Saturday, July 7, 2012
Are children losing touch with nature?
Everyone should watch this video: Quinn Dalgarno Grade 11 Project | "Nature Deficit Disorder"
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Save Our Community Pastures
Here is an excerpt from a recent article from the Star Phoenix: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/technology/Action+needed+order+save+legacy+pastures/6634991/story.html
This Land is Your Land by Candace Savage
If you care about the special beauty of the prairie—if you want know that there will be wild, wide open spaces of natural grassland for your children’s children to enjoy—there is something you can do. It will only take a few minutes, but it could affect the health of the prairie ecosystem for generations.
The big, bold prairie landscapes of the Community Pastures are perfectly adapted for use as grazing lands. Whatever else happens, they must be protected from cultivation and carefully managed for livestock production. So please take a few minutes to write to your MLA http://www.legassembly.sk.ca/mlas/ and tell him or her that you care about the livestock producers and Community Pasture staff who rely on these lands for their livelihood. More than that, tell him or her that you care about the prairie’s wild inhabitants, which rely on the wide open spaces of cattle country for their very
existence.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
2012 YFBTA Membership
A YFBTA MEMBERSHIP PROVIDES OPPORTUNITIES:
Click here to register: http://yfbta.com/documents/YFBTA%20membership%20form.pdf
Send your registration to:
- to show concern about protecting wildlife and habitat for wildlife
- to promote eco-tourism in your area
- to act as a mentor to youth
- for learning about wildlife and its environment
- to participate in wildlife conservation practices
- to participate in YFBTA programs
- enjoy and receive our YBTA newsletter "What's flying around ....."
- contribute writing and / or digital photographs to our newsletter and/or our website
- meet like-minded individuals
- share interests, concerns, sightings and observations
- attend regular meetings of the board of directors who work on your behalf
- become a member of the board
- to promote awareness of the importance of wildlife and of suitable places to visit
- become actively involved with trail development, management and maintenance
- connect on a regular basis with fellow members
- to support our work even if you cannot be active
- to share your creative ideas
- to facilitate participation of youth groups in YFBTA programs
- to contribute to the growing influence of the YFBTA
Send your registration to:
Martha Karau
Box 403
Churchbridge, SK
S0A 0M0
306-896-2660
marwal@sasktel.netTanner Garbutt: Summer Program Facilitator
On May 8th, 2012 Paula and Morley Maier hosted a pot-luck barbecue at their farm near Yorkton. All Yellow Head Flyway Birding Trail Association Members were invited to view spring-migration bird watching. Also the evening allowed all members to become better acquainted with each other and to welcome YFBTA’s new employee.
Tanner Garbutt of Bethune is the Summer Program Facilitator. He will be working in schools in our region during May and June. During July and August Tanner is charged with facilitating programs on behalf of YFBTA. Tanner has been asked to focus upon connecting youth with nature.
Tanner Garbutt of Bethune is the Summer Program Facilitator. He will be working in schools in our region during May and June. During July and August Tanner is charged with facilitating programs on behalf of YFBTA. Tanner has been asked to focus upon connecting youth with nature.
For more details view this article in the Yorkton This Week: http://www.yorktonthisweek.com/article/20120516/YORKTON0101/120519871/-1/yorkton/birding-association-hold-pot-luck-supper
Great Video of Osprey
I recommend you watch this video of a an osprey hunting fish: http://www.arkive.org/osprey/pandion-haliaetus/video-00.html
Friday, January 27, 2012
Investigating Ospreys at Canora
Rob Wilson/Stuart Houston
on behalf of Yellowhead Flyway Birding Trail Association (YFBTA)
I, and many of my association’s approximately one hundred YFBTA members, anxiously anticipate the arrival of spring. We are anxious because we want to travel to Canora with field guides, binoculars and cameras in our back packs. Why? - a possible sighting of an osprey.
I became aware that a pair of ospreys had taken residency in Canora when a friend sent me the “From the Editor’s Desk” page of the August 17, 2011 Canora Courier. Editor Gary Lewchuk wrote an excellent article on Canora’s resident ospreys complete with photographs of adult birds, their nest and the surviving (one of three?) offspring of the osprey’s 2011 reproduction activities.
I became concerned when I noted that the nest is constructed on a power pole. This led to conversations with members of our birding group and various citizens of Canora. These conversations mostly centered on the advisability of encouraging the adults, expected to return to the same site in 2012, to move onto a pole separate from the power-line. Canora mayor, Terry Dennis, indicated that the town of Canora and Saskatchewan Power are engaged in similar conversations. Mayor Dennis encouraged me to share some osprey information with him.
