Help to place Saskatoon and Area on the World Nature Stage!
This is an amazing virtual ID session to flip unknowns on iNaturalist! Have you never come across an unknown on iNaturalist? Well here is a wonderful evening of fun!
Anyone at all can help with identifications, and help flip unknowns! You don’t even have to know anything about the species. Teams of experts will be reviewing and updating the information that’s submitted, so you can log back in later and learn more about what you’ve been working on. You get out of iNaturalist what you put into it!
So it is just fine if you just stay with the larger taxon unit, and suggest that the observation looks like an elephant, deer, rhinoceros, butterfly, flowering plant, ant, spider, and just let the specialist scientists do the rest. There are extra points in Saskatchewan for anyone who discovers the elephant and rhinoceros in the Saskatchewan observations though 😉
We look forward to you coming on by! The City Nature Challenge runs between April 29 to May 2 Saskatoon and area will compete for the title of the most Biodiverse City. We need your help. The goals are to engage the public in the collection of biodiversity data, with three awards each year for the cities and areas that 1/ makes the most observations, 2/ find the most species, and 3/ engage the most people. We’re so excited to have this fun friendly competition with a chance to place Saskatoon and Area on the World Stage for the City Nature Challenge 2022! #CNCYXE People going out during their baseball games, and finding ladybugs on their iNaturalist app, or taking photos through iNaturlist of ants while watching soccer games is wonderful! What about the dog walk, what plants and animals will FIDO sniff at? With iNaturalist loaded onto your smart phone, you can find the names of these plants and animals, insects and mushrooms. Help your students and sons, and daughters discover the names of What is it?
These identification parties are wonderful tools to “find the most species.” So thanks for coming along.
iNaturalist Connect with nature for the City Nature Challenge Saskatoon and Area Défi nature urbaine hosted by the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc.Camera, Photgraph your story in the forestRichard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area Spring timeRichard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area, Saskatoon, SK, CA Spring time
Nearing the end of day one of the City Nature Challenge. Quite a few waterfowl are back, and a lovely array of dark-eyed junco are seen. Some amazing pictures making the scene, two turkey vultures soaring overhead, and a cute playful North American River Otter peeking out of the water giving a smile! A mourning cloak butterfly loved the warm weather today. So these are just some tidbits of what has been seen during the Saskatoon City Nature Challenge! And the rabbits cannot make up their mind. A white rabbit was seen and a brown rabbit, so will we get more snow or not. Usually the color of the rabbits confirm spring once they are brown. The songs of the songbirds is quite amazing and what a treat for International Dawn Chorus Day which is the first Sunday of May! Our hint for the CNCYXE2022, remember to record the songs of the songbirds! Take photos of seeds and pine cones on the ground. Remember the trees are starting to flower. Bugs are just waiting to peek out if you move some of the leaves on the ground. The CNCYXE is very important this year. Citizen Scientists can document if the Avian flu is affecting our bird population. What will you see?
Help show the world what Saskatoon’s biodiversity looks like – and sounds like—grab your smartphone, the free @inaturalistorg app, & join this year’s #CityNatureChallenge from April 29–May 2! Great for all ages; find details at FriendsAreas.ca #CNCYXE
Meadowlark
Celebrate 50 years! Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and George Genereux Urban Regional park were planted to trees in 1972, 50 years ago. Come out and say Happy Birthday!
Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.
H. Jackson Brown Jr.
National Volunteer Week April 24 – 30, how will you celebrate? Help show the world what Saskatoon’s biodiversity looks like—grab your smartphone, the free @iNaturalist app, & join this year’s #CityNatureChallenge from April 29–May 2! Great for all ages; find details at FriendsAreas.ca
‘Volunteering is Empathy in Action.’
“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
Atticus Finch a character in “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee
Climb inside the skin of our native wildlife. Learn about the habitat for our herons, and where they might live as our cities grow larger and larger. Climb into the skin of a native butterfly and where they may fly to find a native pollinator flower that is not covered in pesticides. Climb inside the skin of the last remaining mammals and where they may live.
Volunteer with the City Nature Challenge. A great way to study range expansion and contraction, seasonal changes in morphology, the declining or increasing numbers of species at risk or invasive species. By observing local nature, everyone can support vital conservation research while connecting with nature and enjoying the outdoors.
