Burns Blog

New Blog Location

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:42:00 +0000

Our blog is now located at our main website, www.burnsbog.org! All of our content, old and new, can be found there.

Going Bats

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 22:59:00 +0000

At this time of year, the Big Bog has that end-of-year feeling. The dark-eyed juncos are back for the winter, and tick, tick, ticking in the trees. Recently, I've heard and seen a pair of Belted Kingfishers at the Planet Ice end of Davies Creek. Not too far along the creek, a Pileated Woodpecker has been feeding up for the winter. These beautiful birds eat ants and all kinds of bugs, but they also eat berries and nuts. Birds in general have a body temperature that is a couple of degrees warmer than that of mammals, so it's a good strategy to have a varied diet. Maintaining a warm-blooded system uses a lot of calories.

The only truly flying mammals are bats, of which there are 16 species in BC. I've never seen any in or around the bog, but I'd be surprised if there weren't any there. One reason they are 'invisible' is that they are mostly active at dusk and at dawn, some species are fully nocturnal and some are both nocturnal and crepuscular. I am not out in the bog at these times. However, if there were a significant colony near the more frequently walked parts of the DNR, I would expect to see droppings, which I haven't so far.

Right now, bats, like all other creatures, including humans, are preparing for winter. Flying, like keeping blood warm, uses a lot of calories. Bats eat insects and other arthropods, and my goodness are they efficient at catching them - they have to be, I have no idea how many calories there are in the average insect, but it's certainly not like eating the fat and sugar laden foods that some of us two-legged mammals eat.
The bug supply dwindles in the winter months, so some species of bats, just like birds, migrate south to warmer, more food-rich climes, others stay and hibernate.

Winter can drive some of us bats, for others, it's the best time of year, but we all have different ways of over-wintering. I just consider myself lucky we humans don't have to hang upside down in some dark cave somewhere.
Or are we?

Peatland Loss in the Tar Sands

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 23:24:00 +0000

Right now, our friends across the pond in the European Union are considering what wetland drainage and rewetting means to climate change policy. It's a very complex question: you and I know that petlands are enormously important as a carbon sink, but how do you account for that? What kind of research is required, and how can this new information be used to create better land use policies?

It's a question our government has entirely ignored. Right now in Alberta, tar sands mining projects are tearing up over 30 000 hectares of wetlands. That's 15 Burns Bogs that are being excavated and destroyed at this very moment. What's worse, and even more inexcusable, is that the industry isn't going to even attempt to replace these ruined ecosystems; instead it will be mostly turned into upland forest, reducing the total peatlands in the Athabasca region by 2/3!

Imagine if we strip mined the entire Fraser Delta River Ramsar Site, replaced 2/3 of it with golf courses, and called it a day. That wouldn't qualify as "peatland restoration" and it shouldn't. This is an enormous loss of natural capital, billions of dollars of carbon sequestration potential that we are losing forever.

If Canada implemented greenhouse gas accounting, companies and governments would have to consider the contributions of peatlands. Right now they can simply choose to ignore them, which lets the industry pretend it's greener than it really is. If tar sands companies were held to account for the real cost of their projects, they'd have to invest tens of billions of dollars in actually restoring the environment. Instead we let them dig up peat in one area, bury it in another, and call that restoration.

That's not restoration, that's rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Humans as Ants

noreply@blogger.com (Bogstronaut) — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 18:12:00 +0000

The basic patterns we see in nature are foundational, and repeat throughout the universe. From the atomic to the galactic, these patterns repeat themselves, over and over. The chaos of ordinary living organizes itself into these patterns again and again, into infinity.


Tasty broccoli or Fibonacci sequence? Both, actually!

This is an essential feature of the universe we find ourselves in. It's part of the fabric of reality which enables our very existence. We are ourselves enormously complex, chaotic, yet seemingly miraculously ordered communities of cells, bacteria, and systems, that work together so well we appear as individuals.

Which is why we should pay so close attention to the little details in nature, as they can often tell us something about our own lives. Every time I'm out in the bog, I learn a little more: about myself, about others, and about the world. I see something new, and my perspective broadens.

As a part of a community of billions of people, it's hard not to feel like an ant. While we do sometimes think of ourselves as rugged individuals, out to change the world, I tend to fall back to feeling like an ant in the colony. While a select few seem to be in charge and definitely like to try and tell us how we ought to live, the vast majority of us are more than happy to simply be a part of society.

We take our cues as to how to behave from our family and friends. And we learn, well enough to get along with each other, for the most part. Ants are similar, and most of the time, they work together as one to survive, succeed, and raise a new generation.

But not always. Sometimes, ants make mistakes. They follow the wrong cues, they get lost, and they don't know how badly they've gone astray. They never figure it out, either. They just keep on going in the wrong direction until they're all dead. The result is this: the Ant Death Spiral.

