Like the earth itself, Earth Day is older than you may think

Earth Day is upon us once more,  and there are plenty of activities to help mark the occasion, all over the world.

Celebrate Earth Day through stewardship at Burnaby Lake.

I've mentioned in previous posts that I spent my first Earth Day in Belize. There were a lot of firsts, on that trip: first international travel trip outside of Canada and the USA, the first time I ever paddled a sea kayak, my first time in a cave, my first time seeing wild parrots, and a few others.

I'd never even heard of Earth Day before that. It had been around for 21 years at that point but I'd never heard of it.

It's grown even more since then, spreading around the world with events aimed at celebrating it, creating awareness about the earth and conservation, and participating in events that help the earth.

There are numerous national, regional, and local events that take place during the weekend closest to April 22. Ranging from national organizations like the Nature Conservancy,  to smaller local groups like the Burns Bog Society and everything in-between plan events that take place over the weekend.

This year, it falls on a Saturday, and locally in Vancouver, there are several events set for both Saturday and Sunday.

Obviously it's possible to go to every event, but it's certainly doable to go to one event each day.

Highlighted here are a couple of local events taking place in B.C.'s Lower Mainland this weekend.

Earth Day Paddle, Richmond, B.C.

On Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., the B.C. chapter of the Nature Conservancy will host its first ever paddling event to mark the day. NCC’s West Coast Stewardship Team invites you to join them for a paddle out to Swishwash Island at the mouth of the Fraser River, for a day of exploring, learning and land stewardship. It's just a fifteen-minute paddle to the island. The will be spent day touring the island by foot and by boat, while tackling stewardship tasks such as cataloging plant species, pulling invasive weeds and cleaning up the shoreline. It may not be too late to get involved, but you'll have to hurry. Pre-registration is preferred to just showing up. Contact info is available through the link above.

Burns Bog Earth Day Pilgrimage

This takes place Sunday afternoon, in the Delta Nature Reserve, B.C. (just outside Vancouver). It's going to involve an easy walk through the wetland, and some music performed by special guests. Performers will sing, drum, and dance as we walk through the reserve. You don't need to register in advance, just show up. Details are available at the society's website and Facebook page.

A nature tour through Burns Bog from two years ago.

Burnaby Lake Association Weedbusters

While not specifically aimed at Earth Day, what better way to celebrate than by helping make a difference with some hands-on stewardship. The BLA will be removing invasive species (non-native plants that have become established and replaced native species) around Burnaby Lake. They'll provide gloves, tools, and snacks. Dress for the weather and be prepared to work off-trail in the woods. It's for all ages, it runs from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Again, info is available at the link above.

Those are just a few examples of events going on in and around Vancouver for Earth Day 2017. There are many others, including a parade, other stewardship events, and outdoor photography courses/workshops. If you Google "earth day events in Metro Vancouver" you'll get plenty from which to choose.

Just pick one - and enjoy the day.

World Wetlands Day: time to save a duck, a gator, your drinking water...

Another busy day at Reifel.

"When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most impenetrable and to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place, a sanctum sanctorum…"
- Henry David Thoreau

Today is World Wetlands Day. (Yeah, it's Groundhog Day too - but he already gets enough publicity.)

In case you're not quite sure what a wetland is, according to the US EPA, it is: "... areas where water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil all year or for varying periods of time during the year, including during the growing season."

Still not sure about the value of wetlands? Well, they:

• act as natural sponges
• filter pollutants, helping provide clean drinking water
• absorb rainfall, reducing floods and droughts
• reduce the speed and height of storm surges
• provide food and habitat for huge variety of birds and wildlife
• provide a lace for recreation and reflection

I've visited a number of wetlands around North America. Three of my favourites are located in three very different environments.

REIFEL SANCTUARY

One of my favourite places to hang out near my Vancouver home is the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary just outside Ladner, B.C. It's part of a coastal wetland jutting onto the ocean in places, and just a half-hour's drive from the Vancouver International Airport. There you'll find yourself in a wetland paradise full of ducks, geese, cranes, and herons - not to mention songbirds like red-winged blackbirds or raptors like bald eagles or marsh hawks (a.k.a. northern harriers).

