2015 #2 NatureWILD Magazine

NatureWILD Magazine for the Nature Kids of British Columbia

GREAT SNAKES ALIVE!

Volume 16 Issue 2 2015

A Forest Without Trees: THE BULL KELP FOREST

Fe

THE SEA OTTER Protector of the Kelp Forest

? h s i g Slug g n i el

naturekidsbc.ca

The Nature Exploration Club for Families.

Inside...

3 DraW A Slug!

4 GREAT SNAKES ALIVE! 6 BULL KELP 8 SEA OTTER 10 Feeling Sluggish?

12 14 Ask Al 15 NatureWILD News 16 Find-A-Sparrow Bedtime For Robin

YNC is changing its name!

We asked you what you thought about the name Young Naturalists’ Club of BC - many of you thought it was fine, but many more of you thought it was time for a shorter, snappier name. So we asked you for ideas, circulated the ideas and then you voted.

Nature Kids BC was the winner, so here we go with our new name

and our new logo. Our website, Facebook and email address will change too, but everything that makes it fun to be a member will stay the same - Explorer Days, Passports to Nature, Action Awards and NatureWILD magazine. Happy summer, Nature Kids!

Vanessa Lee, President, Nature Kids BC Find Nature Kids BC on Facebook! www.facebook.com/naturekidsbc

Cover image: “Sea-otter-morro-bay 13” by “Mike” Michael L. Baird.

Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Sea-otter-morro-bay_13.jpg#/media/File:Sea-otter-morro-bay_13.jpg

Questions? Comments?

Vanessa Lee, President info@naturekidsbc.ca Kristine Webber, Executive Director kristinewebber@naturekidsbc.ca

Nature Kids BC is an exciting nature discovery and environmental action program that invites young people ages 5-12 years to have fun discovering nearby nature on Explorer Days with local experts, learn about native wildlife and plants in NatureWILD Magazine and take part in environmental actions to protect their habitat with the Action Awards program. For more information: naturekidsbc.ca

Tammy Keetch, Clubs Coordinator coordinator@naturekidsbc.ca

Thank you to our sponsors and

Daniel Kell, Membership and Office Coordinator info@naturekidsbc.ca

supporters who share our vision that all children be connected with nature.

NatureWILD Editorial Committee

Content Editor: Daphne Solecki Production Editor: Monica Belko Editorial Assistants: Brian Herrin, Tricia Edgar Contributor: Al Grass

NATURE

1620 Mt. Seymour Rd. North Vancouver, BC V7G 2R9

naturekidsbc.ca 2

VANCOUVER

RR Donnelley We acknowledge the financial assistance of the Province of British Columbia

ISSN: 1492-7241 NatureWILD is printed on SFI certified paper by Benwell Atkins an RR Donnelley Company,Vancouver.

DRAW A SLUG! 1

Start your slug with a slanted oval shape.

2

Add a second smaller oval within the large one. Also add a pneumostome (air hole for breathing).

3 Next create two long shapes at the head of the slug. These are the optical tentacles where the eyes are located.

4

Finish your slug by adding: 1. rounded ends for the optical tentacles.

2. sensory tentacles (each slug has two).

3. the underside of the slug’s body.

4. spots, colour or shading to make your slug interesting.

5

Be creative!

Slugs come in many shapes, colours and sizes.

Above are some slug examples to help your imagination.

3

GREAT SNAKES ALIVE! Stories About Garter Snakes from Nature Kids University Hill Elementary School Nature Kids, Vancouver, wanted to know more about the garter snakes they see around their school, so they, their parents and some secondary school students decided to study them. Members Bronson Lo (age 10), Kiernan Lo (age 9) and Frazier Lo (age 5) tell us what they discovered.