Dr. Stuart Houston, formerly of Yorkton, is one of our YFBTA members. He has been involved with re-locating nesting ospreys onto man-made platforms and has shared some of his expertise and some information.
Ospreys breed in boreal forest at northern lakes and rivers from Newfoundland to The Yukon, wherever fish remain abundant in the lakes and rivers and where tall trees are available. Their diet is almost exclusively fish, and a mature adult is successful in 50% of its plunges. To quote editor, Gary Lewchuk, “People will be reporting with excitement as they catch glimpses of the adults bringing home fish”
Only rarely this far north, is an osprey able to build a nest in time to lay eggs and raise young the same year. Dr Houston’s crew have found that a man-made structure can “save” two years of osprey productivity – the year it would take to build its own nest and the year of productivity lost if that dead tree fell down before the young could fledge. Once established, a nest, often in a
spruce tree, will frequently be re-occupied for ten or more years. Eventually, the defecation of the birds may result in the death of the tree.
A significant number of osprey fledging attempts fail due to blow-down of these dead or dying trees. In the Loon Lake area of Saskatchewan, platforms built in live trees, to replace dead or dying trees in danger of falling, had higher fledgling rates than nests built by the ospreys themselves (46% in trees compared with 63% on man-made structures).
Since about 1980, some Saskatchewan osprey pairs have built nests on the crossarms of tall poles carrying high-voltage electricity and also on lower voltage lines that carry power to farms. This has allowed ospreys to nest 50 to 100 miles farther south than previously. Canora appears to be a beneficiary of this range expansion.
An osprey pair will lay two or three eggs, but only 70% of eggs laid result in a fledged young and an average of only one young is raised from a nest attempt. The ospreys migrate to Central and South America every autumn. From Saskatchewan they head straight south to Mexico, then travel along the Pacific coast as far south as Ecuador, while some from eastern Canada reach
Brazil. Many stay for an entire year in the south, and migrate north in the spring only when they are two years old. Ospreys are long-lived and do not reach breeding-age until they are three, four or five. One venerable bird, studied in The United States, was still breeding at 24 years of age. Fortunately for bird-watchers ospreys become tolerant of humans, as evidenced in Canora, but people are requested to view them from a respectful distance, particularly while they are incubating their eggs during late May and most of June.
In the 1960s, ospreys in eastern North America, from the maritime provinces south to Florida, came perilously close to extirpation as a result of application of DDT. It took over 20 years for the Bald Eagle and Ospreys to rebuild their numbers, helped by reintroduction of young birds from western provinces where less DDT had been used.
The members of The Yellowhead Flyway Birding Trail Association (YFBTA) are anxiously awaiting an announcement from Canora that Mr. and Mrs. Osprey have returned. These beautiful birds will tolerate friendly observers and no doubt will bring some extra traffic to Canora in 2012. In the summer of 2012 Canora residents may have the good fortune to see these iconic birds, symbolic of the beauty and versatility of nature, literally in (over) their own back yards.
I, and many of my association’s approximately one hundred YFBTA members, anxiously anticipate the arrival of spring. We are anxious because we want to travel to Canora with field guides, binoculars and cameras in our back packs. Why? - a possible sighting of an osprey.
I became aware that a pair of ospreys had taken residency in Canora when a friend sent me the “From the Editor’s Desk” page of the August 17, 2011 Canora Courier. Editor Gary Lewchuk wrote an excellent article on Canora’s resident ospreys complete with photographs of adult birds, their nest and the surviving (one of three?) offspring of the osprey’s 2011 reproduction activities.
I became concerned when I noted that the nest is constructed on a power pole. This led to conversations with members of our birding group and various citizens of Canora. These conversations mostly centered on the advisability of encouraging the adults, expected to return to the same site in 2012, to move onto a pole separate from the power-line. Canora mayor, Terry Dennis, indicated that the town of Canora and Saskatchewan Power are engaged in similar conversations. Mayor Dennis encouraged me to share some osprey information with him.
Dr. Stuart Houston, formerly of Yorkton, is one of our YFBTA members. He has been involved with re-locating nesting ospreys onto man-made platforms and has shared some of his expertise and some information.