 

Black crowned night heron.

 

 I won't go into too much detail about the sanctuary itself, its history and its functions; that can all be gleaned from the sanctuary website .
I will say that although it is a stopping place for birds migrating north and south in the spring and fall, respectively - an avian "motel" of sorts - it is also a year-round home for many other birds.
 

Reifel is one of those rare spots you can visit again and again, and never tire of going there. It's a special place where you can get close to nature without having to drive too far from your front step, if you live in the Greater Vancouver area. 

 

The experiences there are pretty much the same every time, but for me, there's always one gem of an experience I have that's a bit different each time, something that sets that visit apart from others.  

 

Once I saw a great blue heron fly across a pond and alight on a log right in front of me. It then proceeded to spend several minutes grooming itself while I shot videos and images of the bird.
 

Another time, I was able to watch and record a pair of sandhill cranes strolling along the edge of the marsh. You won't see these large, rare and beautiful birds every time you go to Reifel, but I have seen them on more than one occasion.

 

 

A blue heron grooms at Reifel.

 

I saw my first  black-crowned night heron there; also, my first northern shoveller, my first bufflehead, my first...well, you get the idea.

 

It's a great place to take kids, too, and get them to experience and enjoy nature.

OAK HAMMOCK MARSH

Oak Hammock is a prairie wetland located, in southern Manitoba near Winnipeg. I spent a day there several years ago and I was amazed at the variety and diversity of bird life there. Of course, it helped that I was paddling; there’s no better way to see birds – especially wetland species – than from a canoe.

 

The Coot family.

A total of  296 different bird species have been recorded there. While I certainly did not approach that number, I was not disappointed. Just minutes into our journey, we spotted an American coot with babies. 

During my day's paddle, I spied gulls, terns, blackbirds, and several other species. 

 

The highlight came as we paddled quietly toward a small island covered with American white pelicans. 

 

When we came too close for their comfort, it was as if someone pressed a button - they took off en masse, a white cloud of flapping feathers rising up into the sky.

 

OKEFENOKEE NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

Just north of the Florida panhandle in southern Georgia, in the middle of a wild, wet southern wilderness, sits this gem locals call simply, "The Swamp." 

I once spent three days canoeing and camping in this wonderful reserve with Okefenokee Adventures, the go-to adventure tour operator for the area. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the natural and cultural history of the area.

Like the other two spots described above, it's a great place for birds. While there exploring it, I saw a sandhill crane, several egrets and a green heron.

You'll see plenty of gators in "The Swamp."

Because it's so not as close to an urban centre as the other two, it boasts a far wider variety of wildlife in including deer, black bears and its iconic reptile: the American alligator.

I saw many of them, and a few deer, but no bears.
 
It's a wonderful place for a naturalist to hang out, and like Oak Hammock, it's only accessible by canoe. 

The point to all this? 

Without wetlands, none of these creatures would have homes. And surely that's reason enough to be concerned and to practice wetland conservation by supporting groups that focus on conserving wetlands, where it's a big national organization like Ducks Unlimited or a smaller local group like the Reifel Sanctuary or the Burns Bog Conservation Society. 

Then go out and enjoy a wetland.

New film provides a look at our birds and their journeys

What is the future for songbirds like chickadees?

I had the opportunity this past week to see an amazing new film, a documentary about birds. The film was called The Messenger.

Now the reason it was called that is mentioned in the film's beginning and reiterated once or twice as throughout the film.

It goes back to the fact that ancient peoples viewed birds as messengers - messengers from the gods, messengers from the other side, messages from the spirit world - and it is the film's premise that they are still messengers today - and the message they have for us is one about our own future.

The film delves into several issues migratory songbirds face in our modern world; one of them is the way that they can get disoriented by the light that we as humans create in our cities. It shows how, in cities like New York and Toronto, our night-time lights can really produce a negative impact on their migrations up and down the coast from north to south and back again.

