When you think you're done...

This week, we thought there was so little garlic mustard left, we would be done in 15 minutes and would have to look for something else to do. Well, we were in for a surprise when we realized that one of the higher slopes was literally covered with it. We haven't worked there much in the last couple of years and it clearly needed some attention. So, we took a few stewards up hill to tackle this task.

We got our arms (and buckets) full.

The only thing competing with it is (of course) our favourite, the infamous dog- strangling vine also known as swallow-wort.

The genus name is cynanchum . Cynanchum comes from Greek and means "to choke a dog". It's kind of depressing don't you think. But I wouldn't want to discourage anyone so soon, so I'll talk about it some other time.

Meanwhile, another group of stewards got acquainted with stinging nettle, a nasty herbaceous perennial flowering plant that owes its name to the fact that when a person brushes against it, they can get a stinging and burning sensation. Despite our best precautionary warnings, there are always one or two who get stung badly.

Stinging nettle


We're lucky to have a very enthusiastic team of stewards this year and we manage to have a lot of fun.

Garlic Mustard Month

I think we should officially declare the month of May Garlic Mustard Month, at least as far as the stewardship program is concerned. This highly invasive, non native, is everywhere on the site and we usually spend the better part of the month pulling it. It has round shaped, slightly wrinkled leaves that when crushed smell like garlic.


A new steward giving the thumb down to garlic mustard.


The new stewarship season brings both new and returning stewards.


The slope where we worked extensively last year had less garlic mustard this year, although it acquired a few tulips from the slope next door. We think the squirrels might have had had something to do with their displacement.

As usual at this time of the year, the ponds appear quite clear but we know it's just a matter of weeks before they become murky again with duckweed.

The gardening folks at Riverdale have gone all out with the tulips.

Alliaria petiolata or garlic mustard

Springtime at Riverdale Farm

Spring is here and in a little more than a month now the new stewardship season will begin. However, stewards don't often have the opportunity to visit the farm on the evening of stewardship, there's too much that needs to get done. So I decided to post a video graciously provided by Don Watcher, who paid a visit to the farm last week. Enjoy!

Bring Back the Don newsletter

I wrote an article about Riverdale Farm Ponds in the Fall 2008 issue of the Bring Back the Don Newsletter. It pretty much summarizes the work we do all summer and it contains pictures from this blog. Take a look.

Company

While we were taking samples from the pond this week for the Benthic macroinvertebrates study, we were in the company of several black-crowned night herons. I've never seen so many at that spot, usually there are only one of two. And they were pretty close too. We tried not to disturb them but they were probably wondering what we were doing. However, I don't think they were interested in the macroinvertebrates insects, there was plenty of goldfish for them to feast on.

Monitoring water quality

Benthic macroinvertebrates

This week, we did the annual collection of benthic macroinvertebrates. They are animals found on the bottom of a water body that are large enough to be seen with the naked eye and lack a backbone and internal skeleton. They are relatively sedentary and widespread, with varying tolerances to changes in water and sediment quality.

As in previous years, we were joined by members of Citizens Environment Watch, an organization which provides education, equipment and support for community-based environmental monitoring and stewardship. The monitoring procedure that CEW developed enable volunteers to sample stream habitats for benthic macroinvertebrates. The procedure includes necessary information to collect, process and identify benthic macroinvertebrates found in southern Ontario watersheds.

Collecting samples in one of the Riverdale ponds

The sampling is performed using a D-net (so-called because it's in the shape of a D) which is placed firmly against the stream bottom. Afterwards, the D-net is emptied into a sieve over a bucket or large tray and stewards use squeeze bottles and water from the stream to rinse the net. Once this is done, it's time to look for the bugs and try to find them. Unfortunately, at Riverdale, there is so much mud that it's very difficult to see anything. We managed to find a few, including isopoda (sow bugs) which have a tolerance value of 8 or high tolerance to poor conditions.

We should soon have the results of our experiment and I will post them as soon as they come.

Massey/Goulding estate

Last week, the team went on an outing to the Massey/Goulding estate on Dawes Road north of the Danforth. It is part of the Taylor Massey Creek and the group Friends of the Don East has been maintaining the site. They basically removed all the Manitoba Maple and other non native trees from the area and planted native species so the area now offers a lot of diversity for birds and wildlife. We observed a lot of goldfinches there. However, even though the Manitoba Maples have been removed, there are still a lot of saplings and this kind of tree grows very fast so after our tour, we proceeded to remove those invasives. The size of the saplings is pretty impressive, especially when you only expect some small shrubs.


Some of the Manitoba Maples that we removed.