June 2012

In This Issue:Monarch MysteryThis summer, there’s an unexpected burst of color at Big Lake.

Meet SamShe’s a certified large animal handler, and she’s played with cheetahs. Now, she’s here to run the Summer Nature Center! Get to know our exciting new co-ordinator here!

Bless Teaches and Learns at Earth DayEarth Day events were a smash hit, thanks as always to BLESS volunteers and a community that loves the lake.

Get To Know: The Black-Billed MagpieYou’ve certainly seen them around, but how much do you really know about these cheerful corvids?

NewsFlashes:• If you have an editorial, photo, or story you’d like to share,

we’d love to print it! Email it to news@bless.ab.ca!

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Monarch Mystery

Bright-orange monarch butterflies are known to be migratory, wandering all over the continent, from the Rocky Mountains to the tropics. They’re a common sight anywhere in the United States and out East in the Great Lakes region. Monarchs are a type of butterfly called “milkweed butterflies”, a family containing over 300 different species, only four of which are found in North America, and of which only the monarch approaches Canada. All of the rest live in tropical climates, far away from our frigid winters. Milkweed doesn’t grow well here in the Edmonton area, and the winters are extremely cold, the summers extremely dry, completely inhospitable conditions for the iconic butterfly, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that monarch butterflies aren’t found around here.

That is to say, they aren’t normally found here. But, for some reason, those red-orange wings are flapping here in the Big Lake region, leaving naturalists thrilled but puzzled. Monarch butterflies haven’t been seen here since the 1960s, and butterfly nets are swinging as local entomologists try and capture a butterfly they might not be able to meet in person for decades.

Article: Cat McDonald

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A monarch butterfly’s life revolves around a select group of plants. Milkweed, named for its milky sap, is where they lay their eggs, the food of choice for their caterpillars, and their favourite nectar as an adult. The chemical compounds in the milkweed stay in the caterpillar’s body all its life, making it poisonous for many predators, and downright unpleasant-tasting to the rest. Because of this, and because of its distinctive coloring, most predators give the monarch butterfly a wide berth. The butterfly owes all this to the milkweed plant, so it’s odd for so many butterflies to find their way up here despite the comfortable winter and spring we had this year. Monarch populations are booming out east, so these butterflies probably came from other parts of Canada rather than coming up from the states.

Because of their highly specialized diet, it’s unlikely that this summer’s visitors will become permanent residents or harm the local ecosystem. Most non-native species become a problem because they find abundant food and few predators in a new area, allowing them to take over with relative ease, but although it will find little opposition here, the monarch butterfly’s favourite food source is far from abundant in the region. Keep your eyes out for these brilliantly-coloured butterflies while they’re here; it’s a rare opportunity to glimpse a visitor who’s come a long way.

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Meet Sam

A new addition to BLESS, Samantha Morris-Yasinski is no stranger to ecology. A cheerful, lively university student in the field of conservational biology, Sam’s real passion is animals, and she doesn’t shy away from animals who need her help. This summer, though, she’s going to be helping St. Albert’s little animals learn about the world around them through the BLESS Summer Nature Center, and she’s looking forward to the job!

Originally, like many university students, Sam studied the liberal arts—English with a Philosophy minor. While she was studying the works of the great thinkers, however, Sam realized that she needed to pursue what was really important to her. Now, she’s studying conservational biology, she volunteers at the wildlife rehabilitation center, and she’s specially certified to handle large animals. Last summer, Sam went to work at the Ann Van Dyk Centre in South Africa, taking care of injured and orphaned cheetahs. “They’re just like cats,” she said of cheetahs, “they even purr, but their purr sounds kind of goobery. Well, some of them. And, they’re really playful, but you have to be careful, because they’re really big and they have this claw, called a dewclaw…you gotta watch out for that.”

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This year, Sam is preparing an exciting program including a focus on Sam’s greatest passion: conservation. The first week will focus on recycling, and visitors will be able to make keepsake boxes and “green magnets”, fridge magnets made entirely out of re-used materials. There’s going to be a “Where’s the Water” week, about ponds, rivers, lakes, wetlands, and oceans. In the last two weeks, visitors will get to learn about “Sensational Seasons”, about the way nature changes to adapt to the changing seasons, and finally, “Backyard Biodiversity”, a wrap-up unit that puts it all together to help the kids form a complete image of the way nature works even in places they might not consider, with the help of games and a classic craft. Sam has a real soft spot for birds, so in the final week, kids will be making an old-fashioned pinecone bird feeder.

