Kathryn Clouston with the display and the example nest boxes at Earth Day 2011. Photo by Jim Palmer
In order for salmon enhancement work to be effective the entire ecosystem needs to be healthy as everything works together to create the conditions necessary for a healthy creek. To that end, for our next project we have decided to help out the birds by creating nest boxes for our native cavity nesters that are being forced out by exotic/invasive species like the Violet-green Swallow whose nest sites are being taken by European Starlings. Another problem our native species are facing is our almost compulsive need to groom our ‘forests’ which often involves removing old dead trees that provide plenty of insect food for woodpeckers who create the entry holes that others can use for nesting and that also create large holes that they nest in themselves. To compensate for an ever decreasing number of wildlife trees we will be hosting a nest box workshop at Lake Trail School on 14 May, e-mail morrisoncreek@yahoo.ca to register to create some appropriate cavities for our nesters. We would like to thank the many people that dropped by our booth on Earth Day to share stories and advice about bird boxes and to sign up for our workshop. At a date still to be decided, we will be taking a walk around the watershed to show residents the habitat needed by the different birds we hope will use these boxes and then installing them.
