This week, although we have had to put up with a lot of noise, it has been well worth it. At the bottom of the new steps and in front of the new signs, a beautiful round wooden deck has been created and surrounded by soil and a wooden planter. Ultimately, this will be planted and is going to enhance the whole visitor area.

Our school programs finish this week. Although we have had a rather cold spring, the school programs have brought over two thousand children and adults into the park to extend their Life Science knowledge in a practical and enjoyable way. We also say farewell to Alex, our school programs assistant for this year. His background in Environmental Science and his enthusiasm about the natural world have greatly enriched the programs, and it was Alex who set up and developed the website for us.

The summer programs at the Nature Park are being designed and led by our two new leaders, Angela and Maribeth and we are looking forward to running a very successful and varied school vacation program.

The blog will be on hiatus for two weeks while I am away, but it will return, so tune in after 4th July.

  Salal lines the trails in the Nature Park, it is  ubiquitous, so much so, that much of the time it probably isn't noticed. But it's an important cover plant for many of the small creatures that live on or near the forest floor. The big, roundish leaves don't fall in the autumn, they are quite tough in order to conserve moisture, and can survive winters in the bog.

This year, there is a tremendous amount of emerald green new growth on the Salal, and right now, they are in full bloom, their white bells, almost resembling Lily-of-the-Valley, are sticky with nectar and the forest is fragrant, perhaps from the last of the blueberry flowers, perhaps from the Salal.

Later, the successful flowers will  give way to hairy, indigo blue berries with deep red juice. These are edible, though in my own opinion, not that delicious. 

The Bobbins are doing well. They each have a little tuft of feathers on either side of their head. We wondered whether some passing Rockhopper penguin had secretly sired them, this spring has seemed so cold, we wouldn't be surprised to see a penguin or two waddling down the boardwalk.  

Posted by Janis. 

This week we have lost two of our baby robins. Careless, I know. Our main suspects are the crows, who are noisy and ever-present in the Park right now.

The two who remain however, are well fed and their eyes (and mouths) are open.

 One of the reasons that Slugfest was started, was to inform people about the useful role slugs have in recycling dead matter in the forest.

At Slugfest on Sunday, children had their own slugs weighed and judged for beauty, they raced them and then cooked them on skewers with marshamallows. Well, no they didn't, I made that bit up.

There were games galore, slug-slime making and face painting and the day was brought to a close with the slug race which always takes rather longer than we think it's going to.

In the slug zoo there were native banana slugs, some with the trademark banana skin markings, very much NOT native European black slugs, milky slugs and Leopard slugs. The last ones are cannibals and will happily chow down on their friends.

For photo opps, one giant slug wandered the new wildlife garden area and towards the end of the afternoon, Shaw TV came and interviewed Kris.