Club News

ANNUAL MEETING
MONDAY,MARCH 27, 7:00pm

Ottawa Citizen Conference Room

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER

Rod Brook has arranged for Jack Hughes of Environment Canada to come to our annual meeting on March 27 to speak about Canada goose problems in urban areas (what problems?). Jack should be able to tell us what the future holds for Ottawa’s geese and advise us what we should or should not do so we don’t add to the problem.

Let’s have a good turnout to hear what should be an interesting presentation. Of course, we will also have the usual annual meeting business, including election of officers. And there will be coffee and treats to celebrate our 40th anniversary.

Thank yous

The Ottawa Duck Club would like to thank all those who made donations in the past year, including David & Anna Stutt who made a donation in memory of Dave Gimmer.

Winter maintenance program (continued)

Four of us (Austin Taverner, Bill Bower, Ben Mancini and Churchy) made it out on February 26 and managed to install five new boxes in the South Arm and Shirley’s Creek area while Arctic winds neutered all the local brass monkeys. I think we deserve a pat on the back for being so brave (or stupid). Next winter we’ll find out whether the ducks or the bears benefited most from our pain.

The same gang, minus Churchy who at least knows enough to stay in out of the rain, were there again on March 12th and put the six floats out on the Boegel Pond, pounded some pipe in by the Dyke Pond and started a much needed clean-up. By the time the weather cleared they were wet and ready to head home. They only saw about 10 or 12 geese around our ponds but there was evidence that they had been checking out the old nesting areas. Austin’s winter To-Do list Not too long ago the list had more than 40 items on it. Now we’re down to 11, and only five need to be done by spring. Great work all who lent a hand.

1. Replace two damaged/missing Dike Pond boxes
2. Replace two rotting Boegel Pond boxes
3. Install six cone guards to summer count boxes
4. Modify box 71 door
5. Check entrance hole sizes on unused boxes
6. Check kestrel boxes
7. Remove two Upper Shirley’s Creek boxes
8. Remove six Pond #1 boxes
9. Move two Osprey Pond boxes
10. Move two Pond #6 boxes
11. Install predator guards on Porcupine Pond boxes

Peeping Tony’s experiment

Tony Denton had an interesting idea last summer to try to make it easier to check the wood duck boxes without disturbing sitting hens. He installed apartment door peepholes in the sides of 10 boxes. His observations weren’t conclusive, but indicated that some changes to the location of the peepholes are in order, as is a continuation of the trial. We’ll follow up on this in a later newsletter.

 

BLANDING’S TURTLES

It’s March now, and no matter what the groundhog predicted, spring is coming. The days are getting longer, the sun is stronger, the ice is melting and wildlife is returning to the sanctuary, or emerging from hibernation. Three years ago (already?) Bill wrote an article about the turtles at Shirley’s Bay. Now, to get us in the mood for spring, he’s provided another about one of Churchy’s favourite relatives, the Blanding’s turtle:

Blandings turtle - photo by Bill Bower

Here are a few interesting facts about one of our eight native Ontario turtles:

1. A Blanding’s turtle won’t breed until it reaches 14 to 20 years of age.
2. Many of these turtles can live for decades and some more than 100 years, in ideal conditions.
3. With Blanding’s turtles, the older the female gets the more fertile she may become. There is apparently no menopause in which, as aging accelerates, fertility declines.
4. As a Blanding’s turtle matures, she may lay larger eggs, or even more eggs, than she did when she was younger. Top breeders have been estimated to be over 80 years of age.
5. The plastron (bottom shell) is hinged near the middle to enable the turtle to close the front section for added protection, if needed.
6. Little is known about the hatchlings and juveniles.

Plastron - photo by Bill Bower

Do we have Blanding’s turtles at the sanctuary? Yes, we certainly do. I have seen a number over the years, a couple in our man-made ponds but most in the wetlands to the west and northwest of the property. Some years I have not seen any and the most I had ever seen in one year was four. That was until the spring of 2004. That year I was fortunate enough to find 14 adult turtles - 13 of those were found in April, just after ice-out, when the turtles were seeking warm areas for basking on sunny days. I was able to photograph five of them (three females and two males). Then, during May and June, when the females were out of the ponds and marshes and on the move looking for suitable nesting sites, I found only two females. Make that one female. How do I know? Easy, the plastron (bottom shell) is unique for each turtle. The black patterns (blotches) on the yellow shell are like fingerprints. When I compared my photos I noted that the female I found on June 22nd was indeed the same female I had seen and photographed back on June 11th. She was still carrying eggs so where had she been for those 11 days? Blanding’s turtles are noted for their travelling abilities and some females will travel several kilometres to their own selected nesting area. If a road is encountered then she will have to cross that road twice each spring. A substantial risk to say the least.

All the Blanding’s turtles that I’ve found have been fully grown (between 9 and 9½ inches in carapace length) and in apparent good health. Just how old they were, I couldn’t tell you, but it would be interesting to know for sure. I can say that in all my travels along the Perimeter Road, Innis Point Road, Riddell Road and the March Valley Road (old Fourth Line Road), I have never found an injured or dead Blanding ’s turtle. There must be some caring drivers travelling those roads. That’s great and I hope that my record of no such disturbing sightings continues.

I guess during the spring and summer of 2005 we weren’t as observant, as I don’t recall anyone mentioning a Blanding’s turtle sighting. I know I didn’t see any. Maybe in 2006 our luck will change and a number of club members will have an opportunity to see at least one of these interesting turtles. They are without doubt the most friendly of any Ontario turtle.

