the NESTBOX #18, Fall 2006
Membership renewals
Another year is drawing to a close - the Ottawa Duck Club’s 40th - and soon it will be time to renew your membership in the club. Next month we will be sending renewal forms and return address labels. Please watch for them and make a point of renewing promptly. Don’t forget, you will receive a tax receipt from the club for your membership fees and any donations you make.
Grants
In late July we got some good news from the province about our funding applications. Here’s how our President Bill Bower put it.
The club has now received notice from the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) that three projects were approved for funding. They are as follows:
- Shirley’s Bay Crown Game Preserve maintenance & habitat enhancement - creation of grassland habitat ($2,800)
- Shirley’s Bay bluebird/passerine species nesting structures ($500)
- Shirley’s Bay wood duck nesting structures ($500).
The total comes to $3,800, which is less than the $6,000 we had asked for, however, all things considered, we must be content with this amount (which is the maximum we can receive).
There is a fair amount of paperwork involved with the management of each project and we will have to live within the guidelines provided with each project. The funding isn’t automatic and our paperwork, forms, invoices, etc. must be submitted by January 1, 2007 (for each project). Obviously, if we have the project completed before then we can submit the necessary paperwork for payment sooner.
The club has already spent a considerable amount this year for insurance and tractor repairs, for example and we have limited funding left to purchase the necessary materials, hardware, etc. to go towards these projects. We certainly hope the repair expenses and the materials we have already purchased can be used towards these projects.
We have been going full steam ahead on two of the projects - wood duck boxes and trying to regain control of mother nature out at the sanctuary. Ten wood duck boxes are ready now and we have materials for another 15 to 20 boxes. We are able to make an interim claim for the work done so far, so we’ve done that. On the main application we couldn’t wait for grant approval - we applied back in February and had to get started in the spring. We went ahead, based on positive feedback from the MNR people, and had two of our mowers repaired and we’ve been mowing ever since. We have probably consumed more fuel than ever before. Our grant approvals came only in late July. Although we have done some repairs to our observation deck we haven’t touched any work around the sheds.
The squeeze we are facing now is that we spent our money back in the spring (mostly on repairs) and aren’t in a position to go out and spend a lot more. We have to have enough to operate with until we receive funding back from MNR, assuming we meet their requirements.
CHURCHY’S COLUMN
Can it really be fall already? Where has the summer gone? It seems like only yesterday that we were getting ready for a new nesting season. Now the geese are preparing to head south - well some of them are.
It’s been a pretty good summer in many ways, even if it was too short. But aren’t they all? Early in the summer we got word that our access day would change from Tuesday at 4pm to Friday at 2pm. As a result, we (at least those of us no longer gainfully employed) have been able to get in almost every week at 2pm and stay until dark. But somehow, Austin’s To-Do list is longer now than it was in May. Why is that, Austin?
We fell behind in grass cutting early on because of a shortage of equipment - two of our ride-on mowers were out for repairs and the third was just out (of commission) and it still is. We sure miss our old engineering director, Don Davies. Once the mowers came back, though, we were able to catch up and held our own until the beaver struck. He (she?) dammed the creek near our sheds. At its peak, the water was lapping at the sheds. Anthony Denton managed to divert it - temporarily - with a large section of hose, and when the beaver dealt with that, Klaus Gottlob dug out parts of the dam and got the water flowing again - but not for long. On the plus side the amphibian population has done very well with the new ponds - frogs and tadpoles galore - and the groundhogs have had to move away from the sheds - it’s an ill wind that blows no good, as they say.
The raccoons have been back too, nesting in one of the sheds and leaving quite a mess. There was also evidence of a bear’s visit in the spring, but not since. It damaged three boxes and tried, but failed, to get into a fourth - one of our new ones. It also ate through our seed barrel out at the feeder.
Bear damage to duck boxes (Photos by Austin Taverner)
Bird sightings this summer have included nesting ospreys, Nashville warblers, song sparrows, a pied-billed grebe, cormorants, bitterns, kingfishers, a pair of great egrets, a rail that Al Beaulieu spotted lurking in the reeds, but none of us could see well enough to identify precisely, kestrels, 16 turkeys one evening, a merlin, a snow goose, a coot and all the usual suspects, including about 10 pairs of purple martins in our martin houses. And now it’s time to watch for returning winter birds.
