A small number of these hearty songbirds overwinter on Vancouver Island. A pocket population socks in on Stubbs Island near Tofino, B.C. where a forest of California wax-myrtle provides them with food and shelter. It's the only place the plant grows on Vancouver Island.
The berries are purple, contain a single seed and have a white wax coating. They are unusual in that the fruit ripens late in the fall, providing a bounty of calories in the winter when other plants are dormant. If the bushes were removed, the birds could not stay.
Each time we cut a tree, hack a bush, pull up a plant the little community of organisms that depend on it have to find a new home or source of food. When we need we should harvest. When we don't, we should leave it for the other species that live on this planet.
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