Keep your eyes open when you are driving or walking, as these turtles, both females and males, could be seen migrating from pond to pond over the summer months.

 

BEWARE OF TURKEY

(A longer version of this article by appeared in the Wall Street Journal last fall. You can read it at: www.post-gazette.com/pg/05327/611403.stm)

Wild Turkeys Attack Humans in Suburbia WILLIAM M. BULKELEY / 23 Nov 2005

In April, Will Millington was riding his dirt bike down a narrow trail in Norman, Okla., when he stopped before a flock of wild turkeys. The hens scattered, but two toms flared their feathers and stalked toward him. Then they suddenly leapt in the air, beat Mr. Millington with their wings and tried to scratch him with the sharp spurs on the backs of their legs.

Mr. Millington frantically revved his bike’s motor. Thirty yards down the trail he looked back. "They were running after me," says the 46-year-old property manager. "That was kind of spooky."

The explosion of the wild turkey population [in the U.S.] to nearly seven million from just 30,000 in the 1930s has put a growing number of humans in the face of angry gobblers.

Many bird lovers pooh-pooh stories of threatening behavior. In an email exchange posted on the National Wildlife Federation’s Web site, George Harrison, author of The Backyard Bird Watcher, told a questioner that she was lucky to have turkeys in her backyard. He added: "They will not attack you. They will be afraid of you, and run, should you try to approach them."

But naturalists who have studied the wild turkey say it can become aggressive toward humans as it adapts to suburban life. They worry it may become the next form of "nuisance" wildlife, following in the tracks of the whitetail deer and the Canada goose. [Luck us, we have all three, ed.]

Wild-turkey flocks have a pecking order. If they live around humans, some of the dominant toms may begin to include people in that order - at a level below themselves, says Jim Cardoza, a turkey expert at the Massachusetts wildlife agency. Wild turkeys "get used to people and incorporate them into their view of society," he says. Some behavior, such as putting out bird food and slinking quietly away, can encourage these lordly males to think that humans are a subservient life form, believes Mr. Cardoza.

Biologist James Earl Kennamer, senior vice president of the National Wild Turkey Federation, an Edgefield, S.C., hunters’ group, has studied wild turkeys for 40 years. "When they think you’re one of them, they’ll fight you to show who’s dominant," he says. "If you turn your back, they’ll take it to mean they’re dominant."

Tom turkeys in suburban woods can be 4 feet tall, weigh 25 pounds and run 20 miles per hour for short bursts. Mr. Cardoza advises people to show the birds who’s boss. One tip is to carry an umbrella to poke at the turkey. [Patricia Huckery, of the Massachusetts Wildlife Department], tells people to "get your broom and swat the turkey away."

Lovett Williams, a Florida biologist, recalls that when he raised wild turkeys, he sometimes had to establish dominance by grabbing an obnoxious bird around the neck and holding it on the ground so it couldn’t scratch with its spurs. "I’d slap him like they do on the Three Stooges," he says. "Then they’d wobble around and run off."

Last month, jogging on a back road in Massachusetts’ Berkshire hills, Betsy Kosheff passed a farmers’ field where farm-raised wild turkeys were pecking for grain. Suddenly about 30 of them took off after Ms. Kosheff. "It was like that scene in ‘The Birds’ except there was no phone booth," says Ms. Kosheff, referring to the famous refuge in the Alfred Hitchcock movie. A passing friend stopped her pickup truck and Ms. Kosheff ran around it several times. The turkeys kept up the chase, although she says "they were too stupid to split up or change directions" to trap her. Finally, Ms. Kosheff got in the truck, where, she says, her friend "was laughing so hard she almost choked on her Dunkin’ Donut."

Memo to ODC members: you have been warned.

 

CHURCY’S COLUMN

More birds in the news:

Last October there was a story that went around the world, about a hunter in Sweden who was attacked by a dead goose. It seems the goose was shot by his son, and hit the older hunter on the head when it fell. The hunter spent a few days in hospital with a severe headache and was philosophical about it, saying the goose must have wanted to extract its revenge. Good thing he wasn’t hunting with Dick Cheney.

A few months earlier, The National Post reported on two separate flocks of geese - 150 snow geese in 1985 and 62 Canadas in 2003 - that were found dead in farmers’ fields in Manitoba. At first it was thought they had been poisoned, but necropsies ruled that out. Now it’s believed they became disoriented on dark, moonless nights, and flew en masse into the ground. The incidents were compared to the 1999 plane crash that killed John Kennedy Jr.

More recently, on March 16,the paper reported that the RCMP in Newfoundland had broken up a ring of Turr (Murre to mainlanders) poachers that was reportedly illegally selling more than 100,000 birds a year. I wonder what Austin has to say about this? (Sorry, but that’s all the room I have for Newfoundland humour in this issue.)

 

TAILFEATHERS

From a CBC radio humourist in Cape Breton, via the Motorsport Club of Ottawa newsletter:

It seems that they were having a problem in Cape Breton recently regarding the large number of crows that were being killed on their highways. A study was commissioned, and after several weeks of intensive observation it was discovered that almost all of the casualties came from being run over by trucks, and not cars. Apparently the crows had lookouts posted in adjacent trees and similar perches to warn the others in the parliament (collective noun for crows - look it up if you don’t believe me) of approaching traffic. The high mortality problem was determined to be due to the fact that, while the look-outs could call out "caw", they were not able to call out "truck".

Tags: , blanding's turtles, duck boxes, turtles, wild turkey

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