Connected with that is the way thousands of birds kill themselves flying into our city's high-rise buildings. This issue resulted in the birth of the organization FLAP as a response to it.

Another issue facing songbirds is the hunting of them for food.

That's right - food.

In France, there is a huge controversy right now about how the centuries-old tradition of hunting ortolans for food. The film actually interviewed one of the hunters, as well as some folks dedicated to stopping the practice. Although it is now illegal, French authorities, by-and-large, look the other way.

The film also looked at other issues facing birds, a big one being pesticides - including the 21st century production of grains which have pesticides built right into them by seed manufacturers.

The movie also documents the way our industrial development - the need to drill for oil, most noticeably - and how it can affect the bird population in the boreal forest.

The film takes us all over the world - from the Eastern Seaboard of North America, to the jungles of Costa Rica, the fields of France, the prairies of Saskatchewan, and the boreal forests of Alberta, to name but a few destinations.

It's a journey, a trip around the world, to see what it is these birds are facing - and what they, as messengers, are trying to tell us.

Female red-winged blackbird. Will their songs be silent soon?

Birds are incredibly adaptable, probably more so than mammals. Despite that, they are suffering. We're changing the environment so fast now, faster than birds can cope with it.

And while this does not bode well for them, it also has ramifications for us.

As one of the people interviewed in the film says, "Songbirds are really like the canary in the coal mine ... they are telling us something is wrong, something is happening on the planet that is not good."

That's why organizations like FLAP and Bird Studies Canada work so hard to try to figure everything out so we can make changes - for the birds...and for our own future.

The film is directed by Su Rynard. Not a scientist, not even a birder, really, she did a masterful job in bringing this film together. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous ... breath-taking beauty radiates from the screen. Probably why it's won so many awards.

Those of us who attended the movie were fortunate enough to "meet" and chat with her via Skype on the big theatre screen. Ah, technology. (Ironically, while technology can help us enjoy these types of experiences, it can also harm, as the movie points out.)

It played very briefly last Sunday, March 20 in Vancouver, at the Rio Theatre, one show and one day only. But it will be back again in May, for a showing May 9, again, at the Rio. Their website has information about other venues hosting it, and plans are in the works to

In the meantime, enjoy some of the marvelous footage in this trailer.

Tuco: it's about an African grey parrot, but also much more

Usually, I write about travel in this space, although that does encompass a broad spectrum of sub-genres.

Today, I'm reviewing a book. Tuco is not a travel book, although the author, Brian Brett, does describe some of his travels in places like British Columbia, Mexico, Thailand, and other destinations in the book.

At some point, paddling is mentioned in the book, although not in a big way.

It's also not a book about the third of the three protagonists in the Sergio Leone 1967 spaghetti western, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," played with panache by Eli Wallach. (Although as the author reveals, there is a connection with the movie.)

The book is about the author's relationship with his African grey parrot. It is an excellent read, and you don't have to have lived with a parrot to appreciate it. While Brett's relationship with his African grey is an important part of the book, it's also a springboard for much deeper conversations about the world we live in and the way we relate to it.

Subtitled, The Parrot, the Others and a Scattershot World, A Life with Birds, Brett delves into his relationship not just with Tuco, but with other birds and the world at large. The book actually is a third version of a three-set volume that is a memoir of his life and its struggles, paralleled by the struggles humankind has in the world, struggles to accept others as they are, struggles to prosper without destroying the world - a "scattershot" world as Brett views it - and how they are both reflected in this out-of-place bird's life.

I say out of place, because Brett views Tuco as an "other" of sorts. He himself was an "other," an outsider growing up, because of being born with Kallman syndrome (a condition that causes a form of androgyny) that created huge issues for him as he entered puberty and grew into young adulthood. "Othering" is what we all do to various degrees to anything we see as strange or different. It's othering that often mutates into bullying, something Brett put up with frequently while growing up in British Columbia.

We "other" birds, animals, people of different religions, races, sexual orientations - the list is almost endless.

An African grey parrot, at Bloedel Conservatory.

