Dave Ingram's Natural History Blog

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Join Dave Ingram as he walks part of the Pub to Pub trail at Woodhus Slough on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The trail is excellent for birding due to its mix of edge habitat, blackberry thickets, flooded farm fields, Douglas Fir forest, ocean shoreline, and the slough itself. Every Christmas Bird Count this area usually produces a number of good birds and the highlights of this walk include Greater White-fronted Geese, Trumpeter Swans, Peregrine Falcon and a good mix of ducks and song birds.

View a complete list of birds seen during the recording of this podcast.

Earlier this week I discovered a community of mosses living on an old cement curb. I revisited them with the lofty idea of taking a sample or three back to the house and identifying them.

After all, how hard could it be to identify a moss?

Unknown Moss #1

Armed with the RBCM handbook Some Common Mosses of British Columbia (WB Schofield) and my own naivety I quickly discovered I was in way over my head. It was fortunate that we have two both a dissecting and compound microscope at home as both are very useful when attempting to  identify mosses. It was unfortunate that these didn’t help me to figure out what the mosses actually were.

Unknown Moss #1 Microscope photograph of leaves and sporangia.

After close to an hour looking at the first moss under the microscope, my wife Jocie,  asked  me why I had chosen such difficult mosses to identify. She should know, since she’s taken courses specifically on mosses at UBC. She also has a collection of mosses and liverworts that fills 17 shoeboxes on a top shelf in our guest room closet.

Unknown Moss #2

Working on the second moss that I had collected, I again examined it under the microscope and tried to pick out features that would help me identify it. What I learned was that things that I thought were distinctive didn’t really help me too much. I made little progress.

Unknown Moss #2 - Microscope photograph of leaves and sporangia.

However, despite the fact that I was no closer to identifying this second moss I was still enjoying myself. The leaves were pretty neat to look at under the microscope and occasionally I would notice very small insects scurrying out of the moss itself. They didn’t really have anywhere to go since they were in a petri dish but hopefully they’ll survive until I return the moss to the curb.

Unknown Moss #3

The third moss in my collection mystified me as well. I think that at this point in the evening I had given up trying to pin a name on the moss. I began to admire it for being so common while at the same time being so complex as to defy my pathetic attempt to identify it. Some things are better appreciated for their simple beauty.

Jocie’s advice was to stick with the bigger and more easy to identify mosses when starting out and I think that’s what I’ll do!

Ruby-crowned Kinglet in blackberry brambles.

Did a little birding at Woodhus Slough, just north of Oyster River on Vancouver Island this afternoon. The slough is accessed by either the parking area at the Salmon Point Pub or at the Oyster River Park parking area near the Fisherman’s Pub – hence its popular name the “Pub to Pub Trail.” The trail is excellent for birding due to its mix of edge habitat, blackberry thickets, flooded farm fields, Douglas Fir forest, ocean shoreline, and the slough itself. Every Christmas Bird Count this area usually produces a number of good birds.

During two hours of fairly productive birding I saw the following species:

• Mallard
• American Widgeon
• Great Blue Heron
• Green-winged Teal
• Bufflehead
• Northern Pintail
• Greater White-fronted Goose
• Canada Goose
• Trumpeter Swan
• Golden-crowned Kinglet
• Ruby-crowned Kinglet
• Red Crossbill
• House Finch
• Bewick’s Wren
• Spotted Towhee
• Song Sparrow
• Red-breasted Sapsucker
• Chestnut-backed Chickadee
• Peregrine Falcon
• Common Snipe
• Dark-eyed Junco

We’ve added another feeder to the mix this week with bird seed and sunflowers to replace our back alley row of sunflowers that have finally headed to the city’s yard waste composting facility. The feeder is proving popular with both the sparrows and one of our neighbour’s 8(!?!)+ cats. As a result, it looks like we may have to move it to a location which is a little further away from the unfinished fence (3 years running now – that’s a post rant for a non-nature venue) on that side of the yard.

Here’s our species list for this week:

• White-crowned Sparrow
• Song Sparrow
• House Sparrow (new this week!)
• Dark-eyed Junco (at least 8, including one Slate-coloured Junco)
• Chestnut-backed Chickadee (about eight)
• Spotted Towhee (several)
• House Finch
• Downy Woodpecker (both a male and female)
• Northern Flicker
• Mourning Dove (only one this week, will ask the cat about the other)
• Bewick’s Wren

As part of Project FeederWatch, I’m keeping an eye on our feeders two days out of the week to help scientists track winter bird activity, abundance and diversity. It’s a great way to spend an hour or two drinking coffee and peering out into the rain. I’ve also decided to start a yard list of all the birds that visit our backyard.

Fly Amanita (Amanita muscaria)

You have to admit that the Amanitas are distinctive. One of the easiest to recognize is the striking red and white Fly Amanita (Amanita muscaria). This mushroom is the classic “toad stool,” and considered both poisonous and hallucinogenic. As Arora puts it, the Fly Amanita is “esteemed by both maggots and mystics” but he goes on to add that it isn’t really recommended.

The main active toxin in A. muscaria is ibotenic acid that is converted by the body into muscimol. The effects of eating the mushroom are extremely variable and not worth the risk. A. muscaria also contains small amounts of muscarine which can cause excessive sweating, vomiting, diarrhea and in severe cases lead to heart or respiratory failure.

Eating this mushroom is not recommended – don’t try this at home or anywhere else!

The common name Fly Agaric comes from the historical use of combining the mushroom with milk and using the mixture to stupefy flies. A. muscaria is also able to concentrate vanadium (a rare metal used to add tensile strength to steel) from the soil. As far as I know, no commercial attempt has yet been made to grow these amanitas and process them for their vanadium!

Whether you covet this mushroom for its hallucinogenic reputation or its ability to stun flies it certainly is a distinctive mushroom that is best appreciated for its beauty alone.