Volume 53 Number 1 August 2010 The Ottawa Valley: Newly Protected Areas in the Province of Quebec With Joël Bonin Monday, October 4, 2010, 7:30 PM We start a new fall season with a well-known friend of Clarendon and Fort William. An update on the Breckenridge BPQ and a subject dear to our hearts. The Nature Conservancy program will also be on the agenda. Volunteers from the of Canada has been active in acquiring Outaouais birdwatching club are monitoring new natural sites along the Ottawa River se veral of these sites and you are invited to over the past 10 years. Some BPQ join forces with them to increase our members are familiar with Breckenridge, knowledge of these new sanctuaries. a 600-acre farm and woodland facing the Joël Bonin is an ecologist and river where the Loggerhead Shrike herpetologist (salamanders). His first recovery program was undertaken in mandate with NCC was in 1989 in Covey early 2000 with assistance from our Hill while completing a Master’s degree Society. Half a dozen sites have been with Roger Bider from McGill University. added since then, with recent field work He helped out with the management of revealing some of their natural features. the Philipsburg Sanctuary, banded birds The speaker will guide us through the on Île-aux-Basques and has taken part in network of protected areas from Gatineau/Ottawa up to Fort the Mount Royal bird count, among other things. Land William. We will discover the Kettle Island swamp forest, the protection is his passion and he will share it with any others alvars open flat rock habitat in Aylmer, the Quyon and Brystol who want to preserve the natural world for the future. shorelines, as well as the forest stands at Grand Marais, Gail Desnoyers Fall Migration Monitoring at MBO The seventh fall season is now underway at the McGill Bird We were lucky to reach our 200th species last spring, Observatory (MBO). Banding and daily censuses began on with a beautiful Great Egret found hiding amongst the reeds August 1 and will run until October 30. Volunteers are in the back pond. What surprises will this season hold? As of needed to fill the many roles that are essential to the operation June 5, 2010, a total of 24,260 birds of 105 species have been of the station: observers, net assistants, lane maintenance, banded at the MBO. With these kinds of numbers, it’s no scribes and banders. If you like walking in the morning, keeping surprise that we’re continually finding new species, plumages company with nature enthusiasts and observing birds in the and other wonders of nature on-site or in our nets. Please join bush and in the hand, then MBO is the place for you! Visit us for one morning or many, and we guarantee you’ll learn, www.migrationresearch.org/mbo.html for more information. appreciate and enjoy birds like never before. Gay Gruner Table of Contents President’s Message...............................2 Monthly Meetings..................................5 Birdviews...........................................8-10 Membership News............................3-4 Le monde des oiseaux et des chats...5-6 BirdWord...............................................10 Award Committee Report.....................4 Ruffling Feathers....................................7 Field Trip Diaries............................11-13 Attention All Wannabe Editors!...........4 From the Desk of a Young Birder.........7 Île Verte Diary.......................................13 Speaker’s Corner ......................................... 5 COAQ is Coming!..................................7 Upcoming Field Trips.....................14-16 Message From Our President Bird Protection Quebec It was heartening to see such good attendance at the May AGM by our membership. This AGM was special because Richard Gregson presented and explained the proposed changes to BPQ’s bylaws. Richard chaired the committee which oversaw the bylaw renewal process. He received strong assistance from Marie-Hélène Gauthier and other committee members. Richard and his committee did an outstanding job . I thank them wholeheartedly for a job well done! The new bylaws, which were Education Conservation Observation approved by the membership, include some radical changes which now bring us into Bird Protection Quebec is the operational complete conformity with Quebec laws. Key changes include the fact that Board name of The Province of Quebec So ciety for members will now be elected at the AGM for two years, renewable for up to 10 years, the Protection of Birds. at which point they will have to stand down for one year. Previously, the maximum Established