The theme of othering crops up many times in the narrative as Brett weaves his way through a tapestry of topics that include science, environmentalism, animal cruelty, bird-watching, travel, small-town politics, his early experiences with pet birds, and life with an African grey parrot.

It's all enjoyable to read, but as someone who has spent close to a quarter-century living with African grey parrots, those anecdotes about Tuco's antics were the most enjoyable, the parts I re-read over and over again, sometimes aloud to anyone who would listen (or anyone who would read the passages I posted on my Facebook page regularly while reading the book.) And there were so many of them that reflect and almost eerily parallel the experiences I've had with my greys. For example:

"When a joke is told in our house, Tuco is always the first to laugh, chiming in milliseconds before anyone else. Does he get the joke? Probably not. What he does is even smarter. ... For Tuco, the crucial factor in a joke is not the joke but the way it makes us behave. He measures the speaker's tone and recognizes it's a joke, not a drama or narration of events. Then, if he is in the room, assessing the speaker's inflections and body language, he can anticipate the timing of the punchline faster than any person can, and that's why he always beats us to the laugh."

That happens all the time in our house with my 15-year-old grey, Coco. 

The book is full of passages like that, stories that will have anyone who lives with parrots smiling, and perhaps even chuckling out loud.

Even those who do not live with parrots will find them humorous - and perhaps a bit hard to believe. But believe me, all the stuff he describes in the book about Tuco's behaviour is real. Most parrot keepers have experienced even more bizarre or outrageous behaviours by their feathered companions.

Tuco is one of the rare books that both entertains and informs. It also stimulates thought and introspection about how we view life, how we might deal with some of the issues described in the book.

The author does reach some conclusions, of sorts, and while I won't tell you what they are, some of what I read still percolates around my coffeepot of a brain, occasionally seeping out through its filters into my conscious. 

If you want to read a book that is just silly parrot stories, you might be disappointed. However, if you want to read a book full of those that also deals with some much more serious life issues - like bullying, environmentalism, or dealing with death - then this is a read for you.
 


African grey parrots in the wild. From the World Parrot Trust.

Remembering my primate encounters as the Year of the Monkey looms

A mother orangutan with baby, at Semenggoh, Borneo.

The eerie sound of a howler monkey reverberated through the South American forest as our guide shook my tent gently to awaken me - unnecessary in this instance. Although it was only 6 a.m., I'd been awake for at least 30 minutes, soaking up the sounds - the monkeys, the birds, the insects - that reminded me I was on a paddling trip in the Amazon.

That was the first time I'd ever heard a howler monkey, and once you hear it, it's a sound you never forget.

It was not the first time I'd been around primates in the wild, mind you. That came probably 10 years before, in Africa.

This weekend, in many places around Asian cities and towns, and also many places closer to home in Vancouver, the sounds heard will not be those of monkeys calling out, but rather the sounds of "Gung hay fat choy!" (and all its various spellings).

The Chinese New Year is upon us, and with it, we enter into the Year of the Monkey. I myself was born in the Year of the Monkey, and so I'm hoping that means it will be an auspicious year for me.

To mark the event, I thought it would be interesting to look back at all the times I'd experienced and encountered wild monkeys in my travels. However, I won't just restrict it to monkeys - I'll also include other primates. I've been lucky enough to see three of the four great apes in the wild: gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons. I have not seen chimpanzees in the wild, however. (Note to self: go back to Africa some day, see some chimps as well as some African grey parrots.)

AFRICA

I first encountered wild monkeys in Tanzania. We were on a six-week trip through Africa and as we drove down onto the plains of East Africa from the Central African highlands of Burundi, we could see groups of animals moving through the bush Savannah, alongside the road. They were troops of baboons, a fairly common sight along the plains of Africa, as we were to learn in the ensuing weeks. (A huge pain in the behind, too, around areas where people congregate. They have no fear of man, can be aggressive, and pack a nasty bite. Vehicles always have to be closed and locked tight in parking lots where they frequent, lest you come back to an interior decimated by their hunting for food or other objects that might catch their eyes.)

Maheshe climbs down.

