One arrived on Tuesday and a few more today, feeding on the sunflower seeds under my feeder in Barnhartvale. A number of years ago hundreds arrived and ate everything. Freshly emerged peas in the garden were devoured. A week later the mob moved on and I replanted.
Continue reading →Welcome to Mushroom Monday for April 30, 2018 With the recent appearance of a few species of ink cap mushrooms, we can expect to see them through the summer and fall. The big majority of ink cap mushrooms (called the coprinoid fungi) share the unusual feature of having gills that digest themselves at maturity producing a liquid mass of black spores. Some of the liquid drips to the ground and infiltrates the soil and some dries on the mushroom cap and is wind dispersed. If insects land on the liquid … Continue reading →
A Modified Letter to the Editor of Kamloops This Week published April 25, 2018 By Rick Howie, Registered Professional Biologist I read with interest the comments by Hugh Jordan in Kamloops This Week regarding the Sandhill Cranes passing over Aberdeen recently. Indeed, it is exciting to see and hear these magnificent birds passing overhead at this time of year as they have done annually for thousands of years. April is the peak month for spring migration. Most of the birds normally pass just a bit west of Aberdeen enroute north … Continue reading →
Jesse Ritcey posted on Kamloops Neighbourhoods Associations Discussion Nexus on April 25, 2018 McArthur Island IS a nature preserve. While the parks department has been planning and pondering future possibilities for the golf course lands something incredible happened.
Continue reading →Welcome to Mushroom Monday for April 23, 2018 The cup fungi are a wide-spread and variable group of cup-shaped mushrooms. The most conspicuous ones are often colourful. There are hundreds of species with many being hard to identify and requiring microscopic features to determine species. No guide book attempts to cover them all so be happy if you can arrive at a genus name. Spores are produced on the inner surface of the cup and are often released in a visible cloud-like puff. Many are found on burned ground and … Continue reading →
Welcome to Mushroom Monday for April 16, 2018 Puffballs are a specialized group of mushrooms that produce spheroidal fruitbodies. They belong to a group called Gastromycetes meaning “stomach fungi.” In this group, spores are produced internally in sacs that are generally more-or-less oval. Spores are not forcibly discharged as in the gilled mushrooms, but instead the outer membranes (the peridium) open with pores, or by disintegrating, and the powdery spores are released by wind, or the impact of rain or animals stepping on them. They are called puffballs because clouds … Continue reading →