Goldenrod Gall Fly Eurosta solidaginis Conservation Status: imperiled (S2S4) in Saskatchewan, CA (NatureServe)Ranked S2 by SCDC
Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides Hairy Woodpecker male (note the red) (Picoides villosus)Spring Meadowlark.
Celebrate 50 years! Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and George Genereux Urban Regional park were planted to trees in 1972, 50 years ago. Come out and say Happy Birthday!
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
– Gandhi
During this National Volunteer Week, April 24 – 30 celebrate the theme; ‘Volunteering is Empathy in Action.’
Have empathy for the very last time you may see a species at risk if action is not taken. Have empathy for the declining songbird population. Have empathy for the many organisms in the insect and fungi taxons which have not even been named yet, and which may go extinct before people pay attention to them.
Your contributions as an observer during the City Nature Challenge taking place April 29 to May 2 does take action to support global conservation efforts! Just download the free iNaturalist app and sign in, then;
Find it!
Snap it!
Share it!
“You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”
Winston Churchill
What can you give to protect Mother Earth? The City Nature Challenge is your way to take action, so that you can answer I took action!
Taking a photo of mushrooms (fungi) with a smart phoneMushrooms, Grasshopper, Caterpillar, FungiCity Nature Challenge City Nature Challenge CNCYXE Saskatoon
Celebrate 50 years! Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and George Genereux Urban Regional park were planted to trees in 1972, 50 years ago. Come out and say Happy Birthday!
Learning how to make identifications on iNaturalist. From April 29-May 2 we hope many people around Saskatoon and Area will make observations of nature by downloading the free iNaturalist app to their smart phone. It’s as easy as 1-2-3
From May 3 to May 8 is the identification phase. If you would like some hints and tips to help out, here is an online webinar to make identification easier!
We need your help!
May 9 is when the City Nature Challenge winners from around the World will be announced.
Well still no luck at finding the Missing Linden Tree, but an endangered species was located on the Sundays At Two bioblitz or Nature Connect adventure. Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides napa is an adorable small butterfly that also has some moth like features in the appearance of its body. Though it is classified as a skipper. This little Woodland Skipper is not found in Saskatchewan, is tracked by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre.
Ranked S2 by SCDC
Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides
This little Woodland Skipper is tracked by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre, and is considered S2 which translates to
Imperiled/Very rare
At high risk of extinction or extirpation due to a very restricted range, very few populations, steep declines, threats or other factors.
Master Gardeners Association of British Columbia [MGABC} says “the name Ochlodes is Greek for turbulent or unruly, from the swift, erratic flight of the members of this genus. The name sylvanoides is derived from the Latin silva (woods or forest).” MGABC also confirms that the larvae feed on many species of grass, which makes the afforestation areas rather handy. The adults also like the nectar of Cirsium (thistles), Taraxacum officnale (Dandelion).
The nifty thing is that they receive their name skipper because they have a unique skipping pattern when they fly says Prairie Pollination Virtual Museum.
Usually they are found in western Canada and USA, and are not usually found in Saskatchewan at all according to the Bugguide.
To date there are a number of endangered or species at risk in the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas as documented by photographs, or observations via e-Bird or iNaturalist and various observers.
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′
Addresses:
Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A
Part SE 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A
S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A
NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063
Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot
What do you think of a 175,218 square meter allocation for a YXE pollinator paradise?
For an urban city like Saskatoon planning to meet one million residents by 2063, it is wise to show environmental leadership. The City of Saskatoon cannot do it alone, residents have to come to the forefront to help with pollinator garden planting.
Wild About Saskatoon mentions that “the first 50 people to certify your back yard, garden, or school yard as a Pollinator Paradise will receive our beautiful Pollinator Paradise YXE sign (retail value $39.95) for free.”
Query? Should there be pollinator gardens planted in the two afforestation areas by making use of the Utility Right-Of-Ways? What would it mean? Checking out the ROW zones of the afforestation areas on Google Earth there would be:
There is the potential for a whopping 141,536 square meters of pollinator gardens at Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
AND
There is also potential for another 33,682 square metes of pollinator gardens at George Genereux Urban Regional Park
What do you think? Is 175,218 square meters of pollinator paradise something which would show good environmental and pollinator-friendly management practices? Is it a good idea?
Already from the closure of the east side of Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area to motorized vehicular traffic, the number of native plants is exponentially increasing without motorized vehicles using the urban regional park as a road bringing in invasive plants from everywhere. There is starting to be a rebound with an increase in native plants, and numbers of species already – without an anthropogenic management plan, just letting Mother Nature do the native flora plantings!
