We have now made it to the end of our 2021 field season! Fall is the time for wrapping up our summer projects, preparing the lands for winter, and cleaning out our many nest boxes for next year.
September
September turned out to be one of our busiest months this year!
Early in September, we hosted a volunteer event to remove some woolly burdock from maskihkîy meskanaw - Glory Hills. We pulled up the first-year growth and cut down the woody second-year stalks, making sure to very carefully bag the seedheads. It’s important that we manage this weed patch so that it doesn’t spread further into the land, so we will be back next year to get the flower heads before they go to seed.
Mid-September saw our final pollinator garden volunteer event at the Smith Blackburn Homestead, where we planted 110 native shrubs around the garden area. Prior to the big planting event, a volunteer from Alveole joined EALT staff to help spread the last truckload of mulch onto the garden and install some signage. Read all about the planting project in our blog post.
We also held volunteer events to clean out the nest boxes at Pipestone Creek and the Smith Blackburn Homestead, and enjoyed the stunning fall colours and views. Thanks to our wonderful Conservation Land Stewards for taking on nest box cleaning at Glory Hills, Coates, and Boisvert’s GreenWoods this year!
October
Things started to slow down slightly in October. EALT staff conducted our annual conservation easement monitoring of Larch Sanctuary, and we held our last nest box cleaning event at Bunchberry Meadows.
We also continued our work on the scrap metal garbage at Coates. With the help of volunteers, we removed another big truckload of scrap metal, broken glass, and miscellaneous garbage to the eco station. We also did some final trail maintenance before the winter, stabilized erosion along the trail, and maintained our wildlife cameras.
Our last volunteer event in October was at Boisvert’s GreenWoods, an old-growth forest north of Morinville. Some of the trees on this land are over 100 years old, and the aging forest means a lot of fallen trees over the trail! Our incredible volunteers helped us clear the trail, clipping back the shrubs and moving the fallen logs further into the forest to decompose.
This is our last field note blog for the 2021 season, but stay tuned for next year’s stewardship activities! A huge thanks to all of our Conservation Land Stewards, Citizen Science volunteers, and general stewardship event volunteers for helping us care for our conservation lands.