A herring skiff

Originally uploaded by TheRainbird

Each year herring spawns around Vancouver Island in early March. This year is no exception. Just this morning I heard that the herring were spawning near French Creek between Parksville and Qualicum Beach. this attracts tens of thousands of birds, of all kinds as well as seals, and sea lions. This is a real spectacle of whirling wildlife and avid consumption of the eggs of the herring.

In some ways it is the foundation of all the ocean life around Vancouver Island. Herring is the most populous fish in the ocean here. It has the largest biomass too. And the wildlife know this and depend on the fecundity of the herring spawn.

One of the birds that depends on it is a little sea goose called Brant, just Brant. Smaller than our familiar Canada Goose, it also sports a black head and neck. But the white patch is around the neck not under the chin. It starts arriving on the shores of the island in late February in time to feed on eel grass that is impregnated with herring roe. This is a vital food source that will sustain them on their migration to Alaska. This little goose has inspired an annual festival, the Brant Festival where there are interpretive tours, a bird-watching competition, art shows, and a number of other events spaced across March & April. http://www.brantfestival.bc.ca/index.php

Other sea birds that depend on herring roe are vast flocks, or rafts of sea-ducks like three species of Scoters, Greater Scaup, Long-tailed Ducks, Mergansers, and Goldeneyes. these rafts can contain as many as 13,000 birds. And gulls also gather from all parts of the Salish Sea (Straight of Georgia), interior island lakes and the Alberni Inlet. Enormous flocks of up to 10 species of gulls can be found loafing on the beaches and erupting into whirling masses of birds when the herring fleet goes to work.

At Deep Bay a huge flock of gulls is massed ready to prey on the herring span.

Yes, the herring fleet. Another creature that gathers to await the spawning of these fish. It is a hugely controversial fishery. Old timers tell stories about how abundant the herring were even 20 years ago! And they are disgusted to see it still happening when the abundance of the herring is a shadow of their former numbers. Yet on it goes.

Rainbird Excursions will be hosting a tour next next weekend on Saturday to see this spectacle. The Van leaves at 10:00 AM from The visitor Information centre in Port Alberni. For more, click the link below.

RainbirdExcursions.com

I was surprised when this boy from Britain didn't flinch when he was pinched.

Signal Crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus)

Originally uploaded by TheRainbird

This lobster-like creature is very common in the streams and lakes of the Pacific Northwest. Although its claws are much smaller than it’s saltwater cousin they can still give a nasty pinch!

I took the first picture last summer on one of my nature tours. I had posted it on Flicker and have been surprised to find out how popular the picture was. So, of course, I googled “Signal Crayfish”.
I found out that this crustacean has been introduced to northern Europe because the popular native crayfish was nearly completely killed off by a plague. It’s a kind of water-bourne fungus brought from North America, presumably in the ballast of some ship in the nineteenth century.

The Signal crayfish is immune to the fungal disease. And it not only has out competed the native variety, but it is a carrier of the disease. So as it spreads, it spreads the disease. There are all kinds of articles about it on line. So that’s why this picture is so popular!

Crayfish are quite popular delicacies in northern Europe, and also in places around North America. My Friend Roy lives on a nice property on the banks of the Stamp River. He likes a good feed of them once in a while. In talking to him , he said he had thought he had fished out the crawfish around his place. But some fishermen left some fish guts in the river. A few days later, he found at least 20 feasting on the guts. So they are pretty resilliant to fishing.

According to Tina Neal, the Adaptation Advisor for the BC Ministry of the Environment, “This initiative will help us identify and catalogue coastal areas currently vulnerable to tidal inundation.  Local expertise and local knowledge will be extremely valuable in identifying locations that are already subject to high water events and helping us to visualize what future sea level rise could mean for BC.”

So I got out on January 4th with my camera on the Somass Estuary.  Here are a few of the pictures. The first one was taken on 26 December about an hour before an average high tide.  The highest it would have gotten would be another 10 centimeters. The second picture is from approximately the same location taken on the king tide.

Normal High Tide at Somass Estuary

King Tide at the Somass Estuary, 4 Jan 2010

There is a dramatic difference! In this case there is very little to damage. A flooded hayfield isn’t much of a big deal. But if I turn around and look the other way, there is a big differnence. The city sewage lagoon and the paper mill effluent lagoon are both situated on the estuary and there both vulnerable to sea level rise.  In this case, I figure it is about 1.5 meters before flooding of these ponds happens.

A foot access from the pipeline that crosses the estuary.

