Trout Creek Tour September 12 2011

• I was in the ER for 2.20 hours, plus 30 minutes travel to and from. It was about 14C at 7.20am, there was little wind and a lot of sun. It is very dry in the ER right now and very quiet.

• saw or heard 9 species of birds, 3 of them nuthatches, but also a lone Vesper Sparrow and a few Western Bluebirds that I did not expect. No blue-listed gray Flycatchers.

• the only insects were one moth and one grasshopper.

• I neither heard nor saw any mammals, but given that there is no water or wet areas on the ER I am not surprised. I saw numerous small bear scats complete with the requisite Saskatoon seeds in same. I did, however, see one very large bear dropping, bigger than any I have seen on the ER, that was about 3-4cm in diameter. I saw no seeds in this lot.

• I found no knapweed and no Sulphur cinquefoil ( my attempts to cull them seemed to be successful). The toadflax was only a shadow of its former self: dry and shriveled with few seed heads; many of the seed heads were small and unopened. I spent some time looking for the seed heads of the blue-listed Narrow-leaved Brickellia as they are easier to spot. I found approximately 120 plants. I know that there are more plants in disparate locations according to the information I got from Malcolm Martin, who was the first one to find this plant this far north in BC in 2002. He sent the information and the UTMs to the CDC at that time.

• finally, as you know, the fence repairs and staining of the new stile are still outstanding.

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Cheers............Laurie