June 27, 2025
Week four started in a very productive way, planting trees and shrubs to enhance the coastal buffer zone along the Westmoreland river estuary. Big thanks to the Kensington North Watersheds Association (KNWSA) for coming out for the day to help us plant around 800 trees and shrubs on Monday alone! On Tuesday, the crew continued planting this riparian buffer while Ian and Cameron began their chainsaw training. Tuesday was also exciting because the first of our tree swallow clutches began to hatch! We saw some very very young birds in one of the nests when we went to check, and we are looking forward to the rest of our nests hatching soon.
Wednesday morning, the crew finally finished planting the last of the riparian buffer zone, totaling roughly 1300 plants! In the afternoon, half the crew went out to do a stream assessment in Tryon, while the other half talked to some landowners in our watersheds to ask permission to conduct our work. If you have not given us permission, live in our area, and own property with a stream or estuary on it, please fill out and send us a permission form LMIK. While most of the crew was hard at work, Ian and Cameron were tearing it up at chainsaw training.
Thursday, Matt and Nout went out to Kensington to help out KNWSA with their Grade Six Environmental Fun Day, by running a Tree Identification station. Afterwards, Island Falconry came out to show off two of their raptors to the kids, and Matt and Nout got to hold the Peregrine Falcon! The rest of the crew started park maintenance and did a stream survey in Tryon while avoiding the thunderstorms.
On Friday, some of the crew went out to maintain the rest of the parks, and the others went out to make brush mats. All in all, a very productive end to the week.
Hope you can find some sun!
Love, SSWA
