The PHFN meets on the second Tuesday of every month from September to May.......except in December when we hold our Christmas Potluck.

May 13, 2003                - Annual Meeting - election of Board of Directors

The next General Meeting of 2002-2003 will be held on Tuesday, September 9, 2003 There will be a newsletter issued just prior to this meeting. Deadlines for articles for the September newsletter will be Sunday, August 24, 2003. Email articles to Diana

HAPPY SUMMER HOLIDAYS

Another season of outings, programs, speakers, and fellowship has nearly finished for the Penokean Hills Field Naturalists and I thank each and every member and Director for their personal contribution.

I have been privileged to work with some wonderful people in helping to guide the club’s activities during the 2002 - 2003 season. At first it was very bewildering, but with the assistance of the board members in performing their many tasks so well, the club made it through some very rough spots and into calmer waters.

May sees the election of some new faces to our board and I want to wish them all the best in their endeavours to carry forward with new ideas and projects.

The Penokean Hills Field Naturalists club, PHFN for short, has some great talented and skilled members among their numbers, and I trust that this energy will be tapped and help to strengthen the fibre of the club.

I want to say a personal thank you to all of the board members and Advisors for their support and encouragement of and to me over the past season. I could not have performed my duties without your confidence.

I’m also encouraging the membership to become personally involved in as many club activities as your time will allow. Without your participation, of course, there would be no PHFN. It is an organization of volunteers willing to contribute whatever skills and knowledge they have to help other people enjoy the natural beauty around them.

Thank you again and have a wonderful summer.

Ev.

I trust everyone will have a great summer and look forward to receiving more great articles for the newsletter so keep them coming.

Diana

Woodpecker Outing Friday, March 14, 2003

by Nancy-Jo Wannan

          On Sat., March 1, I went out to do groceries and ended up on a trail behind All Nations instead. It was a beautiful day, a lovely trail and a 45 minute hike. It wasn’t what I had meant to do but it was meant to be!

          The next day Naomi called to ask me to do an outing. I said I’d get back to her when I figured out what I might do. The following Tuesday I lead a Coureurs de Bois hike up the same trail and we saw some “woodpecker trees”. The trail became more interesting because of that and the hike lasted almost 2 hours. I called Naomi and asked if a Woodpecker/Snowshoe outing would be good. We set it up for March 14 and I asked Terry Carr to help me with it.

          As coincidence would have it, the guest speaker at the PHFN meeting the following Tuesday was Dr. Kandyd Szuba. She is a Provincial Wildlife Biologist presently working for Domtar in their Forest Resource Division. Dr. Szuba spoke to us about providing habitat through forest management. Her excellent presentation was like manna from heaven for me! She spoke on the importance of cavity trees as habitat for a large % of wildlife. And, of course, a large part of her talk was on woodpeckers. I couldn’t believe my good luck!

          Three days later we were back on the same trail for our Snowshoe - Woodpecker outing...only it was not the same trail ! Thanks to Dr Szuba, Terry Carr and Jim Johnston the trail became a magical place. There was fresh snow once again and Jim was just dancing with glee at the amazing beaver workings and the many tracks we saw. Jim asked if I knew of a fire in the area and I remembered watching from Hillside Dr. North as the Lands and Forests water bombers put out that fire. Thirty years later this site has become very valuable real estate for all kinds of birds and animals in the form of cavity trees.

          Terry pointed out many examples of roost trees, trees with natural nest and den cavities, trees with escape cavities, feeding trees with evidence of Pileated, Hairy, Downy. Sapsucker and Black-backed woodpeckers activity and trees with false tinder fungus indicating potential future cavity trees. The more we saw the more exciting the area became. But it was the majestic, scorched Hemlock tree at the top of the trail that was the highlight of the outing. It was filled from top to bottom with black-backed woodpecker holes and an amazing red colour showed through the blackened bark.

I had more fun watching Terry and Jim that day... they were like kids in a candy shop! And my original nice 45 - minute walk which became an interesting 90 - minute hike ended up being a magical 3 - hour outing.

SHERRIFF CREEK TREE & WILDFLOWER LABELS

As most of you know, for a couple of years now, some of the trees in the Sherriff Creek Wildlife Sanctuary have been labelled with plastic “What tree is this?” tags. This has proved to be quite popular (that nearly came out Poplar) and so last summer, a number of plants too were marked with staked information including their common name, scientific name and a picture. Altogether, 12 different plants were labelled, some of them at two sites - for instance Blue Bead Lily (Clintonia borealis) which is spread along most of the northern section of the Red (Beaver meadow) Trail under the trees. Incidentally ,this is confusingly listed as Corn Lily in the popular Peterson Field Guide.

Both the tree tags and the plant stakes were provide by Larry and Ute Kissau from photo’s Larry had taken and with the cooperation of Terry Carr.

This year the scheme will be widened as another and different batch of plant signs has been made by the dynamic Kissau duo. This year we will be able to pick from 24 new plant signs and this time the pictures will be from photo’s taken in the Sanctuary last summer and fall.

Not all of the stakes will be placed at one time - we don’t want the place looking like Main Street - and I will need help in plant identification etc. so if anyone would like to assist in this project please contact me. Dave Young. 848-9590.

Then let us welcome pleasant spring,

And still the flowery tribute bring,

And still to thee our carol sing,

O, lovely May

SNOW GOOSE

Latin: Chen Caerulescens - Size: 25 - 38 in. (63 - 95 cm)

A white goose with black primaries; often rust-stained on the head; beak deep pink with black serrated edges giving appearance of a grin; legs purplish red; feet pink.

Immature:       similar but with a wash of light blue-grey over the back and wings. Dark bill.

Range:            North America tundra and north-eastern Asia. Breeds in the Arctic from Baffin Island west to Alaska. Winters in southern states from California to Florida.

Nesting:          On the ground on the tundra. Nest similar to that of other geese. 4-7 eggs, creamy white.

Remarks:        There is no more beautiful sight in nature than the thousands of snow geese strung out in skeins against the spring and fall skies. Nor could the changing seasons be more fittingly heralded than by the wild high-pitched gobble of the migrating flocks.

Food:  During the summer, snow geese gorge on the grasses and lichens of the tundra. When they migrate south in the fall, one sees a white mass in the farmers fields and on lakes in Western Canada.

I had the good fortune late last September to witness masses of these birds on a man-made lake in a provincial park east of Edmonton, Alberta. The surrounding area has numerous grain fields for them to feed in.

Submitted by Naomi Maggs

UP FROM THE EGG:

THE CONFESSIONS OF A NUTHATCH AVOIDER

By Ogden Nash

Bird watchers top my honors list

I aimed to be one, but I missed.

Since I’m both myopic and astigmatic,

My aim turned out to be erratic,

And I, bespectacled and binocular

Exposed myself to comment jocular.

We don’t need too much bird lore, do we,

To tell a flamingo from a towhee;

Yet I cannot, and never will,

Unless the silly birds stand still.

And there’s no enlightenment in a tour

Of ornithological literature.

Is yon strange creature a common chickadee,

Or a migrant aloulette from Picardy?

You can rush to consult your Nature guide

An inspect the gallery inside,

But a bird in the open never looks

Like its picture in the birdie books-

Or if it once did, it has changed its plumage,

And plunges you back into ignorant gloomage.

That is why I sit here growing old by inches,

Watching a clock instead of finches,

But I sometimes visualize in my gin

The Audubon that I audubin.

Submitted in a previous Newsletter by Terry Carr

But we think it was worth repeating.

Diana MacGowan and Naomi Maggs