What we found out:

Our school is right on the edge of Pacific Spirit Park, which has been logged many times over the years so the habitat has changed. No one knows for sure how long the snakes have lived in this area. We’ve heard that for many years, students noticed garter snakes basking on a rock ledge just outside the school property in early spring. Snakes like to lie on the rocks because the rocks heat up in the sunshine and the snakes, being cold-blooded, lie on them to heat up their bodies. The area around our school appears to be a perfect climate for garter snakes. It’s not too hot and not too cold, and not too dry or Photo by Nancy Brown. wet, and it is adjacent to a riparian (stream side) habitat where they can find food.

Species:

Garter snakes come in many colours - grey, black, brown, green, yellow, and red. In our area we think that the Common Garter Snake, Western Terrestrial (Wandering) Garter Snake, Northwestern Garter Snake may be found and even the less common Rubber Boa. One Common Garter Snakes subspecies called Thamnophis sirtalis fitchi eats mostly tree frogs. We observed the snakes emerging this spring and can confirm that this subspecies is in our area. We also observed that quite often many different species rest in the same hibernaculum. We will continue to look for more evidence of these other species.

Senses:

Snakes are very different from humans because they are reptiles and we are mammals. Although we might consider humans to be superior, snakes have a more developed sense of smell and taste. Snakes use their noses and forked tongues to hunt, avoid predators, and find mates. Their noses pick up volatile chemicals in the air, and their tongues analyse the pheromone chemical trails left by female snakes. When a male snake finds a female snake’s trail, it flicks its forked tongue into its mouth Garter snake emerging and onto a special gland call the Jacobson’s Organ that ‘reads’ the scents and sends from hibernaculum. information to the brain. The snake’s brain identifies the scent/taste, and figures out Photo by Connie Chen. which direction it is coming from. Then it can find the female to mate with.

4

Depending upon the species, garter snakes may have quite a long distance to travel from their hibernaculum (where they spend the winter) to their foraging grounds, but they can use the sun for navigating and have a built-in compass and mapping system inside their brains.

What they eat and who eats them:

Garter snakes eat foods from as small as a leech to as big as a mouse, including tadpoles, leeches, earthworms, slugs, fish, reptiles, mice, and birds. Since snakes cannot chew, they swallow their prey whole by unlatching their jaws.

Until they are two years old, snakes eat small things, but they hunt quite often. When they are older they hunt bigger things but do not eat as often, so they’re less exposed to predators. In turn, garter snakes are prey for eagles, hawks, crows, other snakes, fish, mammals (such as raccoons) and amphibians.

A true-life Garter Snake Adventure

by Jacob James (Vancouver)

Last summer I found a snake. It was on the trail at Deas Island when I saw him.

He was slithering by the bushes and I gently picked him up. He felt smooth, rubbery and he had stripes.

He was not afraid of me and I was not afraid of him. He was a garter snake!

I was so surprised that he let me pick him up.

That night I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Garter Snakes are our friends:

Snakes are our friends. Do not harm them. They are part of the balanced ecosystem of our neighbourhood.

They help control pests in our yards, and they are food for the wildlife living in our urban area. They do not pose any imminent danger to us. Since they do no harm to anything, we do not see why anyone would want to get rid of them. They have a happy home and the population is balanced Garter snake slithering away. as far as we can see.

Photo by Connie Chen.

If you see a snake, or have more information on garter snakes in our neighbourhood, our group would be very interested to hear from you. Please contact us at www.uheync.wordpress.com.

Jacob holding the garter snake.

Photo by Karen James.

A Snake’s Life

A Story by Kiernan Lo You are a snake slithering across a clearing when the grass parts and you see it: Danger!

You try to escape but it pursues you and it has chased you across a clearing when you turn on it.You are hissing and spitting as much as you can to try to make it leave. It works.You are safe.

The next day it comes back.You realize it is a puppy. It chases you across a field when you start spitting at it. The puppy knows you are bluffing and ventures closer.You now have to bite in self-defense. The puppy stands there for a moment, shocked. It is staring at the forepaw you bit. Then it takes off wailing with its tail between its legs. As it disappears from sight you think “Creep!” You are safe again!