Just like last year, the Summer Nature Center will be open from Monday to Friday, between 10 AM and 4 PM, so stop by and visit!

(Editor’s note: I asked Sam what local animal we should feature in this issue. She lit up and said “My favourite bird?!” So, enjoy reading about Sam’s favourite bird, the magpie, in this issue’s Get To Know!)

Article: Cat McDonaldPhoto c/o Samantha Morris-Yasinski

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BLESS Teaches and Learns at Earth Day

This year’s Earth Day celebration was a huge affair, filling Fort Edmonton Park’s Blatchford Hangar and the surrounding field with people eager to celebrate the planet and take in a beautiful summer day. Between vendors, educational displays, and entertainment, there was no shortage of things for visiting families to do, although many people just kicked back on the grass and enjoyed the weather.

Music was in the air everywhere, from the live performances on the main stage to the stationary bikes across the field which powered tunes with the help of volunteers, and children could try their hand at making their own recycled paper and other crafts. Inside, a huge variety of vendors, companies, and organizations had a series of booths set up away from the sun, including BLESS.

There was no absence of things for visitors to the park to do that day, but BLESS’s booth was a favourite with children, featuring the perennial favourite freshwater zoology tanks. Little white spoons in hand, they could scoop up any number of tiny creatures from the region, including some enchanting fairy shrimp, and BLESS volunteers were on hand to explain it all. Several caddisfly larvae crept around the tub, their backs covered in bits of grass and wood, since caddisfly larvae build shells for themselves out of whatever they can find. There were damselfly nymphs, but no dragonfly nymphs this year. Most of the tanks had at least one snail in them, and children were scared, thrilled, and even a little delighted to find our single leech wriggling around. By far the most popular, however, were the minnows fished out not far from the Summer Nature Center.

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Article: Cat McDonald

At times like this, we at BLESS can rest easy, knowing that we’re not the only ones who care about the planet. It can be easy for us to feel hopeless, but events like Clean Up the Sturgeon, The Great Shoreline Cleanup, and the Earth Day celebration drive home that it’s not just us. The community at large is full of people who want to help, who are really interested in what we have to say. Maybe some of them feel like they’re too busy, or like they can’t help, but by being present at community events we can show them what’s out there and what we’re trying to protect. So, thanks to all our BLESS members who came to this spring’s big events to help out, and an extra thanks to our volunteers who make it happen!

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Get To Know: The Black-Billed Magpie

Now, this is a bird you’ve certainly seen around. If you’ve got guests from eastern Canada, however, they may be amazed at the bright iridescence of the magpie’s long tail feathers; it’s almost exclusively a western bird. Those long tail feathers make it unique; there are only four birds on the entire continent whose tails make up half or more of the total length, and the black-billed magpie and its California cousin the yellow-billed magpie are two of them.

Speaking of the yellow-billed magpie, the two are closer cousins than scientists originally thought. When the black-billed magpie was first classified, it was believed to be a subspecies of the European magpie, because the two look very similar. But, DNA evidence and, surprisingly enough, fossil evidence, caused the bird to be reclassified as its own independent species. The fossil evidence suggests that magpies have been on this continent for over 12,000 years! The two magpie species were, according to scientists, possibly separated by advancing glaciers during an ice age. Classifications of all sorts of living things have been changing with the advent of DNA technology, as people discover that many species are not quite as similar as they were once believed to be.

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Magpies are full of surprises. Like all corvids, they are extremely intelligent, having a brain-to-body ratio very similar to ours. When confronted with the “Mirror Test”, a test for self-awareness that involves putting paint on an animal and putting it in front of a mirror to see if it knows the mirror is its reflection, the magpie is so far the only non-mammal to pass. Like crows, they are highly social, and have been known to work together to solve problems, especially to bring down larger threats.

In fact, they’re so social that they engage in some decidedly human behaviour: they hold funerals. When a magpie happens upon another magpie’s corpse, it will cry out in distress, calling other nearby magpies. They’ll gather around the deceased and cry out, sometimes flapping their wings excitedly and sometimes hopping up to investigate the body, pecking at the wings and tail. Also like humans, they raise their young until they’re old enough to make goofy teenage mistakes like mobbing crows and kestrels. They rarely fight for dominance, but in large mobs, older magpies seem to “humor” younger ones and let them run the show.

Have you ever seen a magpie sitting in a high place, with the white feathers on its chest and shoulders puffed out? This “tree-sitting” is how they establish territory. Puffing out the white feathers makes them more visible, so the whole world can see them saying “This is my place, look at me here!”

Article: Cat McDonald