The Bowen Nature Club is looking for new directors!

We're freshly out from our recent Apodaca Park adventure, and into the very wet and dark November (F)unschool outings. It's been a lovely year of outings with the Bowen Nature Club, and we're quickly approaching our January AGM. This year we'll have a big changeover among the directors, and have openings we hope to fill before our one annual planning meeting in early January. Would you be willing and able to volunteer?

The Bowen Nature Club is not a society under the societies act, so the two director meetings we have each year are quite informal, as are the volunteer director positions. We are a non-political group dedicated to furthering our community's enjoyment and preservation of natural diversity. All directors attend both of our two annual meetings: A planning meeting in early January where we arrange the outings of the year, and the AGM in later January where we briefly read over the events of the past year, the finances, and the planned outings for the coming year, and then we usually have a speaker.

Please let us know if you're interested in joining us. We think we're a friendly bunch and find our involvement with the Nature Club to be not onerous, and very rewarding. Please contact us at bowennatureclub at gmail.com for more information.

(F)unschool adventure at Killarney Lake

So much to discover thriving on and around the floating logs in the lake!

Some logs we can even go out on, to find Labrador Tea, Salal, Lilies, and...

...out local carnivorous plant: Sundew!

Small Parks of Bowen Island Tour

Sue Ellen Fast led a wonderful tour of some of the small and lesser-known parks of Bowen Island, and Will Husby has contributed these photos from the day.

More photos from Cherie Westmoreland:

Mushroom Walkabout with John Field

In Early November, the Bowen Nature Club hosted an autumn mushroom walkabout with mushroom expert John Field. People of all ages came out to explore, and over a couple of kilometers we found an amazingly diverse assortment of different mushrooms, including edible, poisonous, rare, common, and very surprising!

Photos by Cherie Westmoreland and Lisa Marie Bhattachary.

Shaggy Parasol - LMB

Turkey Tails - LMB

Variant Turkey Tails - CW

 

CW

John Field describing identification methods - CW

Red Juice Milk Cap - CW

John Field with White Amanitas - CW

The prize!! Cauliflower Mushroom - LMB

The cauliflower mushroom was enormous! - CW

Nature Club (F)unschool out on a rainy day in the woods:

A Geologic Tour of Howe Sound

Bob Turner held us spellbound by the drama of the geologic story of Howe Sound, as we motored from Bowen Island up to Brittania Mine. On the way we paused to view the many seals at Pam Rocks, the raucous sea birds at the sanctuary of Christie Islet and circled the cliffs and coast of Halkett Bay, the Defence Islands and Anvil Island, at each pause considering what forces of nature created and shaped the landscape before us. Beautiful Camp Potlatch and Potlatch Creek provided a welcome landlubber picnic spot before we motored home to Snug Cove.

Great thanks to Bob Turner for his genial and expert guidance.

Thanks also to Cherie Westmoreland for these wonderful photographs from the tour:

Cormorants on Christie Islet.

White granite cliffs, smoothed by glaciers, stained rusty by iron minerals leaching through the fissures in the rock.

Notice the aquamarine of the ocean, so coloured by the glacial silt transported by the outflow of the Squamish River.

A view of Howe Sound from Camp Potlatch.

(F)unschool at Clipper Beach

We had a lovely time at Clipper Beach today!

We saw some geese fighting (those are presumably the wives looking on)...

And we saw a terrestrial garter snake with freshly-swallowed prey! (click to zoom in; the snake is in the foreground)

The snake looked very uncomfortable for a long time, with the prey lodged in its throat.

Then suddenly it regurgitated a still-wriggling sculpin!

...and swallowed it again - this time head-first.

Then it slithered away, stretched...

...and relocated its jaw.

Ah. Good meal.