5

A Forest Without Trees: THE BULL KELP FOREST There’s a forest that grows in the shallow waters off our shores which is different from the forests on land. Not only are there no trees; there are also no plants! A giant seaweed called Bull Kelp (Nereocystis leutkeana) grows as tall as trees from the ocean floor.

frond

pneumatocyst

stipe

It is difficult to believe that kelp, which looks so like a plant, is in fact not a plant but an alga (see note next page). Instead of having roots that grow into the seabed, kelp has a holdfast that grips onto a sturdy rock and does just what its name says - holds the kelp fast to the ocean bottom and stops it from floating away.

From the holdfast a stem-like stipe grows up to the surface, reaching for the light. From the top end of the stipe grows a pneumatocyst (a sort of balloon or bladder).

This bladder is filled with carbon monoxide gas (enough to kill a small chicken!) so that it can float on the surface of the ocean and allow the fronds (the long leaves which grow out of the pneumatocyst) to get the sunlight they need to photosynthesize which is how kelp gets its food.

Photosynthesis sunlight

oxygen carbon dioxide

water

6

A Bull Kelp holdfast. Photo by Jackie Hildering; www.themarinedetective.ca

“Photosynthesis” by At09kg.

Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photosynthesis.gif#/media/File:Photosynthesis.gif

Algae (plural for alga)

are a group of simple plantlike organisms that are found all over the world, mostly in water such as oceans, rivers, lakes, streams, ponds and marshes. There are thousands of different species, or types, of algae.

Algae are similar to plants in that they use chlorophyll to change sunlight into sugars but they do not have roots, leaves, flowers or the other parts of true plants.

Algae can be very tiny, like phytoplankton – 1,000 phytoplankton can fit on the head of a pin – or enormous, like seaweeds such as bull kelp. (The word alga is in fact Latin for seaweed.)

The kelp forest slows down the ocean currents, creating a protected ecosystem which is home to many creatures, large and small. Sea Otters live in the kelp forest as do thousands of invertebrates and fish, while other marine mammals and birds rely on the kelp forest for food and for safety from storms and predators.

The kelp forest also protects rocky shores against erosion and even helps humans by warning them that the water under the kelp forest is not very deep and there are rocks close to the bottom.

Bull Kelp dies down every winter and grows again the following year.

The old kelp gets washed up on the beach - where, even though it is dead, it still provides food and shelter for kelp flies, red mites, beach pillbugs and beach hoppers. In turn these little critters are food for every kind of bird that visits the beach – gulls, shorebirds, even robins. Eventually the kelp rots right away becoming compost for plants and forests that live along the shoreline.

But here’s an interesting fact. While the

kelp forest provides a home that protects many creatures, kelp itself needs protection. See the next story about Sea Otters and how they protect the kelp.

Algae are very important because they make much of Earth’s oxygen, which humans and other animals need to breathe. Algae also remove carbon dioxide, the gas that leads to changes in climate.

A Bull Kelp forest (background image).

Photo by Jackie Hildering; www.themarinedetective.ca

Fun at the Beach You can easily find dead Bull Kelp that’s been washed ashore and have a close up look at the stipes, pneumatocysts (bladders), fronds and, sometimes, holdfasts which may even be holding a smaller rock. Kelp is fun to play with as well – you can pop those bladders or whirl the stipes like lassos (but watch out that you don’t hit anybody!).

Bull Kelp on a west coast beach.

Photo by Monica Belko.

You can also play ‘music’ by using the stipe as a horn.You can figure it out for yourself or there are a number of videos that show you how to make the horn - just search the Internet for Bull Kelp horns and see what comes up!

7

THE SEA OTTER Protector of the Kelp Forest

“Otter in kelp field” by Doug Knuth

Flickr: IMG_0494. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Otter_in_kelp_field.jpg#/media/File:Otter_in_kelp_field.jpg

The Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris) is a member of the weasel family and is probably the most recognizable and best loved mammal that lives in the ocean off British Columbia.