Pollinator
Pollinator
Pollinator
Bee
Bee
There are a few more resources included as follows:
Budburst: Budburst brings together researchers, horticulturists, and community scientists on a shared journey to uncover the stories of plants affected by human impacts on the environment. Budburst tells these stories through data collection, data sharing, education, and personal connections.
Please help protect / enhance your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail / e-transfers )Support the afforestation areas with your donation or membership ($20.00/year). Please donate by paypal using the e-mail friendsafforestation AT gmail.com, or by using e-transfers Please and thank you! Your donation and membership is greatly appreciated. Donate your vehicle to Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. to raise funds for afforestation areas. Click here to find out more. Members e-mail your contact information to be kept up to date! Canada Helps
Sundays at Two! iNaturalist besides using smart id technology, also has an amazing team working behind the scenes helping to identify your photos. This is why 14,000 people helped me to document plants and animals.
Fraxinus_pennsylvanica Green Ash Opposite leaves which are pinnately compound with 7 to 9 serrate leaflets that are elliptical to lanceolate to elliptical in shape, entire leaf is 6 to 9 inches long, green on the top of the leaflets and silky smooth to silky-pubescent and paler below. Margins of the leaflets are either smooth or coarsely saw-toothed. Each leaflet has a short stalk or may be sessile and the leaf has a much longer stem. The little leaflets at the base are the teensiest of the leaflets
George Genereux Urban Regional Park, George Genereux Urban Regional Park, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in the autumn
Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), wetlands mammal enjoys the emergent vegetation around Chappell Marsh such as cattails
Every Sunday at Two we are meeting at the afforestation areas to document plants and animals, and we hope you will join us. Come with your smart phone, and download the iNaturalist app onto your smart phone before you come out.
While we are out there, we will give you a tutorial, and then we will find just how many plants, animals, insects and mushrooms we can photograph with the iNaturalist app! It is great fun, and this citizen scientist data collection is ever so helpful to figure out an ecological assessment of the afforestation areas.
All you have to do is register on Eventbrite, and we will send out the GPS coordinates of where we will meet up. Every Sunday at two, we will explore another section in the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area, or in George Genereux Urban Regional Park.
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′
Addresses:
Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A
Part SE 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A
S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A
NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063
Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot
Learn about butterflies day!!! Sunday March 14 is the day to take some time out of your schedule, not to smell the flowers, but to learn about butterflies. We have some amazing butterflies here in our province, if we choose to preserve their habitats, and work towards establishing pollinator ribbons and pollinator gardens.
Keep your eyes peeled this spring for the Black Swallowtail Butterfly. The Cabbage Butterfly is almost always flittering around and about a purple native flower. Canadian Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies are amazing. And Checkered Whites are a treat to see. Perhaps you prefer a Clouded Sulphur Butterfly or a Common Ringlet. There is a Common Wood-Nymph butterfly which brings to mind magical and mystical creatures living in the forest and meadows. There are so many more butterflies here in our province, but only if we look after their eco-system. They need pollinator plants which are not affected by herbicides. A pollinator plant with herbicides on it will kill the butterfly, the eggs and larva ;-(
There are also butterfly species at risk to consider also. Please consider making a donation to the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. to help protect the butterflies and their much needed habitats.
Try your luck at spotting Monarchs, and call Nature Saskatchewan at 1-800-667-4668. Capture your sighting with a photograph on iNaturalist. Download the iNaturalist.pdf pamphlet
So, you say why in the dickens should I stop to learn about butterflies in Saskatchewan in the winter when the snow is melting? Well, there are times, when it is necessary to start a pollinator garden inside, now when the snow is on the ground, so that the little sprouts are ready to place tenderly into the soil when the snow is gone. That is why!!!
Butterflies can’t see their wings. They can’t see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that as well
Naya Rivera
The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly
“If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.” — Raymond Inmon
A great and undeniable problem has arisen. The dilemna which calls calls from the heights of the untrodden immutable forest kingdom. Yet borne up within by courage unflinching, the morning’s faint light through the narrow embrasure, rugged, majestic, the trees, they tower far above.
The June Rose has bloomed as if on cue with calendraic reminder that May has past. Joining June Rose across the vast prairies is Canada Anemone, white and true, and waving as a spring bonnet in the breeze High Hush Cranberry flower doilies toss to and fro. Traveling yet the plains, what could possibly capture the heart more than the delicate bloom of the False Solomon’s Seal and Bunch Berry or, no, it just may be the blossom of the Red Osier Dogwood.
