The NESTBOX #21, Summer 2007
Well, where did the summer go? Here it is, September already; time for Ottawa Duck Club members to get together to review the summer and make plans for the fall and winter. We still need to re-shingle and repair the sheds, build some new floating nest boxes, and start cleaning our wood duck boxes. We have two meetings planned.
Coming events
Tuesday, September 25, 7:00pm – general meeting at Connaught Range HQ Building
Tuesday November 27, 7:00pm – general meeting at Connaught Range HQ Building
All members are welcome to attend the meetings and lend a hand with the chores. If you’re not sure how to get there, call Bill Bower (613-824-9104) for directions.
CLUB NEWS
Since the last newsletter, way back in the spring, we’ve lost two more of our long-time members. George Martin had been one of our most active members, keeping the feeders near the field house stocked, among other things, until quite recently when his health began to decline. His family held a memorial service at the sanctuary he loved so much and plans to leave a lasting memorial. Ellaine Dickson who waspart of the Narraway clan, was an artist and carver and was most active back in the days when the Duck Club held an annual art show.Our sympathies go out to both their families.
Two of our founding members, Ray Montpetit and Lorne Whitty, are very much alive and well and it was great to see them both at the annual meeting in March. They have both been
with the club since its beginning in 1966 and provide a real link to our past. Ray has even become our newest lawn mower driver. Way to go Ray.
Our treasurer Jim Sauer was featured in the Summer issue of On Nature. Jim was interviewed on the subject of bluebird conservation. Jim’s bluebird trail out in the Munster area fledged 75 bluebirds this year. His previous high was 71. That’s pretty good considering that urbanization is quickly creeping into that area and eating into the number of suitable locations. Over the 23 years Jim has been building and maintaining bluebird nest boxes, he has fostered more than 1,000 chicks. One of Jim’s innovations is a tunnel-like cage that he attaches to the front of the house to keep raccoons from reaching in. It has the added benefit that the fledglings like to use it as a resting perch.
As for bluebirds at the sanctuary, we still haven’t found the right formula, so we’ll just have to keep trying. We know there are bluebirds on the property (at Innis Point) and they’ve nested in our area before, maybe Jim can help us lure them back.
Another bird that’s giving us a hard time is the purple martin. Last year nine pairs of martins took up residence in one of our apartments and raised their families. We were encouraged enough to buy a fancy new apartment and set it up this spring. Unfortunately, the martins didn’t show up until the June 9-10 weekend and two weeks later there were still only three, let’s hope they were scouting for next year and will
report back favourably. (See below for more on martins.)
And speaking of nest boxes, we can never have too many for our wood ducks and hooded mergansers. Every year we need to replace a number of the older ones, so it’s great to get help from time to time. For that reason, we are grateful to Glebe Collegiate teacher Anthony Gilchrist and his students in the grade 10 Technological Design class (below) for making 16 wood duck boxes for us. They will start going up this winter and you’ll have no trouble picking them out from the other boxes as each one has a colourful wood duck silhouette on the front.
If you’ve driven out to the sanctuary, or along March Valley Road recently, you might have noticed that we also have some new signs. This one, made by Churchy, is at the bird feeder on March Valley Road and it’s supposed to increase traffic to our Website.
And president Bill made this one at the gate that signals whether we can go in. If the gate is locked, the sign is turned around. 
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Memberships
Our membership drive back in the spring resulted in 53 renewals and one new member for 2007. We would like to welcome our newest member, David Collyer, to the club. David is a naturalist and photographer, who is returning to the club after many years away. Thanks to all of you and special thanks to the many members who made generous donations to the club, especially Pat Davies, Joe Bevk, Bill and Odette Bower, Barc Dowden, Dorothy Gray, and Dr. Ronald Tasker.
Grants
In June, for the second year running, we got good news from the provincial government. The Ministry of Natural Resources has approved our grant applications for a total of $4,250. We now have approvals as follows:
1) Maintain nesting structures, make repairs to sanctuary. We asked for $3,000 for this project and we received the full amount. With the busy summer shooting schedule, we have spent very little on this project to date and we will have lots to do now that September has arrived.
2) Duck nesting floats. We asked for $750 for this project and received the full amount. Our goal is to build 10 new floats for use in 2008. Although we had very good results with our floats in 2007, our current inventory is in need of replacement. We have one particular design that we favour and will likely go with it. We expect to be able to use the full $750 as a fair amount of plywood is required..