Sea Otters are furry, spend a lot of time somersaulting to clean their fur, and swim on their backs on the surface of the ocean. When resting, they often hold each other’s paws and drift together, a behaviour called “rafting”.

While floating on the surface, a mother otter places her pup on her chest to nurse it.

As any human who has touched the Pacific Ocean in British Columbia knows, the water is COLD! So one way in which the otter keeps warm is by eating a lot - especially hard-shelled invertebrates such as crabs, sea urchins, and mussels. To break them open, the Sea Otter places the food on its chest and hits it with a rock. In fact, the average Sea Otter consumes an amount of food equal to one quarter of its body weight every day. That would be like a 10 year old boy consuming 150 chocolate bars each day!

While most marine mammals keep warm by growing layers of fat to protect them from cold, Sea Otters grow themselves a thick fur coat. Sea Otter fur is the thickest of any mammal. Someone with a lot of patience once counted up to 164,662 hairs for every square centimetre of otter fur. A cat’s fur has only about 16,500 hairs per square centimetre – so otter fur is about ten times thicker than cat fur. The human head has about 100,000 hairs.

That means that if you put your thumb on the pelt of a sea otter, there are more hairs under your thumb than there are on your entire head!

To keep warm the fur must be kept clean so sea otters spend a lot of time every day preening and brushing their fur. They blow air into the fur to act as insulation against the cold. The result is that cold water never touches bare skin, and the otter stays warm and dry.

A Sea Otter pair.

8

Oil from an oil spill interferes with the way the otter’s fur keeps it warm; then the cold water can get through the fur to its skin. The otter can become very sick from the cold and may die.

So how does the Sea Otter protect the kelp forest?

In about 1740 trappers and hunters from Europe and Russia discovered Sea Otters and their beautiful thick fur. These furs could be sold for a great deal of money one pelt could be worth a year’s pay! By about 1930, sea otters along the BC and Alaska coast were almost wiped out. As the otters disappeared, the kelp forests disappeared as well.

A photo of Sea Otter pelts from 1892.

It turns out that sea urchins really like eating kelp. They chew off the anchors that keep the kelp in place. Without Sea Otters to eat them, there was nothing to stop the sea urchins chewing the kelp so eventually it all floated away and the kelp forest was gone. In its place was an ‘urchin barren’ where none of the other creatures that depend on the kelp forest could live.

Fifty years ago Sea Otters were reintroduced to Alaska; then about 40 years ago a group of 89 Alaska Sea Otters were relocated to the west coast of Vancouver Island. Now there are about 5,000 Sea Otters off the central coast of BC!

Sea Otters are thriving - and so are the kelp forests.

To find out more about Sea Otters go to: www.vanaqua.org/learn/aquafacts/otters-and-pinnipeds/sea-otters To find out more about Bull Kelp forests go to: themarinedetective.com/category/algaeseaweed/

“Mother sea otter with rare twin baby pups (9137174915)” by Mike Baird from Morro Bay, USA - Mother sea otter with rare twin baby pupsPDTillman. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mother_sea_otter_with_rare_twin_baby_ pups_(9137174915).jpg#/media/File:Mother_sea_otter_with_rare_twin_baby_pups_(9137174915).jpg

“Sea Otter grooming” by “Mike” Michael L. Baird.

Sea Otter on the rocks.

A Bull Kelp forest (background image).

Photo by Jackie Hildering; www.themarinedetective.ca

Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Sea-otter-grooming.jpg#/media/ File:Sea-otter-grooming.jpg

9

? h s i g g u l S g n i el

Fe

By Tricia Edgar

There’s a slimy situation in the forests and gardens of BC! You might be surprised to learn than there are nearly one hundred species of land snails and slugs in our province and all of them make slime.

A slug is the perfect rainforest animal. It loves the cool, damp weather of the forest. When you go for a forest walk on a rainy spring day, you’ll see slugs sliding along the trails, stopping to eat old leaves or bear scat: yum!