I hope humans aren't quite that similar. But sometimes I wonder.

Well, that's just peaty!

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:01:00 +0000

As you all know, the Burns Bog Conservation Society is committed to educating everyone about the importance of peatlands. It seems that in Britain right now, they need someone to do a bit of peatlands education.

The Conservative government in Great Britain - technically Conservative-Liberal coalition, has responded to environmental concerns like those raised at last year's Durban Conference on Climate Change, by committing to eliminating peat from all commercially available gardening products. They have a phased plan, no more peat will be used :-

in public parks and gardens throughout Britain by 2015
in the gardens of people's homes by 2020
in all commercial plant growing by 2030

Opposition has been fierce, but then opposition to the opposition has been even fiercer.

Gardener and broadcaster Bob Flowerdew said that he would defy the government and carry on using peat. He then received so much mail chastising him for this stance, that he feels as though he has become an outcast, as well he might and in fact should be.

Mr. Flowerdew points out that Britain will lose out to growers in the Netherlands and Italy, who have no such peat ban.

My first comment is that the 'rights' of gardeners to carry on using peat when the importance of peat to human and planetary health is of overwhelming importance, are spectacularly irrelevant.

Secondly, Britain is sometimes the first amongst its European partners to take a step that others then follow. Take for example the changed laws on veal production. These came into force in 1997 in Britain, at the beginning of Tony Blair's new Labour government, but the majority of work on this had been done under the outgoing Tory rule. My point here is that these progressive measures sometimes happen irrespective of the political party in power.

Another example was the Equal Pay Act of 1970, which came into force under a Tory government, but was put in place and legislated by the outgoing Labour one.

Both of these progressive pieces of legislation that concern rights and freedoms, were later adopted by most of Europe and in the case of the Equal Pay Act, also by North America.

Let me re-state what you and I know only too well. Peat is vital to the health of the planet. It sequesters carbon, thus reducing the effect of allowing it into the atmosphere in the form of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Peat is laid down slowly, at a rate of approximately a centimetre per year, so the concept of 'harvesting' is ridiculous. What is taken doesn't grow back before the next cycle. It is simply ripped out, or as environmentalists more accurately describe the process, 'mined'.

Britain has demonstrated the political will to save peatlands, and they have a road map, but what they need now is what the Burns Bog Conservation Society does day in, day out - someone who will shout loudly and clearly about why this is so important.

Now if only we had a branch there!

Butterflies in the Bog

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 19:22:00 +0000

Photo Credit: Lynette Schimming

First of all, thanks to everyone who has written this week in congratulations and thanks for the new Ramsar designation. I think we can all agree that it's a huge step forward for everyone: in Delta, in British Columbia, in Canada, and in the world. And it wouldn't have happened without a lot of people, in and out of government, working together to achieve this goal. Finally, the world recognizes what David Bellamy knew 17 years ago - Burns Bog is of international importance!

One of the people that wrote to us was noted biologist Crispin Guppy, who drew our attention to the remarkable butterflies that reside in Burns Bog. According to Crispin, "the Mariposa Coppers (lycaena mariposa (= epidemia mariposa) in Burns Bog have a unique wing pattern compared to the rest of BC." This something I've never had the opportunity to notice, but I will certainly look out for it on the next Bog tour! "The differences can be summarized as the undersides of the wings being much paler and more lightly marked than other BC populations." Whether or not the difference is unique to Burns Bog is still unknown; butterflies, despite their beauty, don't draw a lot of attention in British Columbia.

Guppy was one of the first scientists to bring up the conservation issues facing butterflies in BC, in a 1994 report to the Committee on the Status of Wildlife in Canada. According to environmental scientists, several butterfly species in south Vancouver Island are currently at risk, due to the overuse of the pesticide "BTk" (bacillius thuringiensis kurstaki) to kill gypsy moths. This pesticide indiscriminately kills any and all butterfly and moth pupae. And unfortunately, the Species at Risk Act offers little protection for endangered butterflies; according to UBC, they are protected only within parkland. That means that the unique butterflies of British Columbia are, for the most part, on their own.

Klinkenberg, Brian. (Editor) 2012. E-Fauna BC: Electronic Atlas of the Fauna of British Columbia [www.efauna.bc.ca]. Lab for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. [September 27, 2012]

Arctic Melt and Ramsar

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 18:55:00 +0000

At the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder Colorado, warning bells have been going off.

This year's figures have shown a record 18% decrease in Arctic ice compared with 2007. The knock-on effect for the northern hemisphere is huge.

