Post by Wetlander on Oct 18, 2008 20:42:31 GMT -8
Pretty busy lately.
A little off topic but some birds today...
We've been doing a bit of Riparian restoration around our place. We're outside the dyke in Agassiz, surrounded by sloughs. A fish biologist, Mike Pearson has funding for trees and is planting up areas to restore proper fish habitat. We had a big crew of about 30 volunteers come out... including Murray. Thanks for the help!
We planted about 1500 native trees and shrubs today. While planting I counted... (yes, I was still occasionally looking up!)
1 Bald Eagle, 1 Peregrine Falcon and at one point 5 Red-tailed Hawks, circling and chattering at each other. The highlight was a barn owl flew right over our garden at about 4pm. and about 5 of us saw it... although these fish & tree folks weren't nearly as impressed as Marion and I.
A couple of weeks ago, a big backhoe came in and ripped out a ton of blackberries to prep the site. As I was mentioning to Murray, it was a little disheartening to lose all that bird habitat and food, but think it was a short term set back for a huge long term gain in habitat for all.
Marion and I have often dreamed of building up the hedgerow around the island, mostly for flood protection. Healthy, functioning wetlands with native trees & shrubs absorbs huge amounts of water during highwater. Natural flood protection and filtration etc. This is a dream come true... ;D
Another planting is coming up in early November at our neighbour, who is on the Agassiz slough just inside the dyke. So we're going to help out there, least we could do...
But man is my back shot tonight......
A little off topic but some birds today...
We've been doing a bit of Riparian restoration around our place. We're outside the dyke in Agassiz, surrounded by sloughs. A fish biologist, Mike Pearson has funding for trees and is planting up areas to restore proper fish habitat. We had a big crew of about 30 volunteers come out... including Murray. Thanks for the help!
We planted about 1500 native trees and shrubs today. While planting I counted... (yes, I was still occasionally looking up!)
1 Bald Eagle, 1 Peregrine Falcon and at one point 5 Red-tailed Hawks, circling and chattering at each other. The highlight was a barn owl flew right over our garden at about 4pm. and about 5 of us saw it... although these fish & tree folks weren't nearly as impressed as Marion and I.
A couple of weeks ago, a big backhoe came in and ripped out a ton of blackberries to prep the site. As I was mentioning to Murray, it was a little disheartening to lose all that bird habitat and food, but think it was a short term set back for a huge long term gain in habitat for all.
Marion and I have often dreamed of building up the hedgerow around the island, mostly for flood protection. Healthy, functioning wetlands with native trees & shrubs absorbs huge amounts of water during highwater. Natural flood protection and filtration etc. This is a dream come true... ;D
Another planting is coming up in early November at our neighbour, who is on the Agassiz slough just inside the dyke. So we're going to help out there, least we could do...
But man is my back shot tonight......