A slug is an invertebrate, which means that it does not have a skeleton inside its body. It is a member of the Phylum Mollusca, otherwise known as the molluscs. Its relatives range from very large to very small - octopuses, squids, clams, and snails are all molluscs.

While you’ve probably seen the swirling shells of forest snails, a slug has no shell at all.

It is not a snail that has outgrown its shell - it never had one in the first place. Without a shell for protection, a slug needs to be very clever in cold or hot weather, or it could freeze or dry out. When it’s too hot or too cold, a slug moves to cool, damp, and sheltered places in the forest.

Slugs use their slimy superpowers to make up for their lack of a shell. Slugs may not be the fastest animals in the forest, but they can go places that might pose a challenge to other animals. A slug’s slime provides a natural skating rink so that the slug can glide easily over rocks, sticks, and even broken glass. The slime is also part of the slug’s defense system. An animal that tries to eat a slug will soon discover that the slime has numbing properties, which means that the slug-munching animal will lose feeling in its mouth - very nasty!

In the temperate rainforest of BC’s coast, we have many different species of slugs. Some are originally from here, while others came here from other countries. If you’re searching for slugs, you’ll find this slimy cast of characters in BC’s forests and gardens.

Banana Slug (Ariolimax columbianus)

This native rainforest giant comes in many different colours, including brown, green, white, and bright yellow and can grow to be the size of a ruler – 30 cm long!

Banana Slug. Photo

by Ralph Arvesen

from Round Mountain, Texas (Rialto Beach, Olympic National Park, Washington) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

10

We usually think of slugs as creatures that eat the growing plants in our gardens but the Banana Slug prefers the forest. It is an expert at turning old leaves and other dead plant and animal material into soil by eating them, then excreting the digested remains. The muscular foot at the bottom of its body allows it to move smoothly along the forest floor in the wet season; in the winter and in the dry days of summer it hides under logs.

Black Slug.

Photo by Dominicus Johannes Bergsma (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Black Slug (Arion ater)

Arion ater and its brown or orange cousin Arion rufus are common garden slugs which come from outside Canada. They are most active at night and eat both living and dead plants. They have a unique defence tactic. Unlike other slugs, Black Slugs have grooves on their body and when they are scared they squish up in a ball and begin to rock back and forth while the grooves fill up with slime.

Grey Fieldslug.

Photo by Joseph Berger [CC BY 3.0 us (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0/us/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

Grey Fieldslug (Deroceras reticulatum)

While it is easy to notice larger slugs, many smaller slugs live in our gardens and fields. The Grey Fieldslug is a small slug that came originally from Europe, but it is now very well-travelled and lives in many areas around the world. When disturbed it sends out thick, milky slime. This slug really likes to eat the veggies in your garden.

Great Grey Slug. Photo by Marina Jacob (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Great Grey Slug (Limax maximus)

The Great Grey slug came here from Europe and Africa. It has a mixture of spots and stripes on its body and is also known as the Leopard Slug. While the Great Grey eats both dead and growing plants it is also a hunter – in a slow-speed chase, it will pursue and eat other slugs!

If you want to study slugs here are some things you can do: 1. Find a slug on a cool evening. Look under leaves, rocks or boards. A silver path of slime might lead you to a hiding place.

2. Lift the animal onto a glass dish or clear container lid. It will probably retract its tentacles; be patient, wait for it to relax and start to move.

3. Use your magnifying glass to study the tentacles. Can you see the eyes? Be slow and gentle. If the animal is scared it will hide again.

4. Hold up the dish and look at the slug from underneath. Watch how it moves using the strong muscles in its foot.

5. Slugs have a tongue that is like a file, with hundreds of tiny teeth. It uses its tongue to cut and shred its food. Put a lettuce leaf or a pinch of flour mixed with water on the dish. Watch from underneath the dish to see how the slug is eating.

6. In the early morning, follow the slime trails and track where slugs and snails have been.You might be surprised how adventurous some of them were.