Julienne Stroece, an ice research scientist with the centre said,

"We can expect more summers like 2012 as the ice cover continues to thin. The loss of summer sea ice has led to unusual warming of the Arctic atmosphere, that in turn impacts weather patterns in the northern hemisphere, that can result in persistent extreme weather such as droughts, heatwaves and flooding,"

Other scientists in the field are predicting that within four years, Arctic ice will have disappeared. Human activity at sea is worsening the situation and we can no longer carry on ignoring the extent and speed of climate change. Sea ice plays a pivotal role in this, reflecting some of the sun's energy and helping to keep the earth's climate cool enough for life - ours and the plants and animals we share our planet with.

Faced with this worrying trend, author and environmentalist Bill McKibben says,

"Our response has not been alarm, or panic, or a sense of emergency. It has been: 'Let's go up there and drill for oil'. There is no more perfect indictment of our failure to get to grips with the greatest problem we've ever faced."

Exactly.

In more exciting news, Burns Bog has been given Ramsar designation as part of the newly renamed 'Fraser River Delta' site.

This from Ramsar's own site

"The government of Canada has vastly extended the Alaksen Ramsar Site, first designated in 1982, from 586 hectares to 20,682. The resulting Ramsar Site, now renamed "Fraser River Delta", is formed by six components (Burns Bog, Sturgeon Bank, South Arm Marshes, Boundary Bay, Serpentine, and the former 'Alaksen' Ramsar Site), all in the Metro Vancouver Region and part of the the most important river delta/estuary for fish and birds on the west coast of Canada."

This is something the Burns Bog Conservation Society has been hoping for for a long time. This gives international status to the conservation of the bog.

Ozone - Let me Count the Cost Saved

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:17:00 +0000

Sunday, 16th September, was International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer. I did my best to preserve it all day. Well, in all honesty as we all do every day without thinking about it.

So how does it come about that we preserve the ozone layer without thinking and how does it come about there is a day for it?

25 years ago, the Montreal Protocol was signed, and unlike many protocols since then, it has been successful and successful in a measurable way.
And success has been twofold.

Firstly, the ozone layer itself should have recovered from our wanton destruction by 2065 or shortly after. In human terms, this has saved millions of lives globally. But not everyone thinks in terms of human lives, or even globally.

In Canada, we are lucky enough, and caring enough, to have a nationally funded health care system. So it would be possible to put an actual dollar value on how much the nation's health care system has saved over 25 years, because of compliance with the Montreal Protocol.

Secondly, the chemicals which were banned in the protocol, because they destroy the ozone layer, are also greenhouse gases. So this has had a huge impact on climate change.

So my question is this....why can't we have a new protocol or treaty, that draws on the successes of Montreal, that protects peatlands?

Durwood Zaelke, who is president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, says that Montreal was successful because everyone was on board because they consider it fair.

“They consider it fair because it fully implements the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility,’ by providing that the developed countries that first used CFCs start their phase outs first, followed by a grace period of ten years, before the developing countries have to start.” said Zaelke.

“These boots on the ground have made a tremendous contribution to the treaty’s success,” he said.

So why is there so much resistance to changes now? Why, 25 years on, when we are far more aware of impending environmental disaster and the extent of it, do countries lack the political will to pull together?

Durwood Zaelke comments on the next phase in saving the ozone layer, which would yet again, have a real impact on climate change. 108 countries are supporting this measure, but two giants, China and India are not.

He says, “The reluctance of these two countries is blocking the world’s single biggest and fastest bite out of the climate problem."

I don't know what the answer is. I don't know why nations would block measures that will stop the collapse of ecosystems and ultimately our planet.
But if those nations need dollar value, then that could be expressed fairly simply too.

We know that Burns Bog, for example, stops flooding and filters air and water. Both of these have an impact on human health and both of these functions would have to be replaced somehow at a cost.
The health system would similarly be over-stretched dealing with respiratory and other conditions that would result from the bog's disappearance. Burns Bog saves the Province's taxpayers money. So how much do all our natural resources save us? More than we can possibly imagine.

We humans have a lot to answer for.
And a lot to pay for.

Spectacular September

noreply@blogger.com (Bogstronaut) — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 22:58:00 +0000

A dozen of us struck out Saturday morning for the Last Days of Summer tour, and the sun was certainly smiling down on us. Led by our Education Coordinator, Janis Hindman, we journeyed through the Delta Nature Reserve, across the boardwalks lovingly built by Society volunteers. Several of us were bog newbies, including myself, and were grateful for Janis' crash course on methods of identifying the useful, medicinal and edible native species to be found all around us.

Surrounded by salal and and labrador tea, and of course with the spaghnum underfoot, this was a great opportunity to work on our tans while appreciating the natural beauty of Burns Bog. We shared foraging techniques, learned for poisonous plants to look out for, and wondered what it would take to make skunk cabbage edible. (Apparently, the answer is: a lot of work. I think I'll pass on that one.)