While baboons are fairly common, a week earlier in that trip, I'd encountered something much more rare, one of those experiences that usually only comes once in a lifetime - if you're lucky. On the other side of Burundi sat Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and it was in that country's Kahuzi Biega National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, that I got up close and almost personal with a family of eastern lowland gorillas, an extremely endangered species.

After trekking through the jungle for four hours, we finally spotted the silverback (or he first spotted us, more likely) sitting on a log, checking us out. We passed muster, he wandered back to the rest of the gorillas. We watched a mother nursing a baby on the forest floor, were pelted by fruit flung by some bratty juveniles, then were treated to the sight of Maheshe climbing down from the tree in which they'd been feeding and saunter off into the jungle with his charges.

We were to encounter more monkeys in Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, as well as baboons off and on throughout our African odyssey. Our route did not take us near any wild chimps, though.

BORNEO

Just as endangered as the gorillas of Africa are the orangutans of Asia. They exist in the wild on only two islands, Sumatra and Borneo. I've been fortunate in that I've seen them in two different rehabilitation sanctuaries in Malaysia - Semenggoh and Sepilok - where they live in the forest, but are undergoing gradual re-acclimatization to the wild. They do come to the reserves' feeding stations twice a day, where they can acquire papayas, bananas, cabbages, and other food, then melt back into the forest to pursue the solitary lives they tend to lead.

A young proboscis monkey shows signs of a big nose.

I was even luckier that on two different evenings while participating in wildlife viewing cruises along the Kinabatangan River, I saw two solitary orangutans climbing trees, preparing "night nests" to sleep in.

Many of the creatures at the sanctuaries arrive there after becoming victims of the pet trade. But a much greater threat is posed from habitat loss as a result of the massive deforestation going on so companies can reap the rewards from the palm oil industry.

Obviously, the orangutans are not the only species of animal threatened, although they are arguably the closest to extinction in the wild. But some other iconic primates are also threatened by industrial development.

One of those is the proboscis monkey, a primate that can actually say "size matters" when it comes to the mating game. The size of the males' noses, that is. The males with the biggest, most bulbous, most prominent schnoz tends to get the pick of the ladies. We saw plenty of those monkeys along the Kinabatangan, as well as in Bako National Park, located near the Malaysian city of Kuching.

A gibbon hangs out in the trees of the rain forest.

In addition to the proboscis and other monkeys that live along the Kinabatangan, we also found several gibbons. Like the howler monkeys of the New World, these apes have a very distinctive call that echoes throughout the jungle. However, they are apes, not monkeys - even though they appear to be monkeys, the way they move through the trees - and are more closely related to orangutans and gorillas than their long-tailed cousins.

Like orangutans, gibbons also face dangers from the pet trade and deforestation.

These species are some of our closest relatives in the animal world, many of them having DNA estimated to be 97 per cent similarity to humans.

I feel very privileged to have been able to see many of them in the wild. I would be very sad if that opportunity is lost to the next generation. So in this Year of the Monkey, maybe give some thought about helping out our primate cousins and helping out in any way you can - whether it's through volunteering your time, donating money, being aware of your shopping choices, or even just passing along information about this situation on social media channels.

Here are some websites to help you get started (many of them also have social media pages on Facebook and other platforms):

The Orangutan Land Trust

Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund

The Gibbon Conservation Alliance

The Jane Goodall Institute of Canada

Monkey Worlds

Note that I haven't vetted any of these sites; they're just to help you get started.

Although the thought of losing a species of ape or monkey to extinction is extremely sad, there is still hope. And where there is hope, there can be reason to celebrate efforts to halt the path to extinction. On that note, I'll close out with a silly song featuring monkeys and an orangutan and a place I have not been to yet, India. Enjoy! And since the words are included, feel free to sing along - or even dance!)

Oh, and Happy Year of the Monkey!

The magic of rivers transports us across space and time - but can we keep the magic alive?

Ecuador's Rio Shiripuno: one of many magical
rivers I've journeyed upon.

In the book Wind in the Willows, author Kenneth Grahame wrote, "There’s nothing… absolutely nothing… half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats."


