Blogs

Although July 7th, 2010 was one of the hottest days of the year so far we had a great turn out at our third Frog Walk. It also seemed to be too hot for the mosquitoes, which was a nice relief. The walk started right on time at 6:30pm, and lasted until about 7:30.

At the first pond we were lucky to see many juvenile green frogs along the shoreline. They were all about 1-2 inches long. We heard bullfrogs as well.

We noticed a bit of garbage at the end of the trail leading out of the park on the western side of the property.

Walter Emrich, our new steward for Manawagonish Island, as sent along some photos from his recent kayak trip there. He completed the annual report, and started compiling a species list for us.

I just thought I'd post some of the great pictures he took of the birds currently nesting on the island. It's especially exciting to see these birds using our platforms. 

The Sea Dog Cove work day started at 1:00pm on June 11th. Nearly all of us (besides the stewards) had a hard time finding the preserve, mainly because the roadside sign on the Kennebecasis River side was almost entirely overgrown with small brush. Immediately one of the volunteers set to work clearing the ground in order to make this more visible.
Everyone else headed up the trail on the eastern side of the property, clearing away alders and other large brush along the way.

The first summer frog walk at Hyla Park for 2010 was a hit! Many people had either heard about our walks from Don Vail’s interview earlier in the day on CBC radio, or by seeing one of our posters around town. Because of the small group our walk was very informal, be we were lucky enough to have Jessica Orlofske along (an entomologist) and Chris Tyrrell (a botanist). They both provided much exciting and interesting information about the plants and animals we saw along the way. One boy was always very eager to find new things to ask them about.

Over the past weekend, I traveled to the Nature Trust's Cape Enrage Nature Preserve with some helpful friends in order to do some work. On Sunday, May 22nd we arrived at the Cape Enrage beach in order to begin sign installation. Until Sunday there had never been an interpretive sign at the preserve which indicated it as a conservation area under the protection of the Nature Trust.

On Thursday, May 20th Renata Woodward and I (Jessica McKeil) traveled to Saint John and Grand Bay-Westfield. We spent the day meeting and planning for our International Trail Day Event, and finished up our visit by holding a public meeting about our Boars Head Nature Preserve.

As the new stewardship coordinator, I spent last weekend working along the Caughey-Taylor trail system. Although the weather was supposed to be rather wet, it ended up being a fantastically sunny weekend. Unfortunately I missed meeting up with Wayne and Susan, the preserve stewards, due to unforeseen circumstances - but both they and myself spent a few hours exploring the newly flagged trail around the Marsh.  Besides the bugs the new trail system seemed great - but still needs quite a bit of work as some areas may be a bit too wet in the spring.

On Saturday, May 8th, the Nature Trust of New Brunswick held an event to introduce our new neighbours, community groups, and local community leaders to out Boars Head Property. We had a wonderful turn out including Trevor Holder (our local MLA), Patty Higgins (Saint John City Councilor), two Scout Leaders from the Portland United Scout Group, Anne Bardou (Manager of National Historic Sites) and many others.

On Friday, May 7th Renata and Jessica traveled to Boars Head with Ben
Woodward to lay out a trail system over the Boars Head property. It was a great
day hiking over the rocky ridges, and through the beautiful forests of this
property. The trail we laid out travels down through the land, reaches the
waterfront beach and loops around to join back up with itself. The entire trail
is about 1.5 km long and at times follows existing rough foot or game trails.