While we tried to focus on an ecological investigation of our surroundings, the bustle of nearby Highway 91 did occasionally distract. An excellent question posed by one of the tourgoers was: when (and why) was Highway 91 built? This one completely stumped me, but I am admittedly a little young to remember that the highway was built just in time for Expo '86. (Now my historical curiosity is piqued; perhaps there will be more to come on this.) So my mind occasionally wandered, I confess... but the memorial benches which line the boardwalks helped to ground us, and reminded me to give thanks to the day.

Wandering through the groves of cedar and hemlock, we were often greeted by passerby; it was a bustling Saturday, with many dog walkers and cyclists also taking tours of their own. I'm sure many were wondering what our large entourage was up to; though we did field many questions, about the possible presence of beavers or bears. None were spotted this go around, but you never know about next time.

Hopefully the Autumn tour in October is equally well-attended, and in equally glorious weather! If you're interested in joining us and learning what Burns Bog is all about, we'd be glad to see you at 10am on October 20th. Please get in touch with us at info@burnsbog.org if you're thinking of attending; the tour is only $5, and all proceeds go to supporting the work of the Burns Bog Conservation Society.

Looking Back at the Summer

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 17:34:00 +0000

August went quickly. It was a month of day camps in the bog. What a superb team we had running them. I couldn't believe how amazing the counsellors were and the volunteers were fantastic too! The camps covered a number of different themes, but the children had fun and they learnt so much about the bog, and just enjoyed being in there.

But the summer also held some disappointments. Several times we had to pull benches out of the bog, it seems that there are people who just don't respect other people or the bog itself. This is such a shame. The trails are quite long and many people, young and old, need to rest before carrying on. And it's not that easy to pull a bench out of peat.
Another disappointment was when one of the day camp counsellors' bike was stolen. This seemed so targeted. The criminal had used a city garbage can to climb over the fence into the locked enclosure. He or she had taken one of three bikes and had left most of the counsellor's belongings in a pile.

But despite this, the bog itself never failed to thrill. In a little 'appendix' of Davies Creek, frogs would sit and sun themselves, waiting for bugs to fly close enough to catch. I once saw a Red-sided Garter Snake swimming around and around in this little spot, most likely looking for fattened-up frogs to devour.
Beavers had built a dam across the creek, and it remained there, changing slightly as sticks were added or floated away. The water level went up, but mostly down as August progressed with very little rain.

Birds became quieter as their chicks were fledged and the breeding cycle took a breather.
Sundew appeared along the boardwalk - I was pleased to see this, I feared it may have been trampled out of existence.

And the sphagnum slowly became drier.

And Wally's team of volunteers quietly kept on repairing the boardwalk so that everything that we take for granted in the bog can carry on as usual.

International Bog Day - around the World!

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 18:28:00 +0000

Perhaps we should have an International Blog Day. Hmm...

The Burns Bog Conservation Society celebrates International Bog Day with a festival, tours, entertainment and booths. But the day starts with the now well-supported 'Jog for the Bog'.

Celebrating this important day gives us a global link. It's encouraging to think that around the world, bogs, and the organisations that support them, are all working to help people understand the significance of bogs and what they mean to the health of people and the planet.

On 29th July 2012 :-

The Irish Peatland Conservation Council is celebrating 30 years since it was established. It has a birthday party at the Allen Nature Centre at Lullymore, County Kildare.

In Scotland, where International Bog Day started in 1989, the Forsinard Flows RSPB Nature Reserve has guided walks and activities.

In Wales, Fenn's, Whixall & Bettisfield Mosses National Nature Reserve near Wrexham and Whitchurch - a European Special Area of Conservation - is hosting walks.

Volo Bog State Natural Area in Illinois was the first to bring IBD to the USA in 2008, and this year they have a great slate of things to do.

So, great stuff around the world this weekend. This summer, everyone really needs to sit up and take notice of bogs, just as they are sitting up and taking notice of the extreme weather conditions.

Based on research done in Canada, the IPCC are recommending five steps to restoring bogs. We humans have spent many years using them as a resource without thinking about whether they were renewable or not - or even whether it mattered. Now it's time to take responsibility for our actions.

Snakes

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:01:00 +0000

Even before the recent weather change, we were starting to see snakes in the bog. We have two types of garter snakes, the Northwestern and the Red-sided, or Common Garter Snake.

Like all reptiles, they cannot regulate their body temperatures internally, so are reliant on the outside temperature. When the weather is cold, they have to find somewhere warmer to brumate - the reptile equivalent of mammals' hibernation.

In this part of BC, there are no venomous snakes like the rattlesnakes we find in the interior. Rattlers tend to be quite shy and don't actually stalk people, they use their fangs only when faced with danger or food, and even the most optimistic snake doesn't see a human as potential supper.

So do non-poisonous snakes have teeth? Yes they do. Their teeth are like the rough part of velcro, and they point backwards in the snake's mouth, so that as their prey wriggles, it gets more stuck. Tricky huh?

