Author: Erin

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Fungi in the Park

Yesterday’s rare thunderstorm dumped a lot of rain on the park, so today the mushrooms were out! (3.8 mm fell in just 5 minutes, according to the rain gauge just down the road: https://www.flowworks.com/network/hmiscreens/coquitlam/ !)

*We’re not mycologists, so remember not to TOUCH or EAT any mushrooms you find in the wild—some are very poisonous.*

Here’s a pic of some of the fungi (and a lichen) we’ve seen recently in Harper Park.

mushrooms in harper park


Top row, from right to left:

  • Bracket polypores Fomitopsidaceae
  • Jelly fungi Dacrymycetaceae
  • Bonnet mushrooms Mycenaceae

Middle row, from right to left:

  • Tree Mushrooms Pleurotaceae
  • Bonnet mushrooms Mycenaceae
  • Cup fungus Pyronemataceae

Bottom row, from right to left:

  • Crusts Stereaceae
  • Bracket polypores Fomitopsidaceae
  • Cladoniaceae

(Names are from an app called PictureThis, errors are our own.)

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Spring in Harper Park

We’re still in the park, almost daily, watching the signs of spring emerge. Last week we did a big spring clean up: we pulled out over 25 pounds of trash, just in the trails along and east of Smiling Creek, from Highland to Harper. Lots of folks shared their thumbs-ups and thank you’s as we worked, which was awesome.

We took a break to notice the Pacific Trilliums in the park—a sure sign of Spring! These are special to the forest because they’re tricky to propogate and seeds take years to flower.

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Harperspark Anniversary

Two boys cleaning up a forest trail using garbage pickers.

It’s been three years since we joined Coquitlam’s Park Spark team! We haven’t updated this website often in the past three years, but we have been in Harper Park almost every day since becoming Park Sparks in March 2021 (being outside in nature is more fun than writing blog posts). Since we started cleaning up the park, lots of other families have joined us, so we’re now just cleaning the Northeastern sections of the park (from Highland up Rock Trail, across Flywheel and Harper Road, and down Smiling Creek Trail).

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Black-tailed deer

Juvenile black-tailed deer
Juvenile black-tailed deer in Harper Park.

This juvenile black-tailed deer was spotted crossing the Dollar Trail, looking back at the two does up the trail.

(We sometimes see deer in the brush by the creek; they may have been disturbed by the arborists chipping the hemlocks that fell across the stairs near the Flywheel trail.)

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Snails’ Pace

We’re in the park daily—sometimes twice a day—but we have been posting at the pace of this Pacific Sideband snail! More to come as we ease into summer schedules.

Pacific Sideband Monadenia fidelis