11

Bedtime For Robin American Robin Turdus migratorius

by Lip Kee From Singapore, Republic of Singapore [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

On late summer days, after all her nestlings had hatched and flown away, Robin liked to watch the world go by. Sitting on a fence or a branch, she looked out for worms, small insects or berries to eat.

Now the sun was setting and it was getting hard to see anything at all. She thought of her night time roosting place, deep in a laurel hedge, where she could spend the night, tucked safely away from danger and bad weather.

“Time for bed,” she said to herself.

She was on her way home, flying past the pond, when she met a Damselfly.

“Hello, Robin,” said Damselfly.

“Hello, Damselfly,” she said, not wanting to seem rude, even though she was very tired. “I’m just off to bed,” said Damselfly.

“Me, too,” said Robin, trying not to yawn. “Where do you sleep?”

“On a plant stem” said Damselfly. “If I’m very still and don’t make a sound, nothing will notice me and eat me in the night. You should try it if you’re tired.”

Robin didn’t think that looked very safe.

“Thank you very much,” she said, “But I wouldn’t like that at all. I want my own roost or nothing at all.”

12

As she set off again, she was greeted by Moth.

Satyr Anglewing (Polygonia satyrus)

“Good evening, Robin,” said Moth.

Robin was tired, but she stopped to be polite.

“Hello, Moth. You’re up late!”

“Late? It’s early for me,” said Moth. “I’ve just woken up.”

Robin cocked her head. “Where do you sleep?”

“I sleep during the day, flat against a wall or the bark of a tree. The colour of my wings hides me and keeps me safe while I sleep. If you’re tired, you should try it.”

“Ischnura cervula -Female-1” Photo by Eugene Zelenko Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:Ischnura_cervula-Female-1.jpg#/media/ File:Ischnura_cervula-Female-1.jpg

Robin didn’t think the wall looked very comfy. “No, thank you,” she said. “I do not want to snooze on a stem, or have a nap on a wall. I want my own roost or nothing.”

So off Robin flew, when she heard her name called again.

“Good evening, Robin!” called Toad.

Robin sighed and flew down. She really wanted to go to bed now.

“Hello, Toad. What are you doing up so late?”

“Why, I’ve just got up to look for beetles to eat,” said Toad.

“I sleep in the day, in that pile of old logs over there. If you’re tired you should try it.”

But the log pile didn’t look at all snug to Robin.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I do not want to snooze on a stem, or have a nap on a wall, or sleep like a log on a log. I want my own roost or nothing.”

At last she reached the laurel hedge. She hopped deep inside to her safe cozy roost before she could meet anyone else.

She yawned a big yawn and said, “I’m glad I don’t snooze on a stem, or have a nap on a wall, or sleep like a log on a log. I love my own roost, so nighty-night everyone!”

“Western Toad - Bufo boreas” by Walter Siegmund Own work. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bufo_boreas_10568.

JPG#/media/File:Bufo_boreas_10568.JPG

Adapted from Wild Times July-August 2013 by permission of RSPB Wildlife Explorers

13

Have a Nature Question?

ASK AL

Sometimes I see hundreds of swallows swooping back and forth along the seashore.

What are they doing?

What is the difference between bird songs and bird calls?

Are they the same?

Swallows, like the Barn Swallow, are often seen along the beaches. They feed by catching insects in mid-air - that’s why they swoop.

You have probably noticed how seaweeds pile up in places along the seashore.

This attracts flies and that is what the swallows are catching.

Birds have many different sounds including trills, whistles, buzzes, chips, and beautiful songs.

Birds charm us with their wonderful songs, but to birds singing is serious business. Bird song helps birds to establish territory and attract a mate. Calls on the other hand, are used for other purposes, like the alarm calls of a robin when it discovers a near-by predator like an owl, or someone’s cat.

Learning songs and calls is a good way to identify birds. It takes practice but after a while you will become an expert.