Then there is the snake's mouth. Next time the dentist asks you to open wide, just think how much easier her or his job would be if you could unhinge your top and bottom jaw as a snake can. All of which means that a snake really can eat something bigger than its head.

If a garter snake feels threatened, all it can do is make a really awful smell, a combination of snake poop and musk. And believe you me, speaking as someone who has been pooped on by snakes in the course of doing their job - it is really, truly stinky!

People often asked me how it's possible to tell the sex of a snake. My answer is - definitively - very difficult, the genitals are very well-hidden, but as a general rule, the Red-sided Garter Snake is bigger than the Northwestern and the females are larger than the males. So, if you see a snake that looks quite thick and about a metre in length, that's a pretty good indicator that you are seeing a female Red-Sided.

Another question I get asked sometimes is, is it possible we could get poisonous snakes if the climate changes? Of course it's possible, but current climate change projections do not necessarily show this part of the Lower Mainland getting hotter and drier, so the answer to that one is, we'd have to wait and see.

Picture from http://snakesnmoresnakes.blogspot.ca/2008/10/photo-of-normal-red-sided-garter-snake.html

Bog Day is Coming

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 18:51:00 +0000

International Bog Day and Jog for the Bog are both on the same day this year - 29th July, and this day is the Burns Bog Conservation Society's BIG EVENT.
And very exciting it is too.
It's fantastic to watch the planning and organisation of the event, or should I say, events. It's going to be better than Christmas and Hallowe'en. No, I mean it, it will.

On the great day, registration for the Jog is at 8am, so Bog HQ will be there virtually at day break. The runners will be wearing T-shirts specially designed for us by BC artist Rogest.
After the jog, there'll be a very welcome pancake breakfast, free for volunteers and joggers and by donation to anyone else, Tim Horton's will be there, giving out coffee and Timbits.
When everyone's contentedly full of pancakes, there will be the awards and speeches, always better on a full tum!

At a quarter to eleven, the performances will start, and we have some great artists lined up and helping to save the bog. Keep an eye on our Facebook pages for details, so far we've talked about Dennis Lakusta, and duo Sami Rae and Travis Husband, more to come, just watch that space :)

Every half hour throughout the afternoon, there will be tours of the bog, the usual $5 per person to support our educational programs and bog-saving activities. There are also exhibitors' stalls and booths and there will be prizes!

At the end of the day, the festivities will be rounded off with a mystery act. This is NOT to be missed.

So let's all get together to celebrate the bog, even more important this year when we're working together with all of you to save it in the face of new challenges.

We're so looking forward to International Bog Day and Jog for the Bog. 29th July. Mark it on your calendars, we hope to see you all there!

Bunnies in the Bog

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 23:17:00 +0000

When I do the school field trip tours, I always ask the children what type of mammal might use the Salal and Labrador Tea understory for shelter. As a general rule, someone will say 'bunnies'. I will then hang that one on an imaginary hook and come back to it.

Here's the thing.

Along Davies Creek, there have been sightings of Horseshoe Hares and at times during the past, there have been reports of Eastern Cottontails in the bog. This is not a species native to BC and so is quite rare on this side of the Rockies.
And there is no doubt that from time to time, household bunnies are 're-gifted' to the bog. Domestic bunnies are not well-adapted to life in the bog. Just as the wild 'Leporidae' (Rabbits and Hares), they are food for raptors such as hawks and owls and for carnivorous mammals such as coyotes and foxes.
The wild species are able to breed and keep their populations up, but a poor bewildered household pet, abandoned in the Delta Nature Reserve, will not last for very long.

So do bunnies use the understory for shelter? They can run - or hop - but they cannot hide - at least for very long.

In Praise of Salmonberries

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Thu, 31 May 2012 22:36:00 +0000

The Salmonberry bushes at the edge of the DNR are already bearing fruit. These are the first to flower at the end of the winter, and the first to produce berries in the spring. If, like the First Nations coming to the bog to collect plants and berries in the days before refrigeration and supermarkets, you had spent the winter living on dried and smoked food, you might be very pleased to see these red and orange jewels nestling in the fresh green foliage. Even the young green shoots were eaten like salad.

There are different reasons given for the Salmonberry's name. Some say that it is because of the colour of the berries. They certainly do vary from red to salmon-coloured to orange. Another is that they were often eaten with salmon or salmon roe.

The berries appear when the Swainson's Thrush can be heard, and so the Swainson's Thrush is often called the Salmonberry Bird.

But the berries are good to eat. If you don't find sweet enough fruit on one bush, go to the next. They can vary in flavour, but are well worth the trouble.

Sundew in the Big Bog

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Sat, 12 May 2012 22:47:00 +0000

This morning, we had the opportunity to make a small, but totally legal incursion into the bigger bog, to the west of Highway 91.

