Cowichan Lake Foray 2021

Register for this great event.

The Cowichan Foray for 2021 is now fully booked. Thank you for registering. It will be a great weekend.

Lake Cowichan Foray – Weekend of October 22 – 24, 2021

The Lake Cowichan Foray weekend is a go and members are submitting their registration form for this great annual event. The location, Lake Cowichan Conference and Education Centre is on a 44 acre forested site.  This site and others in the Cowichan Valley area will be used to forage for fungi, led by mushroom experts. This will help participants identify terrain and discuss the variety of mushrooms and species we have in British Columbia.

More information and registration form can be found at this link: https://svims.club/docs. Don’t miss out on this event.

Covid protocols applicable at the time of this event will be followed.  

If you have additional questions, please contact Kurt Raeder at svims.treasurer@gmail.com .  Please use “Attendance” as subject title.

This is a member’s only event, so if you have not renewed or want to be a new member please do so. 

We look forward to seeing you there. 

Amanita muscaria, from the grounds of the Lake Cowichan Conference and Education Centre. By Kem Luther

Britt Bunyard presentation and foray March 2020

Britt Bunyard, editor of Fungi Magazine, made another visit to SVIMS in March.  Britt gave an amazing presentation on Amanitas (his book on North American Amanitas will be out in 2 months and his beginner’s guide to mushrooms in the fall.) A version of his talk is available on YouTube.

Britt talks about mushrooms while holding the Skunk Cabbage Sceptre of Power

On Saturday, March 7, 2002, about 30 SVIMS members joined Britt and Andy for a fungal walk through Metchosin’s Blinkhorn Park. The group found over 30 species.  These were entered into the Metchosin Biodiversity Project database of observations and species.  You can view the species and pictures at the Project’s iNaturalist site.

Log inoculation workshop SVIMS Mar 14-15 2020

SVIMS Log Inoculation Workshop

SVIMS Log Inoculation Workshop
This will be run by Steve Fischer.
Members only. 

Dates and Time:
Saturday March 14th
The first at 9:00, the second at 13:30

Sunday March 15th.
Depending on the number of registrations on the 14th, an extra class a consideration at 13:30.

Cost: by donation.

Registration: Contact Steve by email. The location/address and details of the event will be provided by him upon registering.

Shiitake log by dominik18s (https://www.flickr.com/people/55571726@N05), used under CC Attribution 2.0 license

iNaturist Workshop, Sunday, March 8, 2020

SVIMS iNaturalist Workshop

Help document biodiversity in BC’s parks with the BC Parks iNaturalist Project

Date: Sunday March 8th, 2020

Time: 3:15pm – 5:30 pm

Place: Swan Lake Nature House

Cost: by donation

iNaturalist is used worldwide to crowdsource and share biodiversity observations: users take photos of flora, fauna, and fungi using their mobile phones or cameras and upload those images to inaturalist.ca, and iNaturalist’s image recognition software and user community can help identify the organism. Kelly Fretwell and Naomi Salie from the BC Parks Foundation will guide you through the process of using iNaturalist to make great citizen science observations of the fascinating fungi, lichens, and slime moulds you come across while out exploring, and to share your own species identification expertise.

Learn about how SVIMS members can get involved in citizen science through the BC Parks iNaturalist Project. This project now has more than 116,000 observations of 5,000 species, thanks to the photo and identification contributions of over 2,700 citizen scientists. By contributing to this project you can create an interactive record of your outdoor explorations while also generating data that helps researchers develop a deeper understanding of what our parks are protecting.

Those with expertise can also share their knowledge and help others identify what they found: the skills and knowledge of SVIMS members would be particularly valuable in determining the often more elusive identities of fungi, lichens, and slime moulds found by other observers.

The afternoon will include a guided stroll in Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary to find and photograph species, so be sure to bring a smart phone or camera to take photos.

Recommendations & optional equipment to prepare for this event:

  • Create an iNaturalist account at inaturalist.ca
  • Download the iNaturalist app on your mobile phone.
  • Bring a laptop computer if you would prefer to use iNaturalist’s desktop website platform rather than the app (not required, but you might find it helpful)
  • Bring a hand lens (loupe) to learn how to turn your phone into a handheld macro lens