Submitted by Peter Ward It started in 2008, when I made an extension to my home workshop. Somehow building bird boxes brought together a trait that I inherited from my maternal grandfather, and a passion for bird watching. With a couple of friends, John Toochin and Ken Hall, I started building boxes, using some ideas for size from an old publication by BC Provincial Museum, 1979. We targeted local birds known to nest in man-made boxes. It turned out that…
Report by Nigel Peck This year Nature Vancouver (NV) became involved in an exciting new conservation project at New Brighton Park in Vancouver’s northeast corner, just near the Iron Workers’ Second Narrows Bridge. In the area just to the west of the off-leash dog area, landfill dug from the Shoreline Habitat Restoration Project was deposited in 2016 and 2017 to create a hillock. Sadly, planted native coastal shrubs did not survive the initial years, leaving the area to be populated…
Report & Photos by Helen Baker On April 30, Ryan Regier, a tree enthusiast and UBC librarian, and Laura Cottle, a forester, guided a group of tree-lovers through Jericho Park, an urban forest with a mix of deciduous and conifer trees. With Ryan and Laura’s help, we learned to identify some common trees by examining bark, leaves, needles and cones. Starting at the east side of the park, we followed a path that runs by the duck pond and into the forest. Ryan…
Submitted by Nigel Peck The Saturday May 14th, New Brighton weed pull was led by Alix Noble and Greg leach. It was a resounding success with fourteen people helping to pull piles of bull thistle from the ‘restoration hillock’. The group began by inspecting the different areas and deciding to focus on thistles and leave the blackberry for the next work party on May 28th. In coordinator Greg Leach’s words: There was a bit of light rain for 10 minutes,…
Trip Report by Jane Srivastava Sometimes it’s good to slow down and look at what’s at your feet. On April 26, eleven of us enjoyed an easy walk to see many delicate wildflowers and other delights along the chain-link shaped trails on the bluffs in the northwest portion of Whytecliff Park in West Vancouver. We met in the overflow parking lot. Then, passing red flowering currant in full bloom we followed a path from the far end of the parking lot,…
Submitted by Caroline Penn An early morning drop off at the Fulford ferry and return trip past Stowel Lake with the sun breaking through a cover of mist caused me to stop and explore the lakeshore, hoping for a few shots of the lake. This little corner of the lake draws many swimmers on hot summer days but today with spring temperatures still cool enough for a morning frost I found a different attraction. On the short path to the lake…
Submitted by John Martin – May 10 Update Hello: I thought I would post the results from iNaturalist for this year’s “City Nature Challenge 2022”.Here is the link. City Nature Challenge 2022: Greater Vancouver · iNaturalist Canada For the record, my user id on inaturalist is “NorthVanDad” and as you can see, I was able to post the most observations and the highest species count for this event. There were many great observations besides mine and from all accounts the city of…
Graduate Scholarship – Keila Stark Keila Stark is a PhD Candidate of Zoology at the University of British Columbia on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Territory. Her research aims to understand the effect of climate warming on biodiversity, with a focus on coastal ecosystems. Her work takes her to eelgrass (Zostera marina) meadows along the BC coast, and to coastal areas around Baffin Island, Nunavut. She frequently visits the eelgrass meadow at Roberts Bank near the proposed Terminal 2 expansion site, and is a witness…
Tara Brown – Nature Vancouver Graduate Scholarship Tara L. Brown is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in the UBC Faculty of Forestry, a certified Forest Therapy Guide, and a certified educator in sustainable development. She’s interested in forest-based interventions and human health and well-being. Previously, she co-founded startups and nonprofits that developed hands-on and digital STEM education programs in formal and informal K-8 spaces in the U.S. and Japan. For her dissertation research project, she examines the effects of forest…
The 104th Annual General Meeting of Nature Vancouver was held on Thursday, April 28 at 7:30 via a Zoom video conferencing. At the business part of the meeting, the President’s and Treasurer’s reports were presented for approval. Election was held for the new Board of Directors for 2022-2023. The business session was followed by Annual Volunteer Awards and Scholarship presentations. The copies of the minutes of 2021 AGM, the President’s report, the approved financial statements for year-end Dec31, 2021 are…