Growing the Greenbelt to Waterloo Region

Monday, January 29, 2018Monday, January 29, 2018 by paul

The Greenbelt Sign flickr photo by Jimmy Emerson (Creative Commons BY-ND)

Provincial Greenbelt Expansion

Province Seeking Public Input to Protect Important Water Resources

Ontario is taking action to protect important water resources in the Greater Golden Horseshoe by launching a public consultation on expanding the province's Greenbelt. The province is considering expanding the Greenbelt to include areas in the outer ring of the Greater Golden Horseshoe, an area that is experiencing significant growth and is under pressure from urban development.

The public, municipalities, conservation authorities, stakeholders, and Indigenous communities and organizations are invited to provide input on a study area for potential Greenbelt expansion. The consultation comprises seven areas most in need of protection, including moraines, cold water streams and wetlands such as the Waterloo Moraine, the Paris-Galt Moraine, the Orangeville Moraine, the Oro Moraine, the Minesing Wetland and other valuable water resources that communities rely on for their water supply.

Comments may be submitted at www.ontario.ca/greenbelt, and letters of support should be sent directly to political leaders, or via www.protectourwaters.ca or at an upcoming Open House Meeting before March 7th, 2018.

Open House Meeting

Participate at a public open house being held in the Greater Golden Horseshoe study area. The dates, times and venue locations are subject to change and periodic updates may occur. Please check back often to review the most current information at http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/Page17641.aspx

The local open house is at:

Tannery Event Centre
151 Charles Street West
Kitchener

Thursday, February 22, 2018
5:30-8:00pm

Map of Study Areas

To see a map showing the areas being studied for expansion see:

Study Area - Coldwater Streams and Wetlands.

Voice your support before March 7th at: www.ontario.ca/greenbelt, www.protectourwaters.ca and https://ontarionature.good.do/bluebelt/sign/

Region of Waterloo
http://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/regionalGovernment/contact-regional-council.asp

Regional Chair Ken Seiling – (519) 575-4585 – kseiling@regionofwaterloo.ca
Regional Planning and Works Chair Tom Galloway – tgalloway@regionofwaterloo.ca
All of Council – regionalcouncillors@regionofwaterloo.ca

Local MPP’s and Premier
Daiene Vernile – (519) 579-5460 – dvernile.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
Kathryn McGarry – (519) 623-5852 – kmcgarry.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
Catherine Fife – (519) 725-3477 – cfife-co@ndp.on.ca
Michael Harris – (519) 954-8679 – michael.harris@pc.ola.org
Ted Arnott – (519) 787-5247 – ted.arnott@pc.ola.org
Kathleen Wynne – (416) 325-1941 – kwynne.mpp@liberal.ola.org

WRN Kids – Photo Scavenger Hunt

Tuesday, October 2, 2018Wednesday, December 6, 2017 by paul

The rain stopped for WRN Kids as they set out to explore and take photos at their monthly meeting on Saturday November 25.

A Goldenrod Gall was discovered and broken open to show the larva of the Goldenrod Gall Fly inside.
A Woollybear caterpillar was crossing the road and got examined before being moved out of danger.

It was also a great day for fungi including Turkey Tail fungus.

They turned lots of logs but decided that the salamanders were probably hibernating deeper down in the earth.

For a full report and more photos, see the blog entry at the WRN Kids website: November 25, 2017 – Photo Scavenger Hunt

WRN Kids – Bird Banding Day

Tuesday, October 2, 2018Thursday, November 9, 2017 by paul

In spite of the rain at their monthly meeting on Saturday October 28, WRN Kids had fun with a variety of bird-related activities.

After a talk all about bird banding, the kids headed out to do some bird-watching around the Laurel Creek Nature Centre property.

In the meantime Al Woodhouse had caught a Black-capped Chickadee in a ground trap, and the kids got to see it being banded and measured.

After almost but not quite, enticing Chickadees to eat out of their hands, they headed indoors to try a bird photo and silhouette matching activity.

For a full report and more photos, see the blog entry at the WRN Kids website: October 28, 2017 – Bird Banding Day

WRN Kids First Outing

Tuesday, October 2, 2018Thursday, October 12, 2017 by paul

WRN Kids had their first outing on Saturday September 30 at Laurel Creek Nature Centre on a gorgeous autumn day.

