Birds from a Cariboo Deck No.5 - American Robin

A pair of robins have honoured us with setting up a nest nearby. They join others in the neighbourhood in their sweet evening singing. Aside from singing, the most popular visible activity of robins is their flamboyant bathing:

More Birds from A Cariboo Deck

Kamloops/Thompson School District gets free software

Some interesting news on the computing front:
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Kamloops school district gets an education in free software
Tuesday June 05, 2007
By: Bruce Byfield

The Kamloops/Thompson School District in British Columbia, Canada, is a free software success story. Gregg Ferrie, manager of information technology for the district, believes its infrastructure may be "the largest Linux on-the-desktop implementation in Western Canada" in public education. According to Ferrie, hardly a week goes by without another of British Columbia's more than 60 school districts consulting Kamloops. Currently, five other districts are considering or planning to implement the Kamloops district's custom-built thin client solution, and the department of education at the University of British Columbia is also investigating the possibility.

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Fairyslipper / Calypso Orchid - spring beauty

Here in central BC it's the season. Fairyslippers are still fairly common, despite significant loss of habitat and being very fragile. For those who express their appreciation for flowers by picking them, these flowers are vulnerable because of their beauty and because picking a bloom can easily uproot the whole plant. Join me in a salute to the Calypso orchid (I prefer that name - more dignified).

And, yes, that is a little insect crawling up our beauty's face.

More on Wild BC.

Birds from a Cariboo Deck No.4 - Dark-eyed Junco

Once the Varied Thrush invasion subsided, the Dark-eyed Juncos started arriving in numbers. These birds enliven our back yard with their cheerful twitting and the little flashes of white as they fly around.

More Birds from A Cariboo Deck

I've just heard from our neighbour that he is planning to take down most of his trees - essentially the continuation of our bit of forest.

Part of our forest at dusk

This will of course have a direct impact on the fauna and flora on his property and, I suspect, a smaller but significant impact on the life on our little acre. It was only a few weeks ago that I photographed a couple of deer on his land.

Birds from a Cariboo Deck No.3 - Varied Thrush

It's been a while but spring has sprung and definitely time to feature another bird seen from my back deck. This time the honour falls to the Varied Thrush who this spring arrived in unprecedented numbers and stayed longer than ever (there are still a couple around). It's the males who arrive first so I will feature a male varied thrush here:

More Birds from A Cariboo Deck

Earth Day 2007

As the birds come north . . .

. . . celebrating the day, the birds and the air we breathe.

Photo: April 21. Birds over the Cariboo. Photo Jeffrey Newman.

More British Columbia birds

Canadian Architect magazine praises new Osoyoos museum

For some time I've been hearing and reading about this beautiful new museum in Osoyoos. The Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre is set on the Osoyoos Indian Reserve and is part of a larger resort destination being developed for the band. I came a across this substantial and generously-illustrated introduction to the museum in Canadian Architect.

Don't bring apples - and the apple maggot - home with you.

If we who who live in the Interior and visit the Lower Mainland and points south, are very careful, we can play a part in delaying the arrival of the apple maggot in the Okanagan. The simple request of vulnerable apple farmers in the Okanagan valley and other interior BC apple-growing areas is: Don't bring back any apples. This delay will, at least, give growers a little time to prepare. The little beast is already established in the Lower Mainland amongst the apples and crab apples. According to a Ministry of Agriculture entomologist, quoted in an article in the Vancouver Sun,

The southern Interior of B.C. is the only apple-growing region in North America that is currently free of apple maggots . . . It made its way [across North America] from the eastern U.S., where it originated. Once the insect establishes itself in the Okanagan, countries that import Okanagan fruit could impose trade restrictions.

Help Save Monarch Butterflies

Photographer made this available under a Creative Commons License

On this side of the continent, we have the western Monarch and it seems that both eastern and western varieties are under threat because of massive loss of habitat brought on by modern farming methods, especially the use of Roundup Ready corn and soybeans.

So, the call is out for individuals anywhere in the monarch range to provide what they can by way of "way stations" for these exceptional migrators.

Some Insects of the BC Interior: Text and pictures.

Kettle Valley farmer tries to stop radio-active mining on his land

A Rancher's Radioactive Hell

Joe Falkoski says he's being forced by bad laws to allow toxic mining on his land.
A special report By Kendyl Salcito
January 4, 2007

Falkoski with barite chunk at prospecting site left barren.

TheTyee.ca

What do you do if you are a rancher told by a company -- and then the courts -- that there is nothing you can do to stop your rangeland from being dug up and further strewn with radiation?

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