FOUP Steering Committee Agenda Topics – February 2013 Meeting

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Friends of Uplands Park (FOUP) Steering Committee Agenda Topics
(February 2013 Meeting)

Items on the agenda include welcoming new FOUP Steering Committee member Ben Clinton-Baker, HSP grant to Oak Bay Parks for invasive species management at Uplands Park, Uplands Park Kiosk update, GOERT partnership, carpet burweed patrol at Cattle Point, public event at Windsor Park Pavilion April 16, 2013 (7:00pm) on the Heritage of Uplands Park, Uplands Park Spring 2013 Celebration on May 5, Spring 2013 Nature programs in Uplands Park.

If you are interested in being on the Friends of Uplands Park Steering Committee please contact Margaret Lidkea or Kathleen Matthews.

Kathleen Matthews and Margaret Lidkea
Co-chairs of FOUP
(NOTE: January 2013 meeting rescheduled to February 2013)

Christmas Bird Count in Uplands Park

David Newell recently sent FOUP this report about the Christmas Bird Count in Uplands Park.

[Note from Kathleen: Congratulations to those who participated in the Christmas Bird Count this year and special thanks to Geoffrey, Jean, David and Brigitte Newell for helping us all learn about the birds in Uplands Park. To see images of the birds listed below, do a “common name” search on E-Fauna BC Advanced Search Page, from the E-Fauna BC Electronic Atlas of Wildlife of British Columbia. )

Dear Friends of Uplands Park:
On Saturday, Dec. 15, we got a new bird for Uplands Park and another rare sighting for Victoria: a Common Redpoll high up in a Red Alder in the middle of the large Garry Oak Meadow at the west end of the park.

[Note from Kathleen: See a lovely watercolour titled Redpoll (Acanthis flammea) with Alder catkins]

With the sighting of the Franklin’s Gull along the south side of Cattle Point and Willows Beach last Nov. 25, it goes to show you that many excitingly uncommon birds may turn up on our walks! Remember that our next walk is on this next Sunday, Dec. 30 at 8:00 a.m., meeting in the large parking lot out at the end of Cattle Point.

For the 2012 Oak Bay Christmas Bird Count, which starts at Rutland Road and follows the ocean to the Chinese Cemetary in South Oak Bay, passing through Uplands Park, including Cattle Point, we had 63 species. Here are our totals:

5 Pacific Loons
3 Common Loons
7 Red-necked Grebes
2 Brandt’s Cormorants
11 Double-crested Cormorants
16 Pelagic Cormorants
2 Great Blue Herons
8 Greater White-fronted Geese
25 Canada Geese
15 American Wigeons
8 Mallards
1 Northern Pintail
5 Harlequin Ducks
76 Surf Scoters
7 Long-tailed Ducks
92 Bufflehead
2 Common Goldeneyes
26 Hooded Mergansers
20 Common Mergansers
10 Red-breasted Mergansers
3 Bald Eagles
5 California Quail
4 Black-bellied Plovers
17 Killdeer
6 Black Oystercatchers
19 Black Turnstones
7 Surfbirds
2 Dunlin
34 Mew Gulls
1 California Gull
11 Thayer’s Gulls
200 Glaucous-winged Gulls
3 Pigeon Guillemots
12 Marbled Murrelets
5 Ancient Murrelets
1 Rhinoceros Auklet
1 Eurasian Collared-Dove
18 Rock Pigeons
1 Snowy Owl
11 Anna’s Hummingbirds
2 Downy Woodpeckers
6 Northern Flickers
20 Northwestern Crows
3 Common Ravens
44 Chestnut-backed Chickadees
65 Bushtits
2 Red-breasted Nuthatches
9 Brown Creepers
8 Pacific Wrens
14 Golden-crowned Kinglets
86 American Robins
2 European Starlings
3 Yellow-rumped Warblers
8 Spotted Towhees
4 Fox Sparrows
16 Song Sparrows
8 Golden-crowned Sparrows
48 Dark-eyed Juncos
7 Purple Finches
55 House Finches
1 Common Redpoll
4 Pine Siskins
70 House Sparrows

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!.
David, Brigitte, Geoffrey and Jean Newell
________________________________________

FOUP website – 2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,600 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 11 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Happy Holidays & some FOUP News

From the Dec 16th, 2012 email sent out, by Margaret Lidkea, to Friends of Uplands Park members:

Welcome to our newest Steering Committee member, Ben Clinton-Baker. Ben is a member of the Municipal Heritage Committee and offers great expertise to our committee.

Ben will also be on the panel of our upcoming event:

Heritage of Uplands Park
7 pm April 16, 2013
Windsor Park Pavilion

Thanks to Helen Johnson and Ralph Archibald, who have retired as members of the Steering Committee, for their greatly appreciated contributions. We wish them well as they continue to be involved in the community and as members of FOUP.

We welcome new members who may be interested in being on our Steering Committee.

Thanks to the financial donation of the Rotary Club of Oak Bay, two bicycle racks are now installed at two entrances to Uplands Park.

The Kiosk Project members are having a Visionary Session on Thursday December 27 at 12:30 pm to 2 pm. If you would like to participate please phone Margaret at 250-595-8084.

The federal Habitat Stewardship Fund has finally given money to Oak Bay Parks for Restoration projects in Uplands Park. This Fund is only available because we have so many volunteers working in Uplands Park removing invasive plants. THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HAVE PARTICIPATED!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!
SEE YOU IN 2013

Margaret Lidkea and Kathleen Matthews
Co-Chairs of the Friends of Uplands Park

Stewardship of Anderson Hill’s Garry Oak Ecosystem featured in Oak Bay News

The front page article in the Dec 19th, 2012 issue of the Oak Bay News, features the work being done by the Monterey Middle School students, to remove invasive species on Anderson Hill. The article is titled Ecokeepers care for the land and can be read at http://www.oakbaynews.com/news/183987081.html. Congratualtions to MArgaret, who has been active in working with the students. The Friends if Uplands PArk has provided tools for the students and Margaret is their expert mentor and champions the work of these students. The caption under the front page photo reads:

“Monterey middle school students Quinton Wilson, left, Wyatt Geisbrecht and Jonathan Noone work mulch on Anderson Hill Park as they conduct an experiment working with the municipality’s parks department to control invasive plants. A group of approximately 21 students cleared gorse and broom in a select spot and then covered it with layers of newspaper and mulch in a technique called lasagna. The group will find out in the spring if their experiment works by keeping the unwanted plants from the sun and having the camas cover the area instead.”

Also:

“The project will continue in the spring with the help of volunteers Christina Johnson-Dean and Margaret Lidkea, as well as the district of Oak Bay, which provided the leaf mulch.”

Margaret, on behalf of the Friends of Uplands Park, has been so active in collaborating with the group of community members looking after Anderson Hill’s Garry Oak Meadows. Congratulations Margaret, and THANK YOU.