One may then cry out forests are perfect! However, that leads one to the problem at hand. In the course of this June study we shall have to touch on what is called the problem of perfection and grandeur. But in this primary matter of the ideal the difficulty is not the problem of magnificence, or perfection, but mayhaps the problem of abundance. Life, thus unfolds and is full of little problems, which arise suddenly and find one wholly unprepared with a solution.
What is that you say? Is it not a wonder to behold the sunset, A gold fringe on the purpling hem of woodlands or mayhaps the sunrise, the fresh-blown rose of dawn, is that not what one should call perfect and spectacular? The reflections of the sky captured in the waters below, amplifying the beauty times two – nay this is perfection! Did you forget perchance, amid the broken clouds the rainbow’s angel spanned? The double rainbow colours bright or light prism dancing amid the crystal dew, what could be more perfect than that? Did you not catch sight of the butterfly flittering past, the Swallowtail and Fritallaries and Mourning Cloaks? Did you stop to listen to listen to the warbling notes from her fair songsters’ feathered throats ~ are these tunes not Perfection at its finest?
You are left free to judge of these problems and dilemnas now with fresh minds to ponder and consider these issues… And this brings the tale to another problem. Which is more perfect, the wetlands fresh the new families of ducks, and goslings or the understorey bedecked in blooms, or the marsh spangled with the rays of the Aurora Borealis? How, then is one to choose? On this particular June day, how will the problem resolve? Or do your heart strings pull at the sight of a glorious winter’s hoar frost day, the majestic mountain, rippling waterfall, or span of ocean?
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” — John Muir
Be contented; enjoy your fine imagination; and do not throw your salad out of window, nor shove your cat off your knee, on hearing it said that Shakespeare has a finer, or that a minister is of opinion that you know more of music than of nature.
The exertion of intellectual power, of fancy and imagination affords us greatly more than their enjoyment. We are motes in the midst of generations: we have our sunbeams to circuit and climb. Look at the summits of the trees around us, how they move, and the loftiest the most: nothing is at rest within the compass of our view.
Do not imagine that the illusion is, or can be, or ought to be, complete. Imagination makes encroachments on the heart, and uses it as her own. Imagination could finish the story, this single June Day confronts the senses with the main outline of the whole problem.
“Yesterday was the happiest day of my life. Every new day that follows the previous day is happier and what better than this I can wish for my friend. “I wish you health and strength of an oak, the long life of a redwood.” Richard St. Barbe Baker
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′
Addresses:
Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A
Part SE 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A
S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A
NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063 Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)? with map
Please help protect / enhance your afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail / e-transfers )
Support the afforestation areas with your donation or membership ($20.00/year). Please donate by paypal using the e-mail friendsafforestation AT gmail.com, or by using e-transfers Please and thank you! Your donation and membership is greatly appreciated. Members e-mail your contact information to be kept up to date!
“St. Barbe’s unique capacity to pass on his enthusiasm to others. . . Many foresters all over the world found their vocations as a result of hearing ‘The Man of the Trees’ speak. I certainly did, but his impact has been much wider than that. Through his global lecture tours, St. Barbe has made millions of people aware of the importance of trees and forests to our planet.” Allan Grainger
“The science of forestry arose from the recognition of a universal need. It embodies the spirit of service to mankind in attempting to provide a means of supplying forever a necessity of life and, in addition, ministering to man’s aesthetic tastes and recreational interests. Besides, the spiritual side of human nature needs the refreshing inspiration which comes from trees and woodlands. If a nation saves its trees, the trees will save the nation. And nations as well as tribes may be brought together in this great movement, based on the ideal of beautifying the world by the cultivation of one of God’s loveliest creatures – the tree.” ~ Richard St. Barbe Baker.
Hiking Boots ready for the trail
DEDICATION.I need give my verse no hint as to whom it sings for. The rose, knowing her own right, makes servitors of the light-rays to carry her color. So every line here shall in some sense breathe of thee, and in its very face bear record of her whom, however unworthily, it seeks to serve and honor. ~George Parsons Lathrop
![IMG_8741[1]](https://stbarbebaker.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/img_87411.jpg?w=358&resize=358%2C358#038;h=358&crop=1 "IMG_8741[1]")
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area. George Genereux Urban Regional Park. 