Thanks to a grant from TD Friends of the Environment Foundation, our Glory Hills natural area has more places for wildlife to nest and roost.
Edmonton area Girl Guides put together 10 songbird nest boxes for us as a group project at their Guide Friendship Camp, and 11 volunteers helped install them throughout the property in April. Not only will small birds such as black-capped chickadees and house wrens have more opportunities to nest, we also added five waterfowl nest boxes for bufflehead and common goldenye – two duck species that nest in tree cavities or artificial nest boxes.
In addition to the bird boxes, we installed seven bat roosting boxes. Installing artificial bat boxes is a particularly important step in light of the recent listing of three bat species as Endangered in Canada.
To top off this project, we saved a very special project for Earth Day. Staff and a team of eight volunteers constructed a floating nesting platform for loons. It took many hands to carry the heavy logs and a lot of coordination to launch the platform with kayaks into the water in a protected cove of the lake. We hope that the loon pair we see every year will be able to put the platform to good use.
Thank you to the Wildbird General Store for providing discounts on the materials for our project, and to TD Friends of the Environment Foundation for providing a grant that made this project possible.
