It was a hot and smoky start to our summer field season! The weather caused a few delays, but EALT staff and volunteers are still out and about on our conservation lands. Read on to learn what we’ve been up to.
Conservation Land Updates
EALT is continuing to protect ecologically important natural areas in Edmonton and area. Staff are following several leads for new conservation lands and will be headed out to assess potential properties this summer. We would like to thank the Alberta Land Trust Grant and Environment and Climate Change Canada for grants to make this work possible.
Staff have been busy getting our conservation lands ready for summer visitors. We visited Boisvert’s Greenwoods and Coates to trim back some of the more overgrown trails, and maskihkîy meskanaw - Glory Hills underwent a brief closure so that work could be done to expand the parking area. These projects will improve access to these special sites.
We hope to see you out at our conservation lands this summer. Check our advisories and visiting guidelines before you head out.
JBJ McDonald Featured on Our Edmonton
Photo by Adrienne Lamb
We were excited to have our newest conservation land, JBJ McDonald, featured on Our Edmonton. Staff paid a visit to the property with CBC’s Adrienne Lamb to film the segment. You can learn more about how this property was conserved by watching the main feature or the full episode.
The story of securing JBJ McDonald Conservation Land is part of the momentum EALT has gained to secure more land over the next 5 years. Consider donating to support land stewardship at these new conservation lands that are soon to be announced!
Volunteers
Training workshops for Conservation Land Stewards wrapped up in May. Say hello if you run into them on the trails: they complete vital stewardship work on EALT properties, including trail maintenance, invasive plant management, and monitoring fences and boundaries. Here are a few snapshots sent in by our Conservation Land Stewards.
Earlier in the season, we held volunteer events to remove barbed wire from JBJ McDonald and Pipestone Creek. Over 1 kilometer of old barbed wire was removed from these properties, making the lands safer for visitors and wildlife alike. You can read more about these events here. We would like to thank the Alberta Fish and Game Association’s Minister’s Special License Program for providing funding for this project.
As the landscape continued to green up, we shifted our focus to invasive plant management. Our volunteers lent a hand at the New Jubilee conservation easement, searching for and removing invasive barberry, buckthorn, tansy, and leafy spurge. We also visited Smith-Blackburn Homestead to weed around the native pollinator garden and capped off the day with a bioblitz.
There are still plenty of volunteer events planned for this summer! Subscribe to our newsletter to hear about upcoming events.
Citizen Science
Citizen Scientists will be headed out to EALT conservation lands to monitor amphibians, loons, and bat boxes. We are also pleased to add butterfly monitoring to the Citizen Science program! We were able to hold in-person training for butterfly monitoring at Golden Ranches. Special thanks to Dave and Hilary from the Alberta Lepidopterist’s Guild for joining us in the field and giving some tips on butterfly handling and identification.
The Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) field ornithology station is once again running at Bunchberry Meadows. Volunteers will collect data on breeding bird populations over six days this summer. On the station’s first day of the season, volunteers observed Clay-coloured Sparrows, Black-capped Chickadees, Least Flycatchers, Yellow Warblers, American Robins, and even a Cooper’s Hawk. The station will collect vital data on breeding songbirds, which will be submitted to the Institute for Bird Populations and the Canadian Bird Banding Office for future access by researchers.
We are looking forward to a busy and productive summer field season. Stay tuned for more field notes later this year!