Diana Teal, Manitoba IBA Co-ordinator AND Christian Artuso, Bird Studies Canada Manitoba Program Manager & Chair of IBA Committee
The Birdlife International partnership has identified 12,000 sites around the world that are known as “Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas” (IBAs). IBAs represent an enormous global network designed to protect the planet’s biodiversity by engaging grassroots support for key sites. These key sites are identified using rigorous, internationally standardized criteria. There are 38 IBAs in Manitoba, from the grasslands of the southwest to the Hudson Bay coast, each with its own special significance.
This workshop will include a short talk on where the honeybee fits in our everyday lives, pressures facing the bees and what you can do to help maintain a better balance in nature. Views will be presented on organic vs natural and help clear the air around some overused “buzz” words. Hopefully, our understanding of natural health will be broadened. People will be able to see, smell and feel some common beekeeping items and a Q & A will follow. Bring your questions and your sweet tooth as honey will be available to sample.
Jay Anderson, Retired Environment Canada Meteorologist
Jay travels the world with his wife, Judy, to watch solar eclipses – an alignment of the Earth, Sun and Moon that has the Earth passing through the Moon’s shadow. Solar (and lunar) eclipses have been a part of mankind’s fascination with the stars from the earliest Babylonian and Chinese records to the present. This talk will discuss the mechanism of eclipses, the visual and emotional impact of eclipses, the adventures that come from chasing eclipses and the expectation for the next North American eclipse in 2017.
Jack Dubois, Retired Director of Wildlife Branch, Manitoba Conservation
The Interlake region of Manitoba is a unique landscape in Canada and possibly the world. It is underlain by soft limestone and dolomite bedrock, often exposed and strongly modified by glaciation. It is in this region that most of Manitoba’s caves are found. There are three main cave types: crevice caves, wave-cut caves and solution or groundwater-caused caves. The latter are the longest and most complex, and are where the majority of bat hibernacula are found.
Morels are the mushrooms that appear in the spring while most other fungi can be found in late August and September. Participants in this workshop will begin learning to identify mushrooms in time for the morel season. A field trip will be offered in the late summer.
Nature is all about change and gardening through whatever surprises are in store. Help ensure your trees, shrubs and perennials will thrive despite an ever changing climate. After several years of rain followed by a couple of droughts, annual lovers are beginning to question their expense and lack-lustre performance. Perennial gardeners are watching their once healthy plants, shrubs and trees suffer – some lost to disease and others dying without any “apparent” reason – and not understanding why or how.
Same presenter, different bird group! Ward is back again and will focus on thrushes this year. He invites you to come out and learn more about these elusive forest songsters.
Reviled by many, enjoyed by some, gulls provide some of the greatest identification challenges known to North American birders. As they start to return to Manitoba from late March on, we will join Rudolf for a workshop on gulls. The focus will be on identification and the best observation sites.
Bird migration is one of nature’s most fascinating, inspiring and yet, mysterious phenomena. This workshop will be an overview of many topics around bird migration, including which species migrate, why, where they go and how they get there. We will also discuss how weather affects migration, review some resources for following migration and maybe learn a few of the flight calls given by nocturnal migrants.
*** This workshop has been moved from January 22 to March 12, 2013. ***
Last year, “Peg City Car Co-op” introduced carsharing as an option to a number of Winnipeg neighbourhoods. Perhaps you’ve heard of the car co-op, or carsharing, but aren’t really sure how it works. Join us to learn how Peg City helps its members to live “car-lite”, yet still have access to a vehicle when needed. And how, best of all, members pay for a car only when they use one!
This identification workshop will focus on the regularly occurring warblers of Manitoba, with brief mention of accidental species. Given the time of year, the visual identification section will focus on the breeding plumages (to get you ready for spring migration). We will also practise identifying warblers by their song. In both cases, we will use the approach of comparing similar species (either similar plumages or similar songs).
Learn about Manitoba’s 39 species and varieties of native orchids: what they look like and where to find them. The workshop will cover basic orchid morphology and will provide detailed descriptions with photographs of all species, as well as typical habitats, flowering times and some good orchid-hunting locations.
Michele Piercey-Normore, Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba
Lichens are ubiquitous, growing in most habitats of the world on both natural and manmade surfaces. They have a number of valuable ecological and economic functions. Lichens are named and classified according to the fungal partner which associates with a photosynthetic partner in a symbiotic relationship. Common macro-lichens are relatively easy to identify to genus. With a little more effort, many of the more difficult ones can be identified to species.
There are close to a hundred species of dragonflies in Manitoba. Would you like to learn more about them? With the help of Powerpoint slides, prepared specimens and a species list handout, Marjorie will help you to understand this fascinating group of insects.
Jay Anderson, Retired Environment Canada Meteorologist
The atmosphere is a magical place where light, moisture, clouds and aerosols come to play – a classroom in which physics and art are on display. Auroras, haloes, rainbows, sundogs and glories are familiar to us all, but do you really know what you are seeing? How about the green flash or the belt of Venus? What are sun pillars and how do they form? Why are shadows on a dewy grass lawn surrounded by a bright halo? Why is a rainbow brighter inside the arc and darker outside and what makes double rainbows? When is the best time to see aurorae? Come and find out.