CANADA GOOSE MANAGEMENT IN URBAN ONTARIO:
PRESENTATION BY JACK HUGHES
Our last meeting seems to have happened in a previous life, but it was really last March. Just before leaving for the greener swamps of Peterborough, Rod Brook arranged for Jack Hughes of the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) to give us an interesting presentation on those urban geese some people blame us for. For the benefit of members who weren’t able to be there, here’s a summary of his remarks:
Jack started by outlining some of the problems caused by large numbers of urban geese, starting with droppings, which are not only unpleasant to look at, but also carry lots of pathogens from E. coli to Giardia to Chlamydia to Influenza A. So far though, despite several studies, no link to human sickness has been found. Other problems include turf damage from overgrazing, aggressive geese and conflicts with transportation, both on roads and at airports.
Geese and jets don’t mix (Canadian Wildlife Service)
At first, and for many years, the problem (in Canada) was confined to Toronto. In recent years, many more municipalities, including Mississauga, Oakville, Whitby, Oshawa, Windsor, Simcoe, Goderich, Thunder Bay and Ottawa, are having problems or deciding to take action each year. Nor is the problem limited to Ontario, there are reports from Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Vancouver.
The population of Ontario’s temperate-breeding Canada geese has been growing at an average annual rate of about 12 per cent since the 1970s, meaning it doubles every six to seven years. This translates into a total spring population of between 350,000 and 450,000.
Maps show how urban geese have spread in the last 30+ years (Canadian Wildlife Service)
How many geese live in urban settings in Ontario? The answer is, we don’t know, but too many. We tend to think of urban areas as being inhospitable for wildlife, but there are many relatively inaccessible (for people) areas in ravines and marshes, even in large cities. Geese have adapted to cities by nesting in novel locations like rooftops and sewage treatment plants, and to nesting in high density. In addition to the local breeders, thousands of migrants also descend on the GTA each summer to moult. They arrive in mid-June, drop their flight feathers, and are unable to leave until they have grown new ones in late July-early August.
So what can be done about them? Jack outlined two approaches:
Direct Action:
- disturbing or scaring the geese: This is effective for short-term relief, but it’s labour intensive and must be repeated; its effectiveness on moulting geese is limited and might just shift the problem elsewhere;
- egg-oiling: This can produce a short-term reduction of geese in sensitive areas such as parks and golf courses; it can be effective for long-term control of local nesting populations, but it too is labour intensive and must be repeated annually and it requires a CWS permit.
- re-location: This is effective for short-term relief from large numbers of moulting geese, few of which return to the capture site, but it is also labour intensive and must be repeated annually and it’s difficult to find relocation sites willing to accept large numbers of geese; in the past it may also have contributed to the rapid expansion of temperate breeding Canada geese in southern Ontario and throughout eastern North America; it also requires a CWS permit.
- hunting: not possible in an urban setting.
Indirect Action:
- stop feeding the geese: Feeding geese attracts them to areas where they come into conflict with people, it could potentially encourage them to stay around longer and the presence of these urban geese may attract migrants.
- habitat modification: This ranges from changing the kind of grass you plant to complete park make-overs to produce habitat the geese don’t like. Ultimately this is the best approach to reduce the incidence of human-goose conflicts.
So far geese have not caused major problems in Ottawa, but there are large numbers along the Ottawa River - both breeding and moulting geese. There have been concerns recently about water quality at Mooney’s Bay Beach and the role geese may be playing in elevated e-coli levels. There are no effective prohibitions on feeding and no substantial effort to modify the landscape. It’s possible that the situation could deteriorate rapidly. To prevent that, the city is being pro-active by increasing hunting activities, for example allowing Sunday hunting in some rural areas within the city limits.
Jack suggests the Duck Club not encourage any more geese to nest at the sanctuary and make sure they can’t use the floating duck nests - just what we have been trying to do.
The Canadian Wildlife Service produces and contributes to the production of information pamphlets for the public to help them deal with nuisance geese. In the short-term, the information provided in these pamphlets can help alleviate damage caused by geese to crops, lawns and other property. In the long run, the habitat modification techniques suggested to landowners may contribute to slowing goose population growth, particularly in developed areas. For more information about what property owners can do to deter Canada geese, please consult the CWS website at:
www.on.ec.gc.ca/wildlife/brochures/geeseshorelines-e.html
The NESTBOX #18, Fall 2006 (original Word format)