Today’s weather was sunny and a bit cool, with wind in some exposed locations. It would have been a nice day for a longer hike, but I haven’t been feeling 100% lately and didn’t feel like it was worth pushing it, so settled for a walk around the Forest and Muskeg Trail and the Estuary Life Trail, plus a little time at the south beach of Halibut Point Rec.
Along the forest and muskeg trail, the sun illuminating one of the larger shore pines caught my eye. It seemed interesting to me how the green was pretty much restricted to the top. I wonder why this might be the case, as certainly I’ve seen shore pines often growing more fully greened up. That said, it seems like this growth form is fairly typical for muskegs, so it seems like there must be some reason they grown this way instead of in the more triangular-shaped form with branches and needles going down more of the tree.
At the rec I wanted to see about finding the small cedar Rowan noticed yesterday. I’m pretty sure I found it, but it turns out there is also a pretty good-sized cedar nearby as well. I’m not sure, but it may be the only cedar in the park (I did notice there were cedars not far away on the upland side of Halibut Point Road, however). Another thing of interest I noticed was a snag in the woods with at least three holes excavated (I’m not sure whether they were done by sapsuckers or Hairy Woodpeckers). Each of them was directly beneath a shelf fungus that appeared to provide a bit of an awning over the entrance. It seems plausible that this was intentional, though I have seen other trees with shelf fungus and excavated holes, where the holes were not below the fungus.