City sewage lagoon is on the left

Finally there is a pipeline that traverses the entire estuary carrying water from Sproat lake to the paper mill. It is raised and is supported along it’s length by pilings so that it is quite a bit higher even than the dykes around the mill pond and the sewage lagoon.  (As an aside there is a wonderful walkway along each side of it that allows you a nice view of the estuary.)  Still it was ruptured by the Tsunami from the Ankorage earthquake in 1964.

The pipeline that carries water from Sproat lake to the paper mill.

How many birds in the flock?

Originally uploaded by TheRainbird

With Christmas Bird Counts starting all across North America next week it is timely to begin thinking about how good you are at counting birds in a flock. In this case, it is a flock of Starlings congregating in the evening before settling on a roost for the night. I guessed very low. Most people do. But it is a skill you can improve upon.

One technique that is mentioned, is to group the birds in a flock into tens, or fives. whatever is convenient. And then say that if a group of ten takes up this much space, there must be 60, say, in the flock.

Another way is to take a picture of the flock and count the birds in the picture. This is a great way to improve your skill. I originally estimated 350 or so in this flock. There are really 533!

This show part of the original photo cropped where the last group of 10 is.

And there are a variety of sites on the web that help. Here are a few:

Counting Flocks at Feeders

Bird Counting 101

Bird Counting 201

And for those who realy want to delve into the subject, there’s a book called Bird Census Techniques. And there are an number of other technical references

Originally uploaded by TheRainbird

Last summer, Weiner Falls and Rainbird Excursions were featured in a local cable television production. This magnificent waterfall is completely unknown to most of the people in the the community. And I’ve been getting calls even now (It’s December) asking how to get to it. The waterfall is only about a 30 minute hike from a spot near the West Bay Hotel on Sproat Lake, Vancouver Island.

It’s a little tricky to find as there are no signs to get you there. So I used Google earth to create a map for you to find it. If you are driving from Port Alberni, drive past the turnoff to Great Central Lake and take the next right turn just before the entrance to Sproat Lake Provincial Park about 300m further on around the bend in the road. Follow the gravel road about 500 or 600 m to a left turn at the start of a recent clearcut. (The photo below is out of date. It shows the area with trees still standing.). This road parallels the highway. Follow it until it ends at a creek, and park in the turn-around. You will be at the “P” in the picture below.

From there walk back about 30 feet and follow the road leading up the hill (away from the lake) toward the powerlines. You will walk through some large second-growth forest and emerge unde the powerlines within about 100 meters. As you follow the road it will quickly deteriorates as the hill gets steeper. Look for a trail that leaves the road on the left and parallels the powerlines. Really it is an old eroded logging road. You will go by a couple of old rusted car wrecks and an obvious trail to the left. Do not take this first trail! Go past it and hike for another 10-15 minutes until you come to a bush with a faded pink ribbon and another more recent blue ribbon on it. There will also be a bunch of rocks there, the remains of a small cairn that got knocked over. This is where you turn off the trail onto another less obvious one. You will hear the falls at this point. The trail will take you to the top of the falls. At the fork you can either go to a ledge at the top or go left to the top of the canyon below the falls. Here there are some ropes attached to trees to assist you to get to the bottom for the best view of the falls.

I often see Red-legged Frogs above or below the falls. They are listed as species of concern in British Columbia. I have seen bears in the area a number of times. I have never been bothered by one. But I also don’t chase them down for a better picture either. that could be dangerous. Below are a few more pictures.

Winer Falls in the Rain

Originally uploaded by TheRainbird

One of the questions I often get asked by guests is, “How much does it rain on Vancouver Island? Good question. After all we live here in a temperate rainforest. And the answer, of course, is “It varies!”

I pulled out some precipitation data from the Environment Canada Weather Office site. I selected a few communities from up and down Vancouver Island, and on both the east side and the west side. A chart of the data is below.

Monthly precipitation at several locations on Vancouver Island

The locations used in the chart

The trends are quite interesting. Holberg, on northern Vancouver Island, gets close to 4 meters, or 12.5 feet, of rain. Wow! That’s a lot of rain! And Tofino, about a third of the way up the island on the west side gets a similar amount, 3.3 meters or 11 ft. But Henderson Lake takes the cake at 6.6 meters or almost 22 ft of rain a year! All these location are on the west side of the Island.