It was amazing to see the amount of sundew. I have been waiting patiently for some sign of it in the Delta Nature Reserve, but so far without luck.
The other thing that astonished me on the western side, was some Labrador Tea coming into flower. Both the DNR and the western part have a lot of Bog Laurel in flower, but Lab Tea normally flowers later.

The pink Bog Laurel flowers behave like a parabola, opening towards the sun. The ten stamens guide the insect in and then spring up and dust the insect with precious pollen.

The sticky 'dew' on the sundew plant, draws insects towards the plants and then traps them before digesting them.

Blueberry Beret

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:38:00 +0000

When I do the bog tours, I have been known to extol the virtues of poop, or, more accurately, the importance of poop. Poop brings nutrients and bogs don't love nutrients, but nutrients do have an impact on bogs.

Poop, delivered from the air, also brings unwanted seeds into the bog. Right now, I am starting to see the native bog blueberry coming into leaf.
Of course, the picture here is one from the central bog and much later in the year - when I do the tours, I rarely have time to take photos.

But the really problematic blueberries are the ones that are delivered aerially, and they have been in leaf and even flower, for a few weeks now. These are the domestic blueberries, brought in by birds from neighbouring blueberry farms. They are spectacular plants, exquisite all year round. In the winter their often red stems are beautiful to look at, when they come into bud in the spring, they are a lovely sign of spring, then their tiny flowers bring in honeybees to buzz pollinate them, followed later by the amazing and delicious fruit and then just as it seems they have no more to give, suddenly they dazzle us with their fall red.

For all their beauty and bounty however, they are tough to remove and they hasten the drying out of the bog. We are lucky that even in the area of the Delta Nature Reserve that is succeeding to forest, they have not yet taken hold.
There are many domestic varieties, and even some of the apparently low-growing ones are not our native bog blueberries. You need to look out for the roundish, more blue-green leaves amongst the moss and cranberries.
And they are there, hidden treasure.

Perilous Times

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:54:00 +0000

The integrity of the bog is keeping us thinking at the moment.

The 2004 Conservation Covenant applies to the parts of Burns Bog owned by the various levels of government. The owners of a parcel of land that was not covered by the covenant, but which are part of Burns Bog, have applied to have the land re-zoned. If this happens, development could follow.

The owners are presently in consultation over their re-zoning application, and the Burns Bog Conservation Society is part of that consultation.

But the bog is the bog. It's a whole - I see it as one organism, are we not all complex ecosystems? And I fear for its safety if we gnaw at its sides. How much of it can we lose, before the tipping point comes and it starts, not just to dry out, but to die?

The ecosystem review has now been uploaded to our website, so you can look at it and send us your thoughts. There are maps of the peat layers and information about all aspects of the health of the bog. The parcels of land in question are to the east and the west of Highway 91.

Slug Love

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:42:00 +0000

Slugs are one of nature's recyclers, so we find them not in the bog proper, but on the forest floor of the DNR. They are an important part of the ecosystem. The type of slug most associated with the Pacific Northwest Forest, and a native to these parts, is the Banana Slug. This mollusc can grow up to a whopping 30 centimetres in length. They are the second largest land slugs.

Not every banana-coloured slug in the forest is a Banana Slug. The colour of European slugs varies hugely and can be close to that of the native forest-dwellers.
One of the ways to sort out the Banana Slugs from the Euro-invaders, is that the home team are smooth, whereas the European ones have a smooth mantle, but a ridged back or keel. They often have a an orange stripe around the edge of their single, muscular foot.

Slugs and snails most certainly differ from puppy dogs' tails, but not very much from each other. A slug is a snail whose shell has evolved to become a leathery mantle. But this means they have lost the protection of the shell. No matter, they have their slime. It helps to stop dehydration, protects their soft body parts from rough surfaces and allows them to make themselves into an unpleasant tasting ball. It also plays a part in the mating ritual.

Slugs don't have those girl-boy issues, they are hermaphrodites, so they all have both sets of sex organs. A lot of people know this, but then sometimes think this means they don't need to encounter another slug to reproduce. Oh they do. In fact both slugs taste each other's slime.If both approve, they both display their male organs, which they insert into the other's female organs. And they really need to be sure about each other. If one slug is significantly bigger than the other, then their male organ may not fit, it may come unstuck and have to be gnawed off by the other. Slug sex is not for the faint-hearted!

They both go away and in the fullness of slug-time, will lay their batches of translucent eggs in some damp, sheltered place, often beneath logs or in holes in the ground. Slugs have no parenting skills, they make their getaway on their one slimy foot, leaving the eggs to hatch and the sluglings to the mercy of frogs, snakes, birds, skunks and whatever doesn't mind the taste.

Picture of banana slug from http://www.birdsamore.com/critters/slugs.htm

Being Water Aware on World Water Day

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:27:00 +0000

Today is World Water Day and I am reminded how much I take water for granted.