3) Wood duck nest boxes. We asked for $750 and received approval for $500. To date we have spent about $300 on new nesting boxes. This was for the 16 boxes built by the students at Glebe Collegiate. The Duck Club supplied all the materials and that project has been completed. Our plan is to use the remainder of the funds to purchase pipes, hardware and metal for new predator guards. We will submit our first invoice once we have all receipts in hand. If we need more than the 16 new boxes, we still have a small amount of plywood on hand and can build a few more ourselves.
Just to recap, we asked for $4,500 and we received $4,250. We will have a lot of work to do to spend this amount. Our meeting on September 25 will be devoted to reviewing where we are with these three projects and determining what more needs to be done. We have to remember also that we have all the materials to replace the shingles on our sheds. Those were paid for using our 2006 grant and we have to finish that project.
Spring and summer sightings
On Easter Sunday, Bill reported that t he weatherman had been much too optimistic when he used the term "plus" in describing the temperature forecast. It was cold, windy and some snow was blowing around. Not a good workday. But the birds did cooperate and we
ended the day with just under 30 species. We saw a wood duck pair near a nesting box on the Osprey Pond , a hooded merganser pair near a new nesting box by McCabe Bridge, a Canada goose near a goose site on Boegel Pond (actually it was in the goose site), great blue herons, but not near the heronry, a male eastern bluebird near a bluebird box (unfortunately it was at Innis Point and not near one of our boxes), a female kestrel along the Perimeter Road not far from one of our kestrel boxes, but not a single osprey near (or on) our platform on the Osprey Pond . There were some other good sightings as well including ring-necked ducks, gadwall, an American woodcock, a pair of harriers and a pair of adult golden eagles.
We checked a bunch of wood duck boxes but there were no duck eggs yet, only starling activity. In some cases the starlings had removed all of the shavings from the box and we had to add more.
And deer were everywhere.
Grant Hopkins took this great shot of a Canada goose at Easter.
Later in the spring, Bill was out with Dave Seburn who is studying the Blanding’s turtles at the sanctuary. They visited all the ponds but found no tutles. Dave had ordered some transmitters (transponders) and got started attaching them to turtles soon after. The club was able to help him in June when the turtles were out looking for nesting sites. We found a number of them (turtles that is), mainly by the road to Innis Point.
Things move fast in the summer and by early July the floats were pulled in and put into storage. It appeared that most had been used by mallards and one by a goose, though how she managed to get in the small opening remains a mystery. Austin Taverner checked some wood duck boxes and found there were still four females on eggs. That was a bit unusual in itself.
As the following pictures show, there’s a lot more than ducks, indeed a lot more than birds, at our sanctuary.
Bill took this picture of a Virginia ctenucha moth.
But can he pronounce the name?
We’ve had lots of monarch butterflies around this summer and even found clusters of eggs on milkweed as well as caterpillars of various sizes, which are almost as colourful as the butterflies.
Monarch caterpillars. (Photo by Ben Mancini)
As August wound down, Ab McLaren borrowed our flat bottom boat—once Bill had managed to find it. It doesn’t get used much these days. They then put the boat on the trailer and used it to go get seven bags of dry shavings, that Gerry Lee had dropped off at our field house, in to our metal shed. We still have to transfer them to seed bags so they will stay dry. A few days later, Gerry brought in another large bag of shavings so we have plenty of good shavings now.
Some ducks and geese were still around but no great numbers. There were a couple of green herons and six night herons just at dark and one common nighthawk. Bill also found a dead brown bat on one of the burrs. He’s found a number in the past that got caught on the burrs while chasing insects at night.
The big story was the deer. They were everywhere in numbers not seen since last November. He saw about 60 deer, without even going down the Perimeter Road and looking in all the fields. When he left there were 29 in the big field on the right, including eight large bucks, the smallest being a six pointer. (Thanks to Bill for these reports.)
Ottawa River Bridges
Every few years the idea of building more bridges across the Ottawa River crops up again. And there’s always talk of one in the east and another in the west, even though the demand is almost all in the east.
As far as the west end bridge is concerned, at least two proposals would be of concern to the Duck Club. One of them, and probably the favourite, depending on who you talk to, would go through pretty much where Riddell Road is now but a little more to the east.