Seventeen young naturalists took to the trails to seek out common woodland, field and pond plants as well as elusive critters and evidence of their existence. Everyone was excited to find leopard and wood frogs, a tree perching great blue heron, a scurrying slew of red backed salamanders, white toothed fungi and miniature puffballs.

For a full report and more photos see their blog at the WRN Kids website: Sept 30th 2017 – First Outing!

SpruceHaven Outing

Thursday, September 21, 2017 by paul

WRN visited SpruceHaven Farm just north of St. Agatha on Saturday September 16, 2017 on an outing led by David Gascoigne.

We started out watching a number of birds being banded at a picnic table just outside the barn.

SpruceHaven Bird Banding

Next up was a talk about the Barn Swallow monitoring program inside the barn with its dozens of numbered mud nests. The Barn Swallows had already left for the winter.

Barn Swallow Talk

We then toured the various habitats on the property, and heard about the Motus bird tracking tower located there, and the salamander monitoring project.

SpruceHaven Woods

We finished up with refreshments at the house of the property owners - David Westfall and Sandy and Jamie Hill.

For a full report on this outing by David Gascoigne with photos by Miriam Bauman see https://travelswithbirds.blogspot.ca/2017/09/bird-banding-and-visit-by-waterloo.html.

Spider Outing

Saturday, June 10, 2023Friday, August 25, 2017 by paul

Spider Title Page

A group of about 30 WRN members and a few guests including 3 children, met at Jane Schneider’s property on the Waterloo Moraine on Sunday 20th August.

After making our way though Jane’s fabulous field display of prairie flowers, largely giant Prairie Dock, Prairie cone flowers, Cup plants, Ironweed, and Monarda, the group made their way behind the house to the garden area.

The group was gathered to join Dan Schneider for a quick expose on the topic of spiders and their place in the environment. Dan started by talking about spiders, their structure and abundance and how they fitted into the ecosystem. He showed the group his “pet” spider, Charlotte, an amazingly hairy, medium-sized Mexican Redknee tarantula. This rather beautiful, and docile, spider is native to parts of Mexico. Although severely threatened in the wild by people pouring pesticides and gasoline into burrows, it is easily bred into captivity where it is a popular spider sold in the pet trade.

During the talk we were briefly distracted by dozens of Ring-billed gulls circling above.

Group Photo

Dan showed several species that he had brought along to demonstrate the variety of shapes, colours and sizes of commonly seen spiders. The children handled some of these.

Holding a Spider

Dan had a colourful Black and Yellow garden spider with distinctive yellow and black markings on the abdomen and a mostly white cephalothorax. This fairly common spider spins a large web that is consumed and re-built daily. The children released it in a patch of Rudbeckia in the garden, in an area with the Goldenrod soldier beetle.

The next discovery at the front of the house was made by the children who found a web with a “Bowl and Doily” spider whilst the adults were looking at wasp nests and American house spider webs. The Bowl and Doily spins a double web with the lower “doily” preventing predators from attacking from below, and the upper “bowl”-shaped web is the principal catch area.

From here the group walked to the lower meadow, passing an area of goldenrod, buzzing with insects, including bees, butterflies, wasps and hornets. The three children did a fantastic job of sweeping to collect spiders and insects that we could all then see more closely.

Wasp or Hornet

We were very fortunate in coming across an unfortunate grasshopper that had jumped unwittingly off the pathway into a spider web. It was quickly trussed up by a rather large Shamrock spider, a member of the orb-weaving spider family, Araneidae. In the first image you can see the web being sprayed out of the abdominal spinneret encompassing the doomed grasshopper. Two other views show the continued trussing of the grasshopper and the colours of the large abdomen.

The excursion finished with a visit to the pond area, the capture (and release) of a small leopard frog, and a brief discussion on water spiders.

Our thanks to Dan for an exciting glimpse of spiders in the wild, to Jane for allowing the group onto her property and to the weather gods for a beautiful day.

Alan and Anne Morgan.

