Bowen Nature Club AGM, membership time and speaker: Seals and Sealions of the Northern Coast

The time has finally come for getting your 2013 Bowen Nature Club membership and attending our Annual General Meeting!

Where & When:
This year it will be held on February 16th at the home of D.G. Blair. 
Email bowennatureclub at gmail dot com for address.
It is a potluck and starts at 5:30pm.

Our Speaker: Dr Andrew Trite
Dr Andrew Trite is an amazing speaker and world renown researcher on Steller sea lions.
Dr Trite has been studying North Pacific marine mammals for over 20 years and his research is primarily focused on Steller sea lions, northern fur seals, and harbor seals. His research program involves captive studies, field studies and simulation models that range from single species to whole ecosystems. His goal is to further the conservation and understanding of marine mammals; providing insights that can be used to resolve conflicts between people and marine mammals. He is involved in many projects including those measuring how the distribution of different species (walrus, fur seals, kittiwakes, murres, pollock and bivalves) are controlled by fishing, predators, food availability as well as changes in the physical environment that can act alone or in concert to alter the species ecosystems. He will provide a presentation on his research trying to understand the disappearance of Stellar sea lions from the Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. He has been testing three contributing factors: 1) predation by killer whales; 2) competition with existing fisheries and 3) reproductive failure due to changes in diet. He will link this work back to his new research program trying to determine how Harbour seals in the Strait of Georgia (highest density of harbour seals found anywhere in the world) influence sockeye, chinook and coho salmon populations in BC. Dr. Trites is a Professor at UBC's Fisheries Center and Director of UBC's Marine Mammal Research Unit and the North Pacific Universities Marine Mammal Research Consortium.

Membership Outings:
This year we have some exciting adventures planned, including an Owl Prowl, Invasive Plant Walk, Howe Sound Boat Tour, Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Family Camping Trip, a bug and insect walk, the annual Sea Creature Dive, and a hike over Collins Ridge. Also, in addition to the continuing weekly (F)unschool outings, we will be offering a 3-day (F)unschool camp during Spring Break!

Bowen Nature Club has affordable annual memberships ($22/family or $18/single), which give you emailed notices of our outings, attendance to members-only outings, BC Nature Magazine, and insurance coverage for our outings.

If you would like to purchase a membership at the AGM: Get a membership form from a director, fill in both pages, and hand it back with your payment.

If you would like to purchase a membership by mail: Email bowennaturclub at gmail dot com to ask for a membership form, print and fill in both pages once you get it, and mail it with your payment (cheque made out to Bowen Nature Club) to our director in charge of membership (you'll be given her address when the form is emailed to you, because I don't want to post it on a public forum and increase her junkmail burden!).

(F)unschool along Killarney Creek

Last week we explored the section of Killarney Creek just east of Magee Rd. and in the same general area where we previously found fighting barred owls and Signal Crayfish parts, we found even more excitement: a very gruesome dead deer, many broken freshwater mussel shells (also the remains of an otter feast, we expect), a deposit of lovely clay, some recent beaver handiwork, tiny sitka spruce saplings (one felled by a beaver), a bald eagle, and a Red Legged frog which I believe was getting ready to lay eggs. Some also smelled a musty smell that we think may have been the beavers, likely hiding out nearby. Of course we didn't see them...

The leg bone's connected to the hip bone!

 So today we went back again! Along the south side of the creek, we found more mussel shells, a spectacular upended tree, whose roots were encrusted with clay so that it looked like a cliff face from one side, a scattered old deer skeleton, whose bones could be pieced together again, some interesting fungi, cedar shells, and moss, and yet more evidence of beaver activity (and that musty smell, again!)

In addition to our continuing weekly outings, (F)unschool will be convening for a 3-day "camp" during March break, entitled Beach, Bog, and Bluffs. Maybe you can guess where we'll be going...

Sitting on the upended tree roots.

This was a very exciting fireworks show, with "fireworks" made of tiny broken twigs, which the audience is welcome to catch!

Fairy garments.

Bowen Nature Club Mushroom Walkabout

Saturday, November 10^th  at 1 pm

Meet in front of the library to car pool to our field location

Join coastal BC mushroom expert John Field, Ph.D on a walkabout to find some of Bowen’s mushrooms.  We will have a leisurely stroll of about 2 hours seeking out mushrooms that we find along the way – picking our route based on current conditions. Due to the popularity of this event and our aim to make this as interactive as possible, this is a free but members-only event limited to 20 people. Please pre-register with DG at dgbwh@telus.net.  You may also call DG (-0134) with any questions or to pre-register.