At the turn of a tap I can drink it, wash in it, wash my clothes in it, water my plants with it. Like most people who try to do their bit for the environment, I'm careful. I don't leave the tap running, and I don't wash my car too often - well, alright, there are probably less ethical reasons why I don't do that, but what I'm saying is - I may take it for granted, but I am water aware.

And we need to be. In BC, it's easy to think that there is plenty of water, it falls from the sky all the time, we are surrounded by rivers, streams, creeks, and the ocean. But the fact is, we are drying out our streams and rivers. We are using more water than we have, and this affects, sometimes catastrophically, the ecosystems - the habitats of our co-dwellers on this fragile Earth home of ours.
And let's face it, for some of us, some of those co-dwellers are our food.

For a discussion of how lucky we are in relation to other human inhabitants of our planet, here's the U.N.'s World Water Day website.

A Diet of Worms

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 22:57:00 +0000

Who really thinks of worms as a sign of spring - earthworms that is? It certainly seems like an unlikely point to make about the bog. You won't find worms in peat, but give them some lovely leaf litter or humus, and they'll be there, taking it into their crops, grinding it up and pooping it out as soil.
Too much poopy detail?
I guess.
But, spring is wet, the ground is wet, and when there is so much water it's sitting on top of the ground and flooding paths - then you will see worms in unlikely places. Suddenly they are all over the side-walk paving, the asphalt of the parking lot and even on the roads.
You will see them on the edge of the Delta Nature Reserve by the creek, and very timely too. Because worms don't just recycle dead stuff for us, giving us new and aerated soil to grow things in, but they are also food. Birds, small mammals and herptiles, emerging from their winter states and readying themselves for producing young, are happy to find this feast all laid out for them.
Earthworms - part of Spring's rich tapestry.

Bumbling Towards Spring

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:37:00 +0000

We were recently sent an article about Canada importing honey bees from New Zealand, to pollinate our blueberries.
Personally, I love honey, and I love blueberries, so aside from the question of why our own bee colonies aren't thriving, and the stress to the bees of being transported, (both of which, to be fair, are fairly big considerations), it all seems good to me.

But yesterday I was talking about the signs of spring that we are seeing despite the weather. A bog has limited flowering plants, but there would be some. Labrador Tea, Bog Rosemary and Bog Laurel are all flowering plants that are adapted to the harsh conditions of the bog. Salmonberry is also found on the margins. Both Salmonberry and Bog Laurel flower early, and in the case of Salmonberry, too early to be pollinated by the non-native European Honeybee which cannot tolerate the lower temperatures outside of the hive.
The white pom-poms of Labrador Tea however, can be seen covered in honeybees in late spring.
So who pollinates the early bloomers?

As I mentioned yesterday, the Rufous Hummingbirds return around the same time that the Salmonberry flowers. Annas' Hummingbirds now can be seen to overwinter here. Hummingbirds prefer flowers in the red range of colour, and are often found at the Salmonberry.

Bees, on the other hand, see yellows, whites and oranges. They can see blues and ultra-violet, but red is a problem for them, since they can't distinguish it from the green leaves in the background.
Blueberries have a white flower, so do Salal, and of course, Labrador Tea.
Early yellow bloomers will be visited by our native and under-appreciated Bumble Bee. These are tolerant of a far wider temperature range. They make a limited amount of honey and live in tiny colonies in comparison to the Honeybee. But there they are , buzzing around the Dandelions and Forsythia in gardens and on lawns.

We have a lot of native bees and other pollinators. So, whilst it's good to look to the Honeybee as an indicator of environmental health and threats, it's not all doom and gloom.
Let's hear it for the Humble Bumble - proudly Canadian!

Snow, What Snow ?

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 21:43:00 +0000

Looking out of the front door at Bog HQ, I can see sleet. Yesterday we had full-on snow that came, stuck, stopped, started, stopped, started, and then went away again and out came the sun.
I'm a fan of snow, as long as I don't have to drive in it, so for me it was exciting. But we're almost at the vernal equinox, (20th March) so what of those signs of spring?

The vernal changes are not just triggered by temperature, the lengthening of the days plays a huge part. The Skunk Cabbage is appearing, and the Salmonberry is starting to bloom - right on schedule - we look for it to be out around St. Patrick's day.

And there is plenty of spring bird-noise and activity in the bog. Now is the time when birds are nesting or preparing to nest and for some, there is a change of guard. We're used to seeing American Robins and probably don't think of them as seasonal visitors, but they don't stay around the whole time. At the moment we have the darker, more brightly coloured variety, later, we'll see another wave, some slightly lighter-coloured robins. We notice them on the ground, pulling up worms and pecking around for seeds and invertebrates, and we also see them on the top of evergreens, only recognisable by the almost crescent shape of their back.