Ospreys breed in boreal forest at northern lakes and rivers from Newfoundland to The Yukon, wherever fish remain abundant in the lakes and rivers and where tall trees are available. Their diet is almost exclusively fish, and a mature adult is successful in 50% of its plunges. To quote editor, Gary Lewchuk, “People will be reporting with excitement as they catch glimpses of the adults bringing home fish”
Only rarely this far north, is an osprey able to build a nest in time to lay eggs and raise young the same year. Dr Houston’s crew have found that a man-made structure can “save” two years of osprey productivity – the year it would take to build its own nest and the year of productivity lost if that dead tree fell down before the young could fledge. Once established, a nest, often in a
spruce tree, will frequently be re-occupied for ten or more years. Eventually, the defecation of the birds may result in the death of the tree.
A significant number of osprey fledging attempts fail due to blow-down of these dead or dying trees. In the Loon Lake area of Saskatchewan, platforms built in live trees, to replace dead or dying trees in danger of falling, had higher fledgling rates than nests built by the ospreys themselves (46% in trees compared with 63% on man-made structures).
Since about 1980, some Saskatchewan osprey pairs have built nests on the crossarms of tall poles carrying high-voltage electricity and also on lower voltage lines that carry power to farms. This has allowed ospreys to nest 50 to 100 miles farther south than previously. Canora appears to be a beneficiary of this range expansion.
An osprey pair will lay two or three eggs, but only 70% of eggs laid result in a fledged young and an average of only one young is raised from a nest attempt. The ospreys migrate to Central and South America every autumn. From Saskatchewan they head straight south to Mexico, then travel along the Pacific coast as far south as Ecuador, while some from eastern Canada reach
Brazil. Many stay for an entire year in the south, and migrate north in the spring only when they are two years old. Ospreys are long-lived and do not reach breeding-age until they are three, four or five. One venerable bird, studied in The United States, was still breeding at 24 years of age. Fortunately for bird-watchers ospreys become tolerant of humans, as evidenced in Canora, but people are requested to view them from a respectful distance, particularly while they are incubating their eggs during late May and most of June.
In the 1960s, ospreys in eastern North America, from the maritime provinces south to Florida, came perilously close to extirpation as a result of application of DDT. It took over 20 years for the Bald Eagle and Ospreys to rebuild their numbers, helped by reintroduction of young birds from western provinces where less DDT had been used.
The members of The Yellowhead Flyway Birding Trail Association (YFBTA) are anxiously awaiting an announcement from Canora that Mr. and Mrs. Osprey have returned. These beautiful birds will tolerate friendly observers and no doubt will bring some extra traffic to Canora in 2012. In the summer of 2012 Canora residents may have the good fortune to see these iconic birds, symbolic of the beauty and versatility of nature, literally in (over) their own back yards.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Permaculture
Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture. Permaculture aims to create stable, productive systems that provide for human needs; it's a system of design where each element supports and feeds other elements, ultimately aiming at systems that are virtually self-sustaining and into which humans fit as an integral part. (....as defined on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture)
Watch this great little video: The edge is where it's at....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vp4B9Hu0ik
Watch this great little video: The edge is where it's at....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vp4B9Hu0ik
Update on the Sage Grouse
In a December newspaper article by By Matthew Liebenberg from the Prairie Post....
http://www.prairiepost.com/news/sw-sask-news/environment/3776-fight-continues-to-save-sage-grouse-in-southwest-sask.html
In the 1980s there was still a significant number of sage-grouse on the Canadian prairies, estimated at between 4,000 and 6,000.
“There were many thousands and there’s really no doubt now that they’ve declined to just a few hundred in Alberta and Saskatchewan,” he said. “So there’s been a really dramatic decline of at least 90 per cent.”
Most of the decline is thought to be due to habitat changes such as new roads or oil and gas developments. They typically nest in an area around a lek and they need sage brush habitat as part of their life cycle. Females return to where they nested before and as a result their numbers drop disproportionately in relation to any habitat disturbance.
While the research might help with efforts to increase the sage-grouse population in Saskatchewan, the Alberta authorities have already started with the more drastic approach of importing sage-grouse from Montana.
“There’s no doubt this is a critically imperilled bird,” Fargey said. “It will take a major effort to rejuvenate the population in Saskatchewan.”
http://www.prairiepost.com/news/sw-sask-news/environment/3776-fight-continues-to-save-sage-grouse-in-southwest-sask.html
The Endangered Sage Grouse
We need to protect the sage grouse as they are losing their natural habitat in an alarming rate....
Here are some hints from Nature Canada about what you can do:
| 1. | Join our campaign to save the greater sage grouse. |
| 2. | Be mindful of grasslands and protected areas where the Greater Sage-Grouse nests and lives, and find out how you can continue to support and lobby for conservation laws through Nature Canada's monthly eNewsletter. |
| 3. | Protect other birds that are in danger of disappearing by supporting our Important Bird Area program. |
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