Today, forester and conservationist Everhard van Lidth de Jeude led the Nature Club (F)unschool group on a walk into Fairy Fen Nature Reserve (formerly Mystery Fen), with the intention of hanging up some signs there. They are very nice, metal-clad signs, welcoming visitors to Fairy Fen Nature Reserve, and alerting them to its status as a "Reserve", with icons declaring no cycling, no dirt-biking, and no ATV's. The kids were interested, and helped to carry the signs down, as Everhard led them through the woods toward the fen, explaining interesting natural and human processes as we witnessed their evidence along the way; pointing out various types of vegetation, etc. Then...

"What's that sound?"

"It sounds like a truck."

"A chainsaw?"

"No I think it's a quad."

We trekked into the Nature Reserve, and the sounds of the quad disappeared in the distance, but we immediately found the fresh clods of mud it had churned up, and its tracks leading away from the other "Fairy Fen Nature Reserve" signs hung by other Conservancy members.

What a learning experience for the kids!

Everhard then took us to the edge of the fen, and pointed out all sorts of interesting plant life; talked about the provenance of the fen and surrounding boggy new forest, from what was probably once a lake. He told us that somebody had come with expandable rods to measure the depth of the fen, but that he had stopped when he ran out of rods at about 8 feet. We went around the fen, to find the site of a long-ago landslide, and deep grooves in the mountainside probably caused by logs being hauled down the slope when the place was logged many decades ago.

And all the way around the fen, the kids made note of the small devastations (and litter) left by quads and bikes. Fairy Fen was made a preservation area for a reason; it's a sensitive ecosystem and a beautiful area, and it's especially suitable for helping our island's youth to understand the importance of our natural home. Today they learned about its fragility and its need for protection.

Howe Sound & McNab Creek Boat Tour

When I told my three year-old about the barnacle-eating bear we saw, he asked 'Were you very brave and didn't scweam?'  I have to admit that floating along in the Apodaca on such a beautiful day, it was hard to feel intimidated by the big ball of fur on shore.  And he didn't seem very concerned about us.  It's the first time for years that I've seen a bear, and what a privilege to observe one in his natural environment, doing ‘normal’ bear things.  Not going through garbage cans or scrumping apples, but eating barnacles from the rocks of beautiful, pristine coastal bluffs.  Equally unimpressed by our visit was the bald eagle, aloof and perfect in his white and black outfit, eagle-eyes glowering and looking every inch the gatekeeper of the bluffs, perched atop a pointy, tall rock.  Other nature-spotting highlights on the trip included: sailing close to the beautiful Defence Islands with their incredible diversity of gnarled and contorted bluff trees, set in the aquamarine, glacially silted waters; the very charismatic seals basking on Pam Rocks and Christie Islet, many of them with their pups; for the birders, we also saw oyster catchers, pigeon guillemots, herons and cormorants on the rocks and in the water around them.  

After we passed McNab Creek the setting changed to a more industrial theme.  Approaching and beyond the pulp mill at Port Mellon were booming ground after booming ground as well as small scale lumber processing mills.  Every available inch of shoreline seemed to be taken by the log booms and we saw the occasional tug boat working them.  On the south coast of Anvil Island we saw the ex-BC Ferry poking out of a tiny bay, awaiting its fate.  We also saw a ‘live’ ferry heading to Langdale.  It was really interesting to see the reach and extent of industrial activity which is normally out of sight from Bowen.

As with all Nature Club events, our trip was enriched most of all by the wonderful people who came along.  Ranging from toddlers to those who remember the glaciers retreating, visitors to those who remember the Apodaca when she was new, and everyone in between, all were enthusiastic participants and shared their gift of wonder and appreciation.  Thank you to all who came along and thank you to Brian, Mike and the Apodaca for another amazing trip.

 

The route!

Lunch on the Apodaca! - photo by Wendy Seale-Bakes

Black Bear eating barnacles - photo by Wendy Seale-Bakes

Gulls - photo by Wendy Seale-Bakes

Herons - photo by Wendy Seale-Bakes

Lighthouse - photo by Marge Swain

Seal - photo by Marge Swain

 

Photos of Herons nesting in Snug Cove April 5-7 2012

The great blue herons are back in their nesting colony behind the Bowen Library (Old General Store) in Snug Cove.

I took a number of photos including mating, nest building and occupation of nests by pairs (male and female).

The quality of images is not the best, the mating and nest building occurred near dusk. Also, to ensure that I did not disturb the mating rituals, I restricted myself to the sidewalk and grassy verge along government road and kept to designated trails in Crippen Park.

I saw three active nests.

Please report any sightings of herons in trees to Bowen Heron Watch (Sue Ellen Fast at sefast@shaw.ca or Alan Whitehead at alanjw@telus.net ).

Photos by Will Husby

Top: 2 pair of herons occupying nests

Middle 3: Heron gathering twigs to ad to nest.

Bottom: A pair of herons mating on nest

Our Island's Geology

Kids, Parents and Teachers from Bowen Island's Island Discovery Learning Community explore a local clay deposit with geologist and mayor Bob Turner: