Naturalist Club Notes, November 7th, 2012

Naturalist folks – please note three upcoming events:

1. Planning Meeting: Interpretive Centre / Hudson’s Bay Wetland Project. Saturday, 24 November, 10:00 AM, UNBC cafeteria

This is a special meeting for members interested in working on the creation of an interpretive centre for Prince George and/or on the Hudson’s Bay Wetland project. An update will be given on the city’s 22 November meeting of interested groups, and a start will be made on planning for the Hudson’s Bay Wetland project.

2. Photographic Presentation: Kayaking Adventures in BC. Thursday, November 29, 7:00 pm, “Parks Building”, 4051-18th Avenue

Staffan Lindgren will present and discuss a series of photographs taken during his numerous kayaking trips and other events throughout the province. Dr Lindgren is a professor at UNBC in Ecosystem Science and Management, and though his research focuses on forest insect attack, he has broad interests as a naturalist, as the presentation will demonstrate.

3. Double Presentation: Thursday, December 6, 7:00 pm (date and location to be confirmed)

a. Dan Adamson, Community Forest Manager, will give a brief presentation on Mapping Prince George’s Natural Areas and Climate Change Impacts.

b. Mike Nash, well-known author and outdoorsman, will give a photographic presentation on the week he spent backpacking in the Niut Range as part of a BC Nature project gathering data for the BC Breeding Bird Atlas. The Niut Range is an outlier of the Coast Mountains, west of Williams Lake, south of Highway 20, known for high-end mountaineering.

Other Notes:

1. For those not on ncenbird: keep an eye out for Snowy Owls, which can be seen during the daytime on wires and posts. Several have been spotted in Prince George in the last few days.

2. Open houses are being run again at the astronomical observatory on Fridays, starting at 7:30 pm. See www.vts.bc.ca/pgrasc/ for details.

3. Jupiter is high in the sky at the moment – take a look through binoculars at this particularly bright “star” and you’ll be able to see four of the moons of the gas-giant planet.

An American Crow reaping the benefits of Halloween.

Trick or Treat

 

Clive Keen

Prince George Naturalists Club Important meeting – October 11, 2012

Naturalist folks:

1. Important Club Meeting, Thursday October 11, 7:00 -9:00 pm, Atrium, The Exploration Place
Please make sure to add this meeting to your calendar, which will give a presentation on, and then discuss, the following motion.

To commit to a major Club project aimed at:

1. Working with community partners to create an interpretive centre;
2. Enhancing the Hudson’s Bay Wetland area, through rehabilitation and creation of a circular walk with a variety of observation features.

(Note the address for the meeting: not the usual 18th Avenue location, but The Exploration Place, Fort George Park.)

2. Membership
The above meeting will be of interest not just to current Club members, but to potential members and representatives of other groups, who are all welcome to be in attendance and to contribute to the discussion. Voting on the motion, though, will of course be restricted to Club members. Memberships valid to the end of 2013 can be taken out by completing the attached form and posting it to the address shown or giving it to the Club Secretary at the meeting.

3. Future Club Events
As previously mentioned, we’ll be holding a Gadgets Night later in the autumn, showing such things as trail cams and the wildlife photographs they have captured. We’ll also be holding a Show and Tell of members’ nature photographs: shots, which needn’t be of prize-winning quality, but which have an interesting story to tell. If you have either trail-cam shots, or other photos with a story to tell, please let us know to help with planning.

4. Shelley Shorebirds
The Club’s Guide to Shelley Shorebirds has been corrected and recast as a more-easily read 12-page booklet. If you’d like a copy (it has not been attached, to save clogging people’s inboxes) just send a reply to this email.

5. Other Organizations’ Activities
Club members may be interested in a presentation “Measuring the Effects of Changing Climate on Prince George’s Natural Areas” to be held in the Keith Gordon Room, PG Library, 12:00 -1:00 on Monday, October 1st.  RSVP dadamson@city.pg.bc if you plan to attend.

6. A Note from RASC Prince George
On Saturday 29th the Harvest Moon will rise over the eastern horizon at 6:20pm. It is an ideal time to test the ‘moon illusion’, where the moon appears to be larger at the horizon, compared to high in the sky. To test this illusion, hold an aspirin at arm’s length over the moon when is it at the horizon, and then a few hours later, and you will see the size is the same.

Clive Keen

Naturalist Photo’s Wanted

Get your best naturalist photographs ready! The PG Naturalists Club is partnering with The UNBC Fish and Wildlife Student Chapter of TWS (The Wildlife Society) on their annual calendar contest. In addition to encouraging members to enter photographs for the calendar contest, the PGNC will run a concurrent exhibition of members’ naturalist photos.

The TWS calendar contest, and the PGNC exhibition, will be held in the UNBC Winter Garden on Thursday October 20th and Friday October 21st.

Information on the TWS calendar contest is given in the attached announcement, and also attached is a calendar contest entry form.

There are no strict rules, fees, etc, for participating in the concurrent PGNC exhibition; it is an opportunity for the club to give an additional visual presentation, showcasing more of the nature in our area. While photographs for the calendar contest must be 8″ X 10″ (or reasonably close to that size), photos for the PGNC exhibition are not restricted in size.  11″ x 14″ and 13″ X 19″ photos are being readied by some PGNC members, but it is entirely at the discretion of the provider.

We’ll have a table and velcro-style display boards to display our photos, so photos in heavy frames would be problematic. Photos mounted on card (fairly cheap at W D West) will work well. Note that while photographs for the Calendar contest must be of wildlife, fish or invertebrates, photographs for the PGNC exhibition can cover any aspect of nature.

Photos for the club exhibition, as well as photos for the calendar competition, can be submitted in person on Thursday, 19 October, or earlier that week (times to be announced), at a table in the UNBC Agora.

At a later date, there will be an evening presentation at which exhibitors and contest winners will be invited to present their photographs, discuss them, and explain how they captured the images.

This should be a lot of fun, and provide some excellent publicity for the club. You are strongly encouraged to take part – preferably by providing photos, but if not, by heading to the Winter Garden to see the displays.

Clive Keen