As someone who has been paddling for more than 50 years now, I can't disagree with that.

People often ask me if I prefer river trips to canoe circuits involving a chain of lakes and ponds. They are quite different types of trips, although they both involve water. The former involves starting at one point and finishing at another; the latter, travelling in a circle and returning to your original starting point.

They both have their good points, but the one thing that differentiates a river trip is the fact that it's an exciting journey that potentially sees you never return to where you begin from. That's not always the case, because you may end up shuttling back to your original starting point - but then again, you may not. On circuit trips you can often go either direction, clockwise or counterclockwise. Paddling in either direction can be l-i-t-t-l-e bit harder on a river unless you're on a really slow moving river. Paddling upstream - unless you're a salmon looking to spawn - is a lot of work and not the most pleasant kind of activity to engage in. 

Time to get wet again, on the Zambezi River!
(Photo by Zambezi Video Productions.)

Because of that, there is a magic to rivers, something you feel even if you don't paddle on one. When I was in high school, I used to walk past a river - the Holland River coming out of Fairy Lake in Newmarket - and there was always something about walking past that spot, especially during the spring runoff, that set my imagination to working. There is a timelessness to rivers, which is why they have the power to transport us across space and time. 

Often when you're paddling down a river in a canoe or kayak, you're paddling through history, because thousands of others have probably paddled there, most likely for several centuries. Many times when I canoe - and this is one of the aspects of all canoeing that really appeals to me - I like to imagine I'm a voyageur of old, heading into the wilderness for the Northwest Company, engaged in the fur trade of the late 18th and early 19th centuries across the wilds of Canada. 

My first canoe trips as a youth took me through areas in Ontario that were probably used by the voyageurs, although most of the paddling I did then was on lakes, ponds and very slow rivers.

Rollin' down the river - the Chao Phraya River in Thailand, that is

Since then I've gone on to paddle or travel on many rivers:

• I've canoed on the Athabasca, Red Deer, Bow, and Freeman Rivers in Alberta; 
• kayaked the Harrison River in B.C., and whitewater rafted on the Kicking Horse, Thompson and Fraser Rivers in that province; 
• kayaked among the gators on Florida's Econ River; 
• rafted the mighty Zambezi in Africa among the crocs; 
• kayaked the Rio Shiripuno in Ecuador where we saw wild parrots and harpy eagles;
• been taken up Borneo's Kinabatangan River to see wild orangutans and Thailand's River Kwai (yes, THAT river) by motorized canoes on a cultural/historical adventure; and,
• travelled by rice barge along Thailand's Chao Phraya River, another journey through history.

Because I have always loved being out in nature, on rivers and streams - and for that matter ponds and lakes - I developed an interest in conservation at a very early age. When I was 12, I decided to study forestry in university, to help conserve our natural resources. I started down that path but got sidetracked by a strong interest in journalism and broadcasting. 

One of the locals paddles a dugout canoe
on Borneo's Kinabatangan River.

However, my concern about the importance of conservation of our rivers is just as strong - if not stronger - than it was all those years ago. We ALL should be concerned. Water from rivers gives us life. Without it, life can be extremely difficult. It not only supplies water to drink but habitat for the fish we eat, as well as other animals that depend on the water and fish that live there to survive. 

That's why it's important to recognize and perhaps even attend a local event or two during World Rivers Day, which this year falls on Sunday, Sept. 27. 

There are several events going on at different venues in British Columbia to celebrate B.C. Rivers Day. For example, the city of Burnaby will host an event at the Burnaby Village Museum; the Fraser River Discovery Centre will host its annual Riverfest event, starting Thursday, Sept. 24 and running through until Saturday the 26th.

There are many other events all over the province, the country and the world, too numerous to list all of them here. But a quick search online should provide you with details about local events. Many involve music, conservation and nature displays, some paddle-oriented activities, and plenty of other stuff for families to enjoy - and learn about how we call can help keep our rivers healthy.

I started off with a quote, and I'll finish with one, by environmentalist and author David Brower.

"We must begin thinking like a river if we are to leave a legacy of beauty and life for future generations."