The other group of birds we are waiting for are the Rufous Hummingbirds. More often than not, they appear around the same time as the first Salmonberry flowers, but I would expect them to be at least a week late this year, given the cold snap.
This would be a great time to hang up those hummingbird feeders, so that as soon as the first of them blow in - hummingbirds don't travel as a flock - they can find sugar to replenish the energy expended over their long flight.

Photo of American Robin, Turdus Migratorius, courtesy of Marlene Graham.

Sheep to Eagle, Three Degrees of Separation

noreply@blogger.com (Bog Lynn) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:08:00 +0000

I can do it. Three degrees of separation from sheep to eagle.
Here goes.
I was thinking about Imbolc, today, Celtic festival, healing, fire of creativity, renewal. The name of the festival comes from words that are to do with sheep's milk.
So, sheep.
Because I was thinking about Imbolc, I looked up what the tree associated with this lunar month is in Celtic lore. 21st January - 17th February - the Rowan. I knew that, Rowan, Mountain Ash, which is deciduous, so is bare at this time of year.
I love the bare deciduous trees in the winter, and so do the eagles, they sit right at the top, watching us.
Well, probably not actually watching us, but it feels like their eyes are following us. We're not their prey, so they must just wonder about us. I think.
Still, Imbolc = sheep -> trees->eagles.
Random?
Probably.

Gaming Grant News Release

noreply@blogger.com (Eagle's Eyes) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 21:38:00 +0000

This is a news release from Eliza Olson, who was described in a post on this very blog just last week. Eliza is the President and Volunteer Executive Director of the Burns Bog Conservation Society. This news release was done in response to the recent news conference and press release from the Provincial Government of BC on gaming revenues available for non-profit groups and charities.

From Eliza's Desk: Community Gaming Grant Review Report fails to answer key questions.

DELTA, BC, Jan 12, 2012

It’s unfortunate that the Premier’s Press Conference didn’t give more comfort to non-profits. The government using the argument that it is in debt and can’t give the non-profits their due implies that the government is building retractable roofs and highways at the expense of the non-profits and the people that depend on those services.

I am very disappointed that the Community Gaming Grant Review Report did not address the issue of whether or not the 1999 Memorandum of Agreement, signed between the Province of BC and the BC Association for Charitable Gaming, is legally binding or not. This memorandum clearly states that charities are to receive one third of gaming income.

Originally a judge was going to be appointed to oversee this review. I see why Premier Clark changed her mind. A judge would’ve had the expertise to determine if this memorandum was binding. Instead Skip Triplett former President of Kwantlen Polytechnic University was selected. By his own admission Mr. Triplett did not have the expertise to rule on whether this hugely important memorandum applied or not. And then the government failed to give him someone with that expertise to help.

Given his lack of a legal background, I think Skip Triplett did an admirable job. Apart from the reinstatement of environmental groups, animal welfare groups, and adult arts and sports, there is very little new in the Premier’s announcement.

The recent government releases state that $135.0 million of the $1.10 billion total net government gaming revenues has been allocated to non-profit community organizations. This distribution violates the standing agreement from 1999.

The money earmarked for non-profit community organizations equals 12.27% of the net gaming income for the province, a far cry from the 33.3% promised in the 1999 Memorandum which states: "...ensures charity entitlement to an amount, after accounting for retained bingo revenues, equal to 1/3 of ongoing government net community gaming revenue;".

Now the good part of reinstating these organizations' eligibility for funding is that they will be able to carry out their work more effectively. The challenge is that there are now more organizations applying for funding from the same size of pot.

Non-profit community organizations should be entitled to $366.3 million. Non-profits are having $231.3 million dollars stolen from them that is rightfully theirs. Then they're told that they're better off. It doesn’t make sense.

It reminds me of something I've heard when you talk about whole wheat flour and "enriched" flour. All enriched means is that nutrients were removed during processing and later some were added back in. This is like someone stealing twenty dollars from your pocket, feeling bad, returning ten, and then telling you that you're enriched.

Even if you use the argument that the Memorandum of Agreement only applies to revenues from casinos and community gaming operations like bingo, the $135 million for non-profits comes up short. It is only 16.6% and not the promised 33.3% of the $815.6 million realized from these specific gambling operations.

It's also unclear to me why the Premier designated $8 million of the $135 million directly towards the reinstated organizations. Does this mean that they will be receiving more funding individually or will it prevent them from receiving an equal share of the remaining money?

I agree that extending support to non-profits in the Interior of British Columbia is important. But I really worry that the increased number of charities eligible without increased funding will result in charities getting less money and a lot more stress.

So now we've got more good organizations competing for the same pot of money. Everyone gets less than they have in the past and likely less than they've counted on. Services in the Lower Mainland could be left struggling to maintain their programs.

Eliza Olson
President and Volunteer Executive Director
eliza@burnsbog.org