Since the weather has been extremely favourable for spring-type activities, ( hold on though, there's probably worse on the way), it is a good time to suggest a great link for getting in the spirit of rebirth, renewal etc. Google "Journey North" and you can follow many things migratory, as they make their way towards us. Try here"http://www.learner.org/jnorth/season/" and choose one choose them all, now is the season. 

Last Monday, February 15th we spent the day at the government buildings as part of the celebrations for the holiday. The operative "we" being the owl (Sir Oliver) and myself. Sir Oliver always gets top billing at this event. The Legislature staff always make up signs advertising his coming and going so most people know his name when they come to see him. We have our own room and there was a line-up for most of the 4 hours (12 to 4 PM) the event spans. It seemed the majority of visitors were between the ages of 1 and 6 years old. It really didn't matter to Sir Oliver who seemed to be quite interested in anyone who came along. This is an event we attend every year and this year was well attended despite it being inside and the beautiful weather. There were ice-sculptures, wagon rides, crafts for the kids and free hot chocolate among other things. You can visit the Gallery for more photos. 

On Friday March 5th Scott Glover and his mom visited the Shelter with a donation. Scott has generously donated the money from a fund-raiser he conducted. Thanks Scott! Great stuff. (See the Gallery) 

  Although there have been reports of Snowy owls as early as mid-October (3 reports) we haven't had any at the Shelter.  On the other hand there have been a recent flurry of Goshawks (2), young Red-tails, (4) a Great Grey owl , a young Golden eagle found hungry on the reserve at Hobbema and a young Bald Eagle found shot near Slave Lake.  We don't get many birds that are shot.  The last Bald was probably 1988 and is still here.  Over the past 10 years the popular target has been Merlins in the city although that too seems to have lost its popularity.  This Bald, a large young female appears to have picked up some bird-shot that broke her wing and grounded her for maybe 10 days before we got her.  The surgery on October 31 applied a plate to the break. It will be some weeks before we know the outcome.

In other news,after 26 years heating with propane we will be shifting to natural gas the first week of November.  It will be an interesting change considering it costs $100 a week to heat the building in winter.  I have to say that Apollo Propane has been good to us over the years and we will continue to be a customer for some of the outbuildings, old habits never die.

Our ever popular Saturday work crew has been busy, fixing aviaries, administering to our mouse colony, moving shaking  and keeping things up-to-date.  Many thanks to the guys who come out for those.We will be starting some basic roof repair soon.

On a sad note the Imperial Bingo Association has been forced to close the Flamingo Bingo hall at Millbourne Shopping Centre.  There will be a void for many of the ardent bingo fans in that area.  Many thanks to all our volunteers there that helped through these past few months and years, Ron, Rena, Flora, Danny, Ellie, Leona in administration, thanks to everyone past and present. We wish hem success when they reopen in their new yet-to-be-announced venue.

KG

 

Further to last year's nest, this year the eagles laid again, this time on March 23rd. It was in the same place but with two eggs.  They were doing really well until the heavy snow storm hit on April 21st and destroyed the netting in the aviary.  They continued with the eggs for another two days until we put them inside and collected the eggs which were unfertile. Maybe next year....

Since then we have been busy rebuilding the aviary which lost one corner pole.  We will replace it as soon as the frost is out of the ground.

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On March 27 of last year we were feeding in the large aviary when the Bald Eagles started acting strangely. The large female was defending an area underneath some scaffolding (courtesy of Spar Aviation) that was used as a feeding area. Eva announced that she thought they were making a nest. It didn't seem likely.

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