There are Barn Swallow. Photo by Al and Jude Grass five swallows commonly seen feeding along the shore - Barn,Violetgreen, Tree, Cliff, and Rough-winged. Other BC swallows are Bank and the Purple Martin.

Did you know the best time to listen for bird song is early morning (also known as the ‘dawn chorus’)?

Swallows and seaweeds (algae) are interesting food webs - a marine connection. n. If your d me a questio n se se a le “P ill Al says ureWILD you w at N r fo n se o cil! question is ch tebook and pen o n in a -R n -i e it win a R idsbc.ca to info@naturek n io st e u q r u yo Send r Road 1620 Mount Seymou G 2R9 V7 North Vancouver, BC

14

Al Grass has worked as a career park naturalist and ranger throughout BC. Now he is a well-known nature tour leader and photographer. Al especially likes birds, insects and spiders.

Singing Song Sparrow. Photo by Al and Jude Grass

Passports to Nature Raco and Violetta (North Okanagan), Emaya, Aiden and Cora (South Okanagan), Joey (Nicomekl), Nicolas and Be Mai (Vancouver), Lina (Oceanside) and Chester (Victoria) all sent in their first passports. Rita (Victoria) and Satya (Cowichan Home Learners) sent in passports #2 and earned their caps! Hannah and Lila ( Prince George) and Syon (Cowichan Home Learners) sent in passports #3 and are going for their T-shirts with the next one. Elissa (Nicomekl) is racing along with passport #11!

Well done, everyone!

W r e I D u t a N NEWS L

Have any comments or questions?

Email Nature kids bc at info@naturekidsbc.ca

Nature kids

Oeanside - Nolan and his sister Annika sit beside their photographs at the Brant Festival exhibition in Parksville. Nolan even sold some of his work!

Photo by Elke Wind.

nature kids Cowichan Weekend and

Cowichan Home Learners - We love frogs and we are celebrating the Amphibian Project which we all took part in.

Photo by Alison Bakker.

Nature kids Victoria - “Taking Action for the Earth” and “Blue Dot Day of Action”. We cleaned up Esquimalt Lagoon beach and painted a banner to support the right a healthy environment. This will be presented to Victoria Mayor and Council.

Rupert Yakelashek (Nature kids Victoria), who was featured in the last issue of NatureWILD, made Starfish Canada’s List of ‘Top 25 Environmentalists Under 25’. Congratulations, Rupert!

Photo by Shane Yakelashek.

Nature kids Eastern Fraser Valley: The Bird Box Building Project using the TD Canada Trust Friends of the Environment Grant was a huge success. We built: • • • •

11 Tree Swallow boxes, 6 Wood Duck boxes, 4 Barn Owl boxes, and painted 4 bat boxes, with more to come.

These boxes will go to the GBHNR Wetlands, the Browne Creek Wetlands, and the Camp River Wilderness Area.

Photo by Maxim de Jong.

15

Find-A-Sparrow

Sparrows are easy to spot. Just look around some park bushes and you’ll likely see one. Find some North American sparrows in this wordsearch (the star ‘*’ means that you can find this sparrow species in BC).

AMERICAN TREE * BLACK-CHINNED BOTTERI’S CHIPPING * FIELD FIVE-STRIPED HARRIS’ * HENSLOWS FOX * GOLDENCROWNED * GRASSHOPPER * LINCOLN’S * SAGE SAVANNAH * SEASIDE SONG * VESPER * WHITE-CROWNED *

Next issue...

Maggots - yes, Maggots!

How Leaves Change in the Fall

Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: NatureKids BC, 1620 Mt. Seymour Rd North Vancouver, BC V7G 2R9

Canadian Publication Mail Sales Agreement 40038882

b! u l C e h Join t ily per year

fam hips. $25 per ol members ur cho e for yo . s in r z o a f g 5 a ear or $4 LD m es per y ureWI u t s a is N 4 r o . $20 fo scribe t Or sub ry or business r to ra etails o kidsbc.ca d e r class, lib o ture For m o to na g e n i l on sign up