Community conservation event

Posted on June 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

Toronto SwiftWatch U of T Blitz

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Toronto SwiftWatch is undertaking a survey of the chimney swift population at UofT and we are looking for some students to help out on June 20th, 8-9:30 pm.

As their natural nesting sites in old growth trees were lost to deforestation, chimney swifts adapted to live primarily in old chimneys, and are now found primarily in cities. Since the 1960s their population has declined by over 90 percent and they are now considered a threatened species and protected under SARA. TorontoSwiftWatch is a Bird Studies Canada program that relies on volunteer citizen scientists to locate chimneys that are being used as nesting sites by swifts in order to guide and inform conservation efforts for this fascinating species.

Toronto SwiftWatch is organizing a full survey of chimney swift habitat at UofT, but in order to do this we need volunteers. We are looking for people to join us at 8 pm on June 20th at the North East corner of King’s College Circle, where you will be assigned a particular chimney to watch. If we are lucky we should see swifts circling around some of these chimneys before they enter to nest for the night. Those chimneys can then be recorded as part of a Toronto wide effort to catalog chimney swift habitat. This is really a remarkable sight and part of an important conservation effort. We hope you will join us!

For more information about Toronto SwiftWatch, please contact coordinator Rebecca Elbourne at rebecca.torontoswifts@gmail.com or check out the Bird Studies Canada website:  
http://www.bsc-eoc.org/research/speciesatrisk/chsw
.

SCB-TO is posting this on behalf of Toronto Swiftwatch.

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SCB Goes Rouge Pollinator Project: Round 2

Posted on June 2, 2013 | Leave a comment

Our 2nd field season begins!

 

With support from Rouge Park, we are now beginning our 2nd field season. We spent last Thursday setting up our pan traps on 14 sites in Rouge Park, which is soon to be Canada’s first urban national park. We are continuing to develop a pollinator diversity baseline and are also asking the question, ‘how do pollinators respond to different vegetation communities’. Our sampling design allows us to gain insights into how restoration activities on park lands contribute to diversity in pollinators.

The presence of native pollinators is crucial to the success of park restoration and ecosystem sustainability.  They provide the ecosystem service of pollinating native plants which provide food and shelter for other native animals like songbirds and small mammals. In recent years, some pollinator species have shown rapid declines.  The Rusty-patched Bumblebee, for example, went from being the 4th most common species in southern Ontario to the rarest in just a few decades.

Many thanks to all of our volunteers past and present!
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Canadian Pollinator Conference

Posted on March 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

Canadian Pollinator Conservation 2013: Next Steps

SCB-TO is pleased to be a co-sponsor of this upcoming conference, April 10th.

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Please go to the following link for registration.: 
http://pollinatorpartnership.ca/nextsteps.htm

 

 

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Welcome new board

Posted on January 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

Meet the 2012-2013
SCB-Toronto Board

We had our elections in November of 2012. Welcome to both new and old board members. See their profiles in our ‘about us‘ section, or click on their names below to take you to their profiles.

President: Ilona Naujokaitis-Lewis

Vice-president: Scott MacIvor

Treasurer: Sheila Colla

Secretary: Michelle Dileo

Volunteer coordinator: Genevieve Rowe

Communications coordinator: Yessica Rico

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Toronto’s chimney swifts need your help!

Posted on July 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

Help Toronto’s Swiftwatch Program

Chimney swifts circling over rooftops are a common sight in Toronto, but the truth is that these birds are in trouble. The Canadian population has declined by 95% between 1968 and 2005 leading it to be listed as “threatened” in 2007 under the federal Species at Risk Act. These migratory birds once nested in large hollow trees but over the centuries have adapted to an increasingly urban landscape. Today, much of the remaining Canadian population nests and roosts in old chimneys in urban areas of Southern Ontario, including many sites in Toronto. The trouble is that the swifts prefer the rough interior surface and large, well insulated space provided by old fashioned, brick chimneys, and more and more of these are being lined with metal, covered or taken down.

Ontario SwiftWatch is a program of Bird Studies Canada that relies on volunteers to identify and report chimneys that are actively used by swifts. Volunteer coordinator for Toronto, Rebecca Elbourne (rebecca.torontoswifts@gmail.com) urgently needs your help to identify as many active chimneys as possible in the Toronto area. Two kinds of volunteers are needed:

Casual Observations: If you happen to see or hear swifts in the hour before sundown, take a minute to look for an open chimney in the vicinity and note down the address. If you have a few minutes, wait and see if birds enter the chimney. If they do, please report it online via
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/OntarioSwiftWatch
 and email Rebecca with your tips.

Active Surveys: Do you have the occasional hour around sundown to help seek out active chimneys in your neighbourhood? Please contact Rebecca at rebecca.torontoswifts@gmail.com. You will be given an area to investigate, a protocol and a list of 4 or 5 possible chimneys. Play bird detective and help SwiftWatch collect quality data.

For more information about the project, please go to the Bird Studies Canada page, www.birdscanada.org/research/speciesatrisk/chsw or check out the program on facebook, www.facebook.com/OntarioSwift. There’s a huge variety of active chimneys in the city and the more we know, the better we’ll be able to conserve the nesting and roosting habitat of this species at risk. Please contact Rebecca and get involved!


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Conservation Conversation Thurs April 26th

Posted on April 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

 

Pollinator Diversity in Human-Modified Landscapes

Date: Thursday April 26th 2012
Conversation: 5:30 – 7:30 pm
Location: The Graduate Student Union Pub
16 Bancroft Ave. Toronto, ON

At our next Conservation Conversation (March 1st), we will be discussing pollinator diversity in human modified landscapes. This CC is in preparation for our inaugural pollinator monitoring in the Rouge Park, as part of the ‘SCB Goes Rouge Pollinator Project’. If you have expressed interest in volunteering with us this summer (fieldwork, labwork, stewardship positions still available), we urge you to come and join us!

Bring a friend if you like and come and meet other conservation biologists and enthusiasts from your neighburhood

 

This event is part of the Toronto Chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology series Conservation Conversation. The purpose of these monthly discussions is to get people together in an informal setting (Pub!) to discuss topical and sometimes controversial conservation issues.

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SCB Goes Rouge Pollinator Project

Posted on April 14, 2012 | 1 Comment

The Toronto Chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology is embarking on an exciting new project at Rouge Park.  With the help of partners at Rouge Park and volunteers we will be:

  1. Searching the park for the endangered Rusty-patched Bumblebee
  2. Monitoring park pollinator diversity
  3. Initiating outreach and education programs about the importance of pollinators in the park

The presence of native pollinators is crucial to the success of park restoration and ecosystem sustainability.  They provide the ecosystem service of pollinating native plants which provide food and shelter for other native animals like songbirds and small mammals. In recent years, some pollinator species have shown rapid declines.  The Rusty-patched Bumblebee, for example, went from being the 4th most common species in southern Ontario to the rarest in just a few decades.

We need volunteers
Interested in volunteering with SCB-TO this summer on our SCB Goes Rouge Pollinator Project? We need volunteers to help with field work (including monitoring of bee pollinator diversity), community outreach, and lab work (including organizing, pinning, mounting specimens). To help us get all our volunteers organized we are asking you to fill out our volunteer recruitment survey. This will help us to coordinate everyone, organize transportation, and fit you into the best volunteer spots given your interests. This should not take more than 5 minutes of your time.

Volunteer survey link

We really appreciate your interest and look forward to meeting and working with you this summer. Please feel free to pass on the message to others you think might be interested.

For other info please check out these websites

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