The east side of Vancouver Island is much drier. At 0.83m, Victoria gets about 4 cm more precipitation a year than Toronto. That’s not much. Less than two inches difference considering that both cities get less than a yard of rain a year. It’s less than ¼ of what Holberg gets. About half-way up the east side of the island is Campbell River. It gets more precipitation, about 1.3 m or 4.4 feet. But still much drier than the west side. Port Alberni lies in the middle of the Island at the end of a long inlet or fjord. The precipitation here is about half of Tofino’s. And Tofino is only 80 km away.

All these lower precipitation levels can be explained by the mountains in the middle of the island. The prevailing winds are from the west. Moisture-laden air is pushed up over the mountains. And in doing this the air temperature drops and the air cannot carry as much water. It falls on the west side, leaving the air drier when it arrives further east. This of course, is called the rain-shadow effect. The further south you get on the east side of the island, the more pronounced this effect becomes. Astonishingly there is a cactus that grows on the southernmost parts of Vancouver Island.

The driest months of the year are June, July, August and September. Depending on where you are on the island, you can count on it raining less at this time of year than in Toronto. So unless you want to do some winter storm-watching on the west coast. The time to visit is during these months.

Celebrating the first Matsutake

Originally uploaded by TheRainbird

Masaya is a very persistent fellow! He has been on a mushroom tour with me before, but he didn’t quite get what he was hoping for. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they had a great time. But he was hoping to pick some Matsutake Mushrooms on it. But we were in the wrong habitat.
What are Matsutake mushrooms? Also known as Pine Mushrooms,

they are large white mushrooms that are prized by the Japanese for thier flavour and thier smell. They have the most incredible sweet spicy scent. I love just smelling them.

Anyway, Masaya didn’t give up. He asked again last year about a Matsutake tour. I told him that there wasn’t that much of a demand for this kind of tour and that the ground where they grow around here was very steep. So this year, he offered to bring some friends with him. I told him that most of the areas I used to pick in are not accessible any more.

There was one area though where I thought we might find them. But I had never picked there and couldn’t guarantee anything. He and his friends went for it. And they did really well. They found between three and four pounds of them. Mostly grade 4. We also met some others who were out doing the same thing as us. They said they were just doing it as a favour to some people that one of them works for. Apparently they send temple wood over to Japan.

People who pick Pine Mushrooms are very protective of the locations where they pick. Pines used to fetch big dollars. It wasn’t unusual for a good picker who knew where to find them to earn $2,000/day! that was when the price for the best quality was $80/lb or more. Now, However they are only around $8/lb.

Here on Vancouver Island they can be found on the west side on the flats. But in the interior of the isalnd they grow only under dry old growth forests dominated by Douglas fir. And these stands are quickly dissapearing as the last of the commercially available forest is logged.

See Rainbird Excursions.com

Salmon at Stamp Falls

Originally uploaded by TheRainbird

I suppose it is time to get on my annual soap box and rave about how great the the spectacle is at Stamp Falls. It is truly the best place on Vancouver Island to see salmon migrating to the spawning grounds.

Any time from early September to late October is a great time to visit. If possible, choose a sunny mid-morning because the angle of the sun is best to see the fish in the pool below the falls and best for photography.

This year there is some concern about how few Chinook are passing through the counters stationed at the falls. Only a quarter of the normal number of this species have passed by them, 2,568. Out in the ocean fishermen have caught 42,000.

Early fall at the Clutesi Haven Marina. The annual Port Alberni Salmon Festival will be on again this Labour Day weekend. A $10,000 prize for the biggest fish caught. The Alberni Inlet is a frenzy of sport fishing boats vying for position and hoping luck will com their way. Here is the calm before the storm. The marina will be humming by this time tomorrow. There will be a salmon BBQ, Beer Garden, a stage for local talent, and the biggest fish caught so far will be on display on ice.

Bear on the Somass River

Originally uploaded by TheRainbird

For most of the year bears are not seen on the far bank of the Somass River. But from mid-August to late October this is the best place to see Black Bears on Vancouver Island. They are commonly seen on low tides at the mouth of the river on the far side from the city. The bears are attracted by salmon in the river, especially dead ones. And, in turn, people are attracted to the near bank of the river to see them. It is not unusual to see groups of people sitting on the park benches sipping their morning coffee while they watch a bear or two patroling the far side of the river. It is quite safe as the bears don’t take any notice of the people. And even if one did, and went after someone, that person could be in the car and driving away before the bear got close.

Patroling the mouth of the Somass River looking for Salmon

These shot swere taken around 7:30 this morning. The bears have just started showing up on the Somass. Today is the 19th of August.