Collect badges and show your love of the Bruce Trail on your sleeve.

Fern Badge

• Document through photo, name and location a minimum of 20 species of ferns on the Bruce Peninsula. There is no time limit for identification.
• The ferns must be found along the sides of the main trail or on the side trails of the Bruce Trail from Wiarton to Tobermory.
• Record your observations in a log. In the log, acknowledge your awareness of good fern etiquette.
• Reference : Owen Sound Field Naturalists Fern book for fern identification etiquette. “A Guide to the Ferns of Grey & Bruce Counties”– Revision and reprint scheduled for 2022.
• To obtain your fern badge, email: pbtc.hikes@gmail.com
• Canada – send $9.00 (shipping is included)  Additional badges are $7.00 ea. E-transfer: pbtctreasurer26@gmail.com

Orchid Badge

• Document through photo, name and location the wild orchids on the Bruce Peninsula. There is no time limit for identification.
• The orchids must be found along the sides of the main trail or on the side trails of the Bruce Trail from Wiarton to Tobermory. In addition, you can include orchids identified through PBTC-supported events (e.g. PBTC Orchid Hikes with Partnering organizations as posted on the BTC UHL, Hikes with the Tobermory Orchid Festival etc).
• To obtain your orchid badges, email: pbtc.hikes@gmail.com
• Canada – send $9.00 (shipping is included)  Additional badges are $7.00 ea. E-transfer: pbtctreasurer26@gmail.com

Tree Badge

1. All observations must be from the main trail or side trails of the Peninsula section or on a PBTC-organized hike and should be growing in the wild (i.e. not a gardened species or residential tree). Understory trees/shrubs such as dogwood, fruit trees and sumac will be accepted. Shrubs such as yew and leatherwood will not be counted towards this badge.
2. Photograph, identify and document 25 different tree species or features along the Peninsula section of the Bruce Trail. Your list must include at least 1 tree in each of the following categories:
   • Deciduous – a tree that loses its leaves at the end of each growing season
   • Coniferous – a tree with needle- or scale-like leaves; most are evergreen and most are cone-bearing
   • Mast Tree– produces food for wildlife or human foragers through periodic booms in seed production. A key characteristic of mast trees is that their seed production becomes synchronized across entire populations of the same species, producing an over-abundance of food in some years (also known as bumper crops, which is a crop that has yielded an unusually productive harvest), and greatly reduced production in other years. Many mast foods have great storage value, avoiding rot, or freezing on the trees to provide quality food even when everything is dormant. Mast foods also have a high nutrition content, such as fatty nuts, which helps mammals build up fat stores for winter. Periodic booms (typically once every 2-8 years) of mast production trigger a cascade of ecological effects that affects mammals, birds, insects & even diseases like Lyme. Some common types of mast trees include oak, spruce, walnut, butternut and beech. (Note: the tree does not need to be bearing nut/seed/fruit at the time it is ID’d, so long the species is considered a “mast” species – either a hard (nuts, seeds) or a soft (fruit) mast)
   • Wildlife Tree – standing dead or live tree (also known as snags, den trees or cavity trees) with characteristics that provide valuable habitat for wildlife. Wildlife trees may contain spike, fork or broken tops, cavities, loose bark, large platform limbs and brooms. In Ontario, at least 50 species of birds and mammals rely on snags. Many species of trees make for good snags, but large conifers such as cedar, fir, larch, and pine, tend to rot more slowly than do deciduous trees such as alder, birch, and cherry. Large deciduous trees such as cottonwoods, big-leaf maples, and oaks can last many years as snags. While alive, large deciduous trees tend to develop cavities in their bulky live and dead branches and trunks.
   • Invasive Species – could be an invasive tree species (i.e., Scots pine, Buckthorn, Norway Maple) or identification of invasive pathogen (i.e., Emerald Ash Borer, butternut canker, beech bark disease)
3. Upload photos to iNaturalist.ca and add them to the PBTC Tree ID Project and Bruce Trail Project. When loading pictures on iNaturalist, take clear pictures of and upload as many features of the tree as are available to help with ID – bark, leaves/needles, pinecones or seeds, overall structure of the tree, etc. Tag photos with “PBTC Tree Badge” for easy reference. 
   • Not registered for the Bruce Trail Project? Visit https://brucetrail.org/what-we-do/#iNaturalist for details.
   • If iNaturalist is not available for you, document the name, time, date and location of the trees you have identified and submit the information electronically.
4. For one specimen tree in each of the five categories record the following:
   • Deciduous 
     • Common name
     • Leaf category: opposite, alternate, simple, compound, pinnate, palmate, lobed, toothed, margin
   • Coniferous
     • Common name
     • Leaf category: Short needles in opposite pairs or whorls of 3, needles in bundles or 2, 3 or 5, needles in tufts of 10 or more on dwarf shoots or single on long shoots
   • Mast Tree
     • Name of nut/ seed/ fruit
   • Wildlife Tree
     • Wildlife habitat characteristic (spike, fork or broken top, cavity, loose bark, large platform limbs or brooms) and name species that may use habitat
   • Invasive Species 
     • Common name of tree or pathogen
5. Once you have accumulated 25 species, and your entries have been verified on iNaturalist, and you have recorded the characteristics of five specimen trees and provided your iNaturalist name, you may obtain your badge by emailing secretarypbtc@gmail.com
6. Canada – send $10.00 (shipping is included)  Additional badges are $7.00 ea. E-transfer: pbtctreasurer26@gmail.com