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Hidden Valley Revealed – Call For Artists

Thursday, November 9, 2017Thursday, July 13, 2017 by paul

A call for submissions to the Hidden Valley Revealed Art Exhibit which starts September 16, 2017 at the Homer Watson House & Gallery.

Pre-registration paperwork (1 page) is due by Wednesday, August 30. Details and Submission Forms

Bee Outing

Thursday, July 13, 2017Tuesday, June 6, 2017 by paul

Thanks to Fraser Gibson for a fascinating outing at the Laurel Creek Nature Centre apiary. 20 people came out to learn all about honey bees and beekeeping and got suited up for a close look. We were very lucky to be able to see a nearby swarm! Also interesting to see a "flow hive."

Marg Paré

WRN Kids Wrap-Up

Tuesday, October 2, 2018Wednesday, May 31, 2017 by paul

WRN Kids have wrapped up another great year. To see all the other interesting things they have been up to over the past 9 months visit their blog at https://wrnatureclub.wordpress.com/blog.

Biothon and Pot Luck Picnic - May 27 2017

We had a great time wrapping WRN Kids up for the year! We had a small turn-out of Kids but the 4 families, 4 volunteers, 1 naturalist and 3 special guests (thanks for joining us, WRN board members Josh, Paul and Rachael!) managed to find and record exactly 105 different living things! We're pretty proud of our work!

We spent time at the pond where we enjoyed some very jumpy amphibians and got a glimpse of a painted turtle, our only reptile. We caught lots of dragonfly nymphs and learned about their amazing transformation from water creature to flying creature.

Remembering to keep an eye out all the time for birds (20 species!), we hunted for bugs in the field then walked through the beautiful wetland and forest investigating fungi and trying to identify plants. We were disappointed not to find salamanders but did manage to spot a few mammals including a rabbit, a chipmunk, a few humans and evidence of deer.

We were pretty hungry by this time so we headed back to the nature centre to spread out our pot luck picnic and share the feast! We had a great meal and chatted about new adventures for next year.

Thanks to everybody who helped make WRN Kids a great experience for Kids and their families this year.

Thanks to Waterloo Region Nature for inventing and supporting WRN Kids!
Thanks to Grand River Conservation Authority and the folks at Laurel Creek Nature Centre for providing a perfect place for us to meet and explore.
Thanks to Garrison McCleary on the GRCA staff for being an awesome leader and teacher.
Thanks to WRN Kids volunteers from the adult club; Pat, Linda, Susie, Cathi, Jenn and Matt; and to our high school student volunteers; Jotham and Linden.
Thanks to Richard, Cathi and Paul for taking care of WRN Kids social media.
Thanks to the WRN Kids' adults for signing your great Kids up for this club!... and then coming along with them every time!
And especially, thanks to the nature-loving Kids who come out to learn more about nature. We honestly believe you are making the world a better place.

If you were wondering about next year, it turns out there are some pretty amazing programs we haven't tried yet so looks like 2017-18 will be an all-new list of adventures! We really hope to see lots of you back at WRN Kids! Tell your friends and cousins and classmates! Any kids 7 to 12 years old are welcome to come out with an adult.

Have a safe and wonderful summer exploring nature! Looking forward to hearing about it in September!

Marg Paré
WRN Kids coordinator
kids@waterlooregionnature.ca

Photos From Wednesday Wanderers

Friday, May 26, 2017Thursday, May 25, 2017 by paul

Here are some photos by Don Thomas and Marco DeBruin from an outing at the Sudden Tract on Wednesday morning May 24, 2017 led by Marco and Donna DeBruin.

Bishop's Cap or Miterwort — Bishop’s Cap or Miterwort

Official Launch of Ecoposts Project

Friday, May 5, 2017 by paul

The Ecoposts project was officially launched as part of the KNAP Earth Day event at Huron Natural Area on Saturday April 29, 2017.

EcoPosts showcases Waterloo Region’s natural heritage, and encourages people to explore the outdoors. Signs placed in various natural areas provide links (through QR codes) to descriptions on the Ecoposts website ecoposts.ca.

In between two of the live bird shows, there were short speeches given by:

Stephanie Sobek-Swant, president of Waterloo Region Nature. WRN sponsored the Ecoposts project and a number of WRN members contributed their expertise to provide content for the Ecoposts website.

