White nose syndrome is caused by a fungus that’s decimating bat populations. It slowly weakens the animals until they die of starvation. It kills about 85 per cent to 99.9 per cent of bats in affected hibernacula. It was first detected in the eastern United States in 2006 and has wiped out entire populations there.
Continue reading →Submitted by Gary Hunt This article is from last summer but we are seeing it again in our region. In spite of the extreme heat we have been experiencing, mushrooms continue to appear in our surrounding forested areas. North-facing slopes and moist gullies can yield fun surprises even during extreme heat waves. One striking example I encountered yesterday at McConnell Lake is Sarcodon imbricatus, aka the Shingled Hedgehog. The mushroom has a large, brown cap, up to 30 cm in diameter, covered with large brown scales. The cap is depressed … Continue reading →
For the third summer, the Kamloops Naturalist Club has organized trips for TRU World with international students. Students this year are from Indonesia and they all attend school in Jakarta. We spend about two hours with each group and take them up Tranquille Creek. We show them plants and animals and discuss various features of the landscape and climate. The highlight of the trip for the students is learning how to pan for gold. These pictures illustrate some of what we saw and did on the four trips we have … Continue reading →
Note: There are significant discounts with early registration before August 1. For full details, see the website here. Presentations and meetings will be at the Pitt Meadows Golf Club. The Burke Mountain Naturalists (BMN) invite you to the BC Nature Fall 2019 General Meeting and Conference to be held October 3rd through 5th in the Pitt Meadows /Tri-Cities area of Metro Vancouver. This conference coincides with celebrations of the 30th anniversary of BMN and 50th anniversary of BC Nature, which provides our theme, “Celebrating the Joys of Nature”. Our region offers … Continue reading →
A recent article by Colin Purrington explains 11 flaws encountered in commercially made houses intended for mason bees. 1. Nesting blocks, tubes, reeds are not removable Glued nesting materials is the number one reason why most commercial bee hotesl can become death traps. Because the nesting material cannot be removed and cleaned (or just thrown out), over time there will be an increase in the population of parasitic wasps, parasitic bees, parasitic flies, kleptoparasitic mites, fungi, bacteria, and viruses. And you typically won’t see these dangers because the solitary bees will … Continue reading →
Here is the complete list of 64 bird species seen or heard on the Greenstone trip July 7, 2019. Big thank you to Isaac Nelson for compiling this. Canada Goose, Blue-winged Teal, Cinnamon Teal, Northern Shoveler, Mallard, Ring-necked Duck, Lesser Scaup, Bufflehead, Ruddy Duck, Pied-billed Grebe, Common Nighthawk, Vaux’s Swift, Calliope Hummingbird, American Coot, Killdeer, Spotted Sandpiper, Bald Eagle, Red-tailed Hawk, Red-naped Sapsucker, Lewis’s Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker (Red-shafted), American Kestrel, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Western Wood-Pewee, Willow Flycatcher, Pacific-slope Flycatcher, Eastern Kingbird, Warbling Vireo, Canada Jay, Common Raven, Northern … Continue reading →