TLC’s Covenant Coordinator Torrey Archer with monitoring volunteer Jonah in head-high salal. Photo Credit Andrew MacKinnon.

While monitoring the Sooke Hills covenant, Nathan, Torrey, Jon, Kristi and Jonah take a well-deserved break. Photo Credit Andrew MacKinnon.

Nathan, Jonah, Jon, Torrey, and Kristi on their first covenant monitoring visit of the season. Photo Credit Andrew MacKinnon.

This mushrooms is strongly suspected to be the Destroying Angel (Amanita ocreata), one of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world! Photo Credit Torrey Archer.

The first week of TLC’s annual covenant monitoring took TLC staff and volunteers to the Sooke Hills where our team repeated the 2013 monitoring route from Harbourview Rd. up towards Mt. Quimper.

This was the first outing of the year, so we were busy learning about each other and how to correctly identify and typify the surrounding ecology. The staff and volunteers conducted ecological monitoring, confirming the 2003 and 2007 reports “Ecological Mapping of the Sea to Sea, Green/Blue Belt, “Sooke Hills” Study Area”, published by Madrone Environmental Services Ltd.

Training the volunteers involves photopoint monitoring, a method whereby photos are repeated each year in the same spot to track landscape change. This involves triangulation of the site and GPS to ensure the exact location is found year after year.

Our volunteers include recent geography graduates from the University of Victoria. Volunteer monitoring allows them to explore monitoring methods in greater depth. As our team all come from different backgrounds, the monitoring visits are a great way to share information and teach one another about plants, animals, fungi and geological processes that make British Columbia so special.

While most of the hike had us on well-used trails, we went off-trail to conduct monitoring of a marsh area and rocky outcrop.

Along the way we spotted many native and invasive species. Red columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis), rattlesnake plantain (Goodyera oblongifolia) and Western coral root (Corallorhiza mertensiana) were among the native species, while Scotch broom, a notorious invasive, festooned the hillside. We also saw Stellar’s Jays and swallowtail butterflies.

An exciting part, at least for staff member Torrey Archer, included finding an all white mushroom. This mushrooms is strongly suspected to be the Destroying Angel (Amanita ocreata), one of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world! This mushroom, along with the Deadly Galerina (Galerina marginata), cause the most deaths by mistaken identity – hence why you should always have a trusted source when identifying mushrooms. As the saying goes: “there are old mycologists, and there are bold mycologists, but there are no old, bold mycologists!”

Monitoring the covenants is imperative to protecting them – having skilled and dedicated people volunteer their time and knowledge ensures the most comprehensive information is recorded each year, for each covenant. You can find out more about TLC’s Covenant Program and how you can get involved by visiting conservancy.bc.ca.