We had a very productive field season thanks to our hard-working crew, consisting of: Sarah MacWilliams, Heidi Wheeler, Camren MacLeod, Jaden Grant, and Maddy MacLeod. We are very grateful to have received seasonal wage funding from a number of subsidy programs both provincially – Skills PEI post-secondary student program and Jobs for Youth, as well as federally – Canada Summer Jobs and Green Jobs from Canadian Parks & Recreation Association.
Here is a brief summary of our accomplishments during the field season:
- In total, WRIG staff planted, watered, and maintained over 1100 native trees & shrubs along vulnerable shorelines, in wetland/riparian areas, as well as upland areas throughout the watershed! That’s got to be a new record for our group!
- We also handed out red oak and red maple trees to the public during our annual river duck race fundraiser event in August, thanks to a donation from Arbor Nursery.
- The crew was able to remove an incredible 980 kg of invasive plant material; including, the ubiquitous bittersweet nightshade from several riparian areas, some final clumps of garlic mustard from a long-term management site, and the phototoxic wild parsnip from a newly discovered site.
- Every week, water quality was monitored at 20 sites in the watershed, the picnic area at Rackham’s Pond was landscaped, and our trail cameras were checked.
- Every 2 weeks a canoe survey to the Oyster Bed bridge was conducted to assess for signs of anoxia and the crew presented information at the Cavendish beach information hut. Fantastic job team!
This spring we continued to monitor the tree swallow nesting boxes that have been in place for 2 years and we added an additional couple of box sites to the program. Two more watershed groups joined this multi-watershed initiative for a total of 10 groups participating in monitoring and banding activities. Together, we cover a large portion of the Island; we hope to continue growing and collecting information about these birds in order to provide nesting opportunities and to enhance their overall success. This year in our watershed area, twelve boxes had successful nests and 38 tree swallow chicks were banded! Thanks to the huge effort made by Fiep de Bie, the banding permit holder, and Matt Ginn from Forests, Fish & Wildlife PEI, we were also able to band 10 adults and had 3 recaptures from previous years. Thank you to the PEI Wildlife Conservation Fund for supporting this cross-watershed project and for continuing to support PEI watershed groups.
