Comox Valley Nature and is currently a CVN director.
“Seating capacity” for the talk is limited, and you need to register in advance. You can check the computer requirements for attendees 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).
CVN has a new and improved online method for new members to join and existing members to renew. With this new method you can provide your contact information, affirm the waiver, optionally make a donation, and pay with a credit or debit card, all together through our payment processor Square.
If you have not already joined or renewed, try it out! Start at our updated Membership page.
Even if you prefer to pay by e-transfer, cheque or cash, you can still use the new method to send us your membership information and affirm the waiver. However, if you would like to use the traditional paper form instead, it is still available on our Membership page.
We have similarly improved the process of making a donation separately from membership to let you specify your donation intentions more clearly and pay with a credit or debit card online. You can even make multiple donations to different CVN interest groups or activities with one payment while itemizing your intended amounts.
To try out the new donation process (apart from the membership process), start at our updated Donate page.
Contributed by Karen Cummins, leader of the Tree of the Year team. Click a photo to enlarge it.
We had our first workshop for CVN members who will help check the trees nominated for the upcoming Tree of the Year event. We met on a beautiful mid-December afternoon in Filberg Park in Comox to learn how to measure tree height and diameter, consider tree identification, and describe the location including the GPS coordinates.
This was a first CVN outing for Katrice Baur who is the Comox Valley Youth Coordinator for the Invasive Species Council of BC. We are looking forward to Katrice and her youth helping us with Tree of the Year as well as engaging in birding, botany and wetland group outings.
We were also very fortunate to be joined in our workshop by Tryna McLean, the charge-hand for Filberg Park. Serendipitously, we had already decided to use “Frankie,” the red oak in Filberg Park that Tryna nominated for Tree of the Year in 2022, as a tree to illustrate measuring techniques. Tryna shared more of “Frankie’s” history and was able to identify and tell stories of many of the park trees.
We are really pleased that at least three of our group are also interested in testing and helping Roger Chayer to create the cycle maps for 2023.
Nominations for the 2023 Tree of the Year event will be open from January 15 to March 15. Watch for further blog posts as the event progresses.
Look up, look way up and find your favourite tree to honour.
This year’s 2022 Restoration Report for the Courtenay River Airpark has been posted on the Comox Valley Nature Website. It is under publications on the top bar of the page. Click on this and go to Wetland Restoration.
I wish to thank all the volunteers who showed up in record numbers helping the project for its 28th year. We are looking forward to 2023 and some new initiatives that we have planned.
A limited number of hard copies of the report are also available from myself or Karen Cummins.
Thanks once again.
Frank Hovenden
Comox Valley Nature, facilitated by the Canadian Society of Environmental Biologists, recently presented the following webinar:
Title: Biodiversity of the Morrison Creek Headwaters
Speakers: David Stapley, Joy Wade and Chanchal Cabrera
Date: Sunday, December 11, 2022
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.
