Summer is here, and for those planning to head out into local wooded areas, there are plenty of creatures to observe.
Take a look around, and don't forget to look up and look down, for the North Shore has chocolate, vanilla, banana and pickle flavoured slugs.
Tricia Edgar, education programmer at the Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre, reports this information with a laugh. She is referring to the different colours of banana slugs commonly found in local forests. Continuing the food theme found in the name, the local gastropod mollusk is sometimes jokingly referred to as having different flavours based on their range of colours, which includes brown, white, yellow and green. (Of course, slugs should not be eaten.)
Banana slugs come in different colours, but can be distinguished from black slugs, another common North Shore resident, in two ways: black slugs have small ridges along their backs and a fairly obvious frill along the bottom of their bodies like a little orangecoloured skirt.
"All of them are also recyclers. They eat dead vegetation, as well as exciting things like dog poo and bear poo," explains Edgar.
Slugs can get up to 30 centimetres long, but usually they're about the size of your palm.
Slugs tend to hang out in logs or underneath something when it's hot and dry. They bury themselves so they stay moist. But don't worry if you don't find a slug when you're walking in the North Shore woods this summer because there are plenty of other creatures to discover.
"People don't often realize that there are a lot of bugs in creaks," says Edgar. "If you're down at a creek and there's lots of wildlife in the creek then it means that the water is relatively clean, especially if you find things like mayflies and caddis flies."
However, if you come across a creek that doesn't have much diversity and seems to have lots of worms and snails, the creek water may not be as clean because worms and snails can live almost anywhere.
"Caddis flies are really cool," she notes. They make a little house out of whatever is in their environment, such as small rocks or sticks, and then they walk around like a hermit crab with a house on their back. When they're ready, they go into their little house and go through metamorphosis like a caterpillar would do, explains Edgar.
"They're pretty cool because they look like little sticks that are crawling along the bottom of the creek."
So if you spot a little pile of rocks moving around at a creek, chances are you're watching a caddis fly.
The big animal relationships seen in local forests are mirrored in the small relationships too, says Edgar. Both big and small animals have predators and prey. Spiders and centipedes, for example, are predators and they eat tiny bugs. There are also omnivores and vegetarians among the small animal groups in the woods.
"The bug ecology is kind of similar in that way to the big animal ecology," says Edgar.
Other bugs to look for in the trails are millipedes and wood bugs (or potato bugs). All of these animals are well adapted to the temperate rain forests of the North Shore.
"Often when we think of what we're going to see in the forest we think of bears and birds, but most of the life on earth is actually invertebrates, so animals without backbones," says Edgar. "Most of life is quite different from us. The bulk of living animals are more similar to wood bugs and beetles and worms than they are to us."
The least invasive way to look for these smaller animals is to look on shrubs or gently turn over or wiggle logs and rocks. "But remember to put it back when you're done," says Edgar.
If you're hoping to catch a glimpse of a reptile, don't hold your breath. While you might encounter a garter snake, others tend to stay clear of our area.
"There are not a lot of reptiles around here. Reptiles like hot, dry places and we're not very hot and dry," says Edgar.
But take a walk in the woods and you may just catch a glimpse of an amphibian. Our North Shore forests also house Pacific tree frogs (also known as chorus frogs), red-legged frogs, and western red-backed salamanders. Take a look around Rice Lake and you might even see a newt.
Unfortunately, frogs and salamanders are not easy to spot. You might have more luck with squirrels and chipmunks. Chipmunks tend to be found higher up the hill, but two kinds of squirrels romp about closer to civilization. One is the Eastern grey squirrel. It is not originally from B.C. and it is more of an urban squirrel, says Edgar. The Douglas squirrel, which is native to this area, is a little smaller than the grey squirrel and has a reddish colour on its belly. It eats the seeds of Douglas fir cones.
If you're not a fan of rodents, then look up into the trees. The North Shore is now playing host to many migratory birds that started arriving weeks ago. They are settling in for the summer or are just passing through.
Not long ago, Edgar says the ecology centre had some special visitors when some baby Pileated woodpeckers poked their heads out of a nearby tree. She describes these birds as the ones with the "red hairdo." The woodpeckers' mom had made a hole in a dead tree and then built a nest in the hole.
Some other birds to be on the lookout for are warblers and two kinds of hummingbirds: Rufus and Anna's. The Anna's hummingbird is resident here and can be seen hanging out around feeders even in the winter. The Rufus hummingbird migrates up to the North Shore in the summer and pollinates salmonberries.
But Edgar's favourite bird is the Swainson's Thrush, which she says is "sort of like a robin and it's very boring looking but it has a really beautiful song."
The song spirals upward, and "if you're in the forest it's a good one to listen for," she adds.
The North Shore is also home to plenty of butterflies, moths, bees, and mosquitoes, and "there are lots of animals that you can't see," says Edgar.
There are a lot of animals in soil that many people don't realize are there because they are hard to see, she explains.
"We're always seeing at a certain level, but the world would look very different if you were living in the soil and you were wood-bug size. You would see a lot of other animals that we don't realize exist."