Roger Suffling. Roger was the main architect for the Ecoposts project, and wrote much of the content for the website.

Ken Seiling, Chair, Region of Waterloo. The Region of Waterloo provided a grant for the Ecoposts project from the Community Environmental Fund. An additional grant was provided by the TD Friends of the Environment Foundation.

Rob Feick, University of Waterloo. Rob set up the initial development environment for the project as the website was being designed and content created.

For more details on what Ecoposts is all about, see this article which appeared in the Kitchener Post and the Waterloo Chronicle: Nature entices on mobile devices.

Honorary Life Membership Award

Friday, May 5, 2017 by paul

by Janet Ozaruk and Mary Ann Vanden Elzen

At the April meeting, Pat and Paul Bigelow were presented with the very prestigious Honorary Life Membership Award. This award acknowledges the valuable and exceptional service made to Waterloo Region Nature and is given to only the most deserving of members. And Pat and Paul certainly are! They joined the club in Nov. of 1985 and, since that time, the value of their contributions to the club has been immeasurable.

Award Presentation — Left to Right – Nominators: Josh Shea, Mary Ann Vanden Elzen; Award Recipients: Pat & Paul Bigelow; Nominators: Janet Ozaruk, Charlotte Teat

Perhaps Paul’s greatest contribution has been his service as Treasurer for a total of nine years: from 2002/07 and from 2012 to present. Less well known is that Pat was actually club treasurer before Paul was: from 1993 to 1996. Both are members of the Montgomery Committee helping to manage and protect WRN’s Montgomery Wildlife Sanctuary. And both have spent time staffing WRN tables at various public events.

Each, however, has a long string of individual contributions to the club.

Pat was a founding member, back in 1999, of the Young Naturalists Club and has been a constant presence ever since, expertly performing a variety of jobs behind the scenes. Nowadays, Pat is most likely to be seen at club events with a camera and telescopic lens strapped around her neck. In her role as unofficial club photographer, she has provided many photographs for the Heron newsletter, the club’s archives, and most recently, the club’s new website.

Paul has been invaluable as the Board’s techie go-to person. He helped launch WRN’s much enhanced website and is now its manager; he spearheaded the club’s use of MailChimp and PayPal; he was pivotal in launching Ecoposts and compiling the club’s Facebook page.

When not behind the computer, Paul gets outdoors. Over the years, his steadily growing knowledge of birds makes him a reliable recorder for the club’s annual Great Backyard Bird Count. His interest in wildflowers blossomed as well. Paul has led club botany outings both locally and to the Bruce Peninsula.

Few know all that Pat and Paul have done for the club. And yet, everyone would notice if they didn’t do what they do. It’s all done humbly and quietly. In contrast, at the April club meeting, the audience’s standing ovation for them was long and loud.

The nomination document:

Recommendation for the Bigelows April 24

Great Canadian Birdathon Sponsorship

Wednesday, April 5, 2017 by paul

This year marks our 20th consecutive year participating in the Great Canadian Birdathon ( formerly the Baillie Birdathon ), the oldest sponsored bird count in North America, raising money for bird research and bird conservation. As usual, I am participating on a team with my sons, Ken and Mike, and my wife, Carol. Over the 20 years, we have raised in excess of $25 000 and are looking forward to adding to that total this year. As usual, we will complete this feat in the Point Pelee National Park and environs during the week of May 2 to 10.

If you pledge support to this endeavor, all of the money raised will go to bird conservation in Canada; a portion goes to Bird Studies Canada and the rest to Waterloo Region Nature. Simply click “Give Now” on our Birdathon page to make a donation or contact me directly at burrellsc@golden.net .

I am also happy to accept per species or other creative pledges. We usually see 130 to 150 species during our Birdathon.

Yours in conservation,

Jim Burrell

North Shore of Lake Ontario Outing – Trip Report

Monday, March 20, 2017 by paul

On Saturday March 18, 2017, thirteen people went on an all-day outing to the north shore of Lake Ontario. They made a number of stops along the shoreline, braving the cold and slush. In spite of the weather, they were able to see a variety of birds (and one mink). For a full description of the trip and lots of photos, see Waterloo Region Nature Outing to the North Shore of Lake Ontario.