Month: February 2011

Pat Trask – “Palaeontology and dinosaurs”

Reconstructed elasmosaur at Canadian Museum of Nature
– D. Gordon
Pat Trask – “Dinosaurs”
by Heather Harbord, 24 February 2011

Pat is the curator of natural history at Courtenay and District Museum and Palaeontology Centre.  This centre attracts scientists from around the world, and his tours have helped reveal the secrets of a little-known fossil record.

His talk highlighted his many years of hunting for dinosaur fossils along the Puntledge River, and in particular his involvement in discovering a previously unknown elasmosaur – a long-necked marine mammal from the Cretaceous period – with help from his twelve-year old niece Heather!

 The Globe and Mail has an excellent write-up about Pat and his work here.

Forest Greens

Wendy Cocksedge tells all

Forest Greens
by Janet Alred, 5 February 2011.

On Saturday Wendy Cocksedge, who spoke to us last year about the forest greens used in the floristry industry, escorted four of us along the Willingdon Trail where we identified Scouring rush, Salal, Trailing blackberry, an early Skunk cabbage, small leaves of Sweet Cecily (we think), new Salmonberry shoots, Oregon-beaked moss, Red huckleberry, Sword ferns, Lady ferns, Deer ferns and Frog-pelt lichen.

On the way back, Wendy told us about how tapping Big-Leaf maples for their syrup is becoming a big industry on Vancouver Island.  We also saw some magnificent Harlequin ducks and Red-breasted mergansers in full breeding plumage.  Douglas squirrels chattered at us and one took a peanut almost out of Elizabeth’s hand.