Old Beech There is a lot of beech in this forest. The bark blight that Queen Victoria sent us (unintentionally) via two European Beech she contributed to the Halifax Public Gardens in 1890 meant that their growth stalled out when the blight reached them. Trees like this one may not be very big but they are in all likelihood very old.
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By Nina Newington
On Boxing Day six years ago, local resident Bev Wigney organized a gathering on the peninsula between Corbett and Dalhousie lakes. She shone a light on the value of the old, beautiful forest there to wildlife and to people.
When the Citizen Scientists of Southwest Nova Scotia proposed the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area for protection in 2022, we included Corbett Lake and the peninsula. For most of the last two years our focus has been further to the west, but a couple of weeks ago, just before the snow came, we decided it was time to take a closer look at the Corbett area.
To our delight we identified eight new occurrences of Frosted Glass Whisker lichen (pending confirmation.) This comes on top of spotting a Rusty Blackbird, another species at risk, earlier this year at the south end of the peninsula, and an Olive-sided Fly Catcher documented on the north shore of the lake. Continue reading
