A local naturalist hopes his massive four-year bird study will get more people interested in the Riel Wetlands.
St. Albert naturalist Dan Stoker presented a report to city council this week on his ongoing study of birds in the wetlands. The semi-scientific study, which he has been working on since 2008, seeks to catalogue the type, number and arrival dates of bird species in five regions south of the Big Lake Environment Support Society's observation platform, including the John E. Poole wetlands.
The study involved about 150 hours of fieldwork, resulting in about 30,000 observations. The records for the Poole wetlands alone fill a spreadsheet that's six feet long, and have been provided to Ducks Unlimited and the city's office of the environment.
This is citizen science, Stoker says, and an example of how the city can tap into the expertise of its volunteer community.
"Citizens can participate. We can offer our expertise and even provide some leadership."
Big project
A trained biologist and avid birder, Stoker says he got the idea for this study when he read that most of what we know of birds comes from amateur observers.
When work on Riel Pond started back in 2008, he saw it as an opportunity to track how development would affect birds in the region over time.
He started doing detailed 15-minute surveys of the Poole wetlands, Riel Pond, the canoe club pond, the Enjoy Centre pond and a stretch of the Sturgeon River, recording all the birds he saw. These surveys were done on about 124 days outside of winter during the last four years.
Many of the study's findings are common sense, Stoker says, but having them in hard numbers allows any trends to be spotted.
The study's summary report includes observations on the numbers, nesting habits and arrival times of about 83 different bird species. It confirms that redwing blackbirds are the most common bird in the Poole region, for example, and that they consistently arrive in mid-April and leave by mid-August. This information should be of interest to birders, Stoker says, and could be useful to interpreters and tourists on the boardwalk.
The Enjoy Centre pond was the least studied region, Stoker says, as it was only recently established.
"It's not being used by a lot of birds," he says, but that could change as more plants are added to it. At least one family of ducks have nested in it, he adds.
Water concerns
The study raises concerns that low water levels in the Poole wetland may be driving away birds.
A look at the spreadsheets suggests that the Poole wetlands were populated by vast numbers of ducks and geese prior to 2010, almost all of which vanished after 2011. Stoker says this is likely due in part to the construction of the Poole boardwalk in 2011 and partly to low water levels in the marsh.
"I would hate to see the marsh go back to the way it was 10 years ago," when it was almost completely dried out, he says.
Water from Riel Pond is supposed to spill into the Poole wetlands after the pond reaches a certain height, explains city environmental manager Leah Jackson, but that hasn't been happening. The outlet connecting the two water bodies has been clogged since 2009 due to the fine screen used to stop invasive fish from escaping Riel Pond.
Jackson says city crews unclogged the pipe last winter so water should actually flow into the wetlands now. Water levels in the wetlands will go up and down, mimicking natural cycles, as the water in Riel Pond won't always be high enough to spill over. "Some years, if it's really, really dry, you're not going to get your normal water level."
The city has been monitoring the Riel Wetlands while building Ray Gibbon Drive, Jackson says, and has included Stoker's observations in some of its reports to the province.
"Any information that helps us decide how we're going to manage the wetlands and marsh in the long term is useful information."
Stoker says he's glad to see water flowing into the Poole wetlands, and that he plans to keep adding to his study for the foreseeable future. "This isn't a chore for me."
He also hopes it will get more people interested in the region. "If you don't have more people interested in places like wetlands, then you lose them."
Copies of the report are available from Stoker or the office of the environment.