The second one crosses right through the middle of the sanctuary, which would put an end to the Crown Game Preserve and the Connaught Range. This second option is currently classified as "not carried forward," but it could end up back on the table again at some point. Nothing has been eliminated completely and there could be additional sites brought forward during this consultation period. Certainly our friends in the military are seriously concerned about both these crossing proposals.
The Riddell Road approach would probably be not that disruptive for us, but it would have to incorporate crossings for wildlife—everything from deer to turtles. But, that’s many years away.
Our objections to both proposals are from the point of view of protecting the environment, wetlands, wildlife, and birdlife. We would encourage members of the club to make our concerns known whenever the opportunity arises. The west end bridge is a long way from becoming a reality but we have to bring our concerns out now.
Bird news
The National Audubon Society in the U.S. recently published a study showing dramatic declines in many bird species in both the U.S. and Canada over the last 40 years.
Here’s their list of the 20 common North American birds with the greatest population declines since 1967:
- Northern bobwhite – 82%
- Evening grosbeak - 78%
- Northern pintail -.77 %
- Greater scaup - 75%
- Boreal chickadee - 73%
- Eastern meadowlark - 72%
- Common tern - 71%
- Loggerhead shrike - 71%
- Field sparrow - 68%
- Grasshopper sparrow - 65%
- Snow bunting - 64%
- Black-throated sparrow - 63%
- Lark sparrow - 63%
- Common grackle - 61%
- American bittern - 59%
- Rufous hummingbird -58%
- Whip-poor-will - 57%
- Horned lark - 56%
- Little blue heron - 54%
- Ruffed grouse - 54%
What can we do? The society suggests taking indirect action, including conserving energy, for example, to save habitats from the worst impacts of climate change, as well as urging lawmakers to pass laws to fight climate change, improve farming practices and save wetlands.
It also suggests taking direct action by volunteering to monitor birds and protect their habitats through citizen science efforts like Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count and the Important Bird Areas program. Specific actions proposed include protecting wetlands and fighting invasive species.
For more information, you can find the State of the Birds report by going to the Audubon society’s website at www.audubon.org and clicking on What’s Happening to Some of our Most Common Birds? .
In other bird news, earlier this summer The Ottawa Citizen carried some articles and letters about how purple martins can help control mosquito populations. Around the same time, Birders World magazine looked into this claim and determined that the martins’ reputation is much overstated. The magazine says the claim that martins can eat 2,000 mosquitoes a day was based on how many mosquitoes it would take to sustain a bird that size if mosquitoes were all it ate. But mosquitoes are generally not active in the daytime when the birds are. In addition, they fly close to the ground and the birds feed higher up. Still, it’s just nice to have the martins around anyway and we’ll keep trying to encourage them.
Speaking of purple martins, did you know they are the only bird species in eastern North America that is totally dependent on humans for nest sites? Martins have been using housing provided by humans since long before Europeans arrived here. The Purple Martin Conservation Association, founded in 1987, is seeking volunteers for three long-term citizen-science projects. Two are aimed at quantifying how climate change might be affecting migration times, reproductive timing, and nesting success in the purple martin. The third is intended to locate roosts that martins form toward the end of every summer. Each study relies almost entirely on the careful observations of martin landlords, birdwatchers, and other interested folks. For more information, visit Project Martin Watch at http://purplemartin.org/pmw/
Wildlife Conservation Stamp
About a month ago, Environment Canada announced that it would be consulting on the future of the Wildlife Conservation Stamp program. For more information, go to www.cws-scf.ec.gc.ca/legislations/laws1_e.cfm. The deadline for comments is October 1. You can send comments by mail to:
Chief, Conservation Partnerships and Programs Section,
Habitat Conservation and Protected Areas Division,
Canadian Wildlife Service,
Environment Canada,
Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H3 ;
by fax to; 819-953-3575; or
by e-mail to: habitatconsultation@ec.gc.ca
Tailfeathers
Last (I promise) of the Newfie medical terms especially for Austin :
Morbid………………..A higher offer
Nitrates……………..Cheaper than day rates
Node…………….…….I knew it
Outpatient…………A person who has fainted
Pelvis………………….Second cousin to Elvis
Post Operative… A letter carrier
Recovery Room.… Place to do upholstery
Rectum…………..…..Nearly killed him
Secretion………….. Hiding something
Seizure……………….Roman emperor
Tablet…………….…..A small table
Terminal Illness….Getting sick at the airport
Tumour………………..One plus one more
Urine…………………..Opposite of you’re out