January 4, 1917 service period was nine years, with three consecutive three-year terms. As well, the new Board will elect its officers at the first Board meeting rather than having them be Officers elected by the membership at the AGM. President Jeff Harrison After the passing of our new bylaws, our AGM followed its usual routine which Vice-Presidents Richard Gregson Marie-Hélène Gauthier included the Treasurer’s and President’s reports, the election of new directors, and the Hon. Vice-Presidents Robert Carswell presentation of our awards. Our Treasurer, Jean Harwood Gregson, presented a very Felix Hilton positive report as our finances are improving with the apparent market Mabel McIntosh recovery. I had a great deal of trouble cutting my report down to something Peter Mitchell manageable! For an all-volunteer organization, we accomplished a great deal over the Treasurer Jean Gregson Secretary Jean Bacon last year. A full account will be available in the next tch ébec . It is always a pleasure to Membership Secretary Sharon Veysey hand out the awards, many of which are discretionary. The committee has been very Website Manager Richard Gregson careful in the selection process to ensure that the awards remain special. Newsletter Editor Marie-Anne Hudson The new members elected to our Board are Nick Acheson, Jean-Emmanuel Arsenault, Jane Cormack, Gail Desnoyers, Barbara Frei, Sarah Marteinson, and Jim Bird Protection Quebec/PQSPB is a registered charity. Murray. They all have strong credentials and most are already involved with BPQ so Registration # 11925 2161 RR0001. I expect, despite losing some key people from our Board, we will continue to function at a high level. All donations are tax deductible. It is always sad to lose people from the Board one has known for a considerable Membership and general inquiries: period. All of them have contributed so much over the years. Leaving the Board this year are past Presidents Eve Marshall and Felix Hilton; 2nd Vice-President Helen Bird Protection Quebec P.O. Box 43, Station B Meredith; our Secretary, Jean Bacon; Membership Chair Averill Craig; and Montreal QC H3B 3J5 Conservation Chair Shawn Craik. At a special Board meeting right after the AGM, the Tel: 514-637-2141 Board appointed Jean as an officer to continue in her role as Secretary. Technically, I also had to stand down because of the adoption of the new bylaws but the new Board Birdviews: Pierre Bannon appointed me to serve out Shawn’s term. It then elected me President to fulfill my [email protected] 514-766-8767 after 7:00 PM two-year commitment. All very complicated but now we are functioning entirely legally! Email group: Averill Craig Over the next year, we have considerable work to do. Our new brochure has http://groups.yahoo.com/ been printed and is terrific, the product of much hard work by Sheldon Harvey, his group/Songsparrow marketing team, and graphics whiz, Jean De Marre. With a strong brochure we will Website: Richard Gregson certainly have a better chance to attract new members. Congruently, we are also www.birdprotectionquebec.org looking to expand public awareness of our existence with a new urban initiative. One [email protected] of the ideas suggested is to discuss a closer working relationship with the Annual Report: Sarah Marteinson operators of the island of Montreal’s most significant parcel of green space: the [email protected] Morgan Arboretum, the McGill Bird Observatory and the Ecomuseum. A first step Newsletter: Marie-Anne Hudson has already taken place with the Board’s acceptance of an offer from the Arboretum [email protected] to hold alternative Board meetings at their Interpretive Centre. More of these initiatives will follow in future reports. The Song Sparrow ISSN 1710-3371 If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please do not hesitate to get in touch. Legal Deposit: National Library and Archives of Canada Jeff Harrison , BPQ President Publication Mail No. 40044323 Tel: 514-486-4943, Email: [email protected] Deadline for the next newsletter: September 13, 2010 2 Bird Protection Quebec The Song Sparrow August 2010 Membership News The Unveiling of a New Site Le dévoilement d’un nouveau site The pace of change in the way we reach out to our members Le rythme du changement dans la façon de communiquer avec and the general birding public constantly tries to run away nos membres et le grand public ne cesse d’évoluer mais cette from us, but this time we think we have finally got it fois nous pensons finalement avoir véritablement réussi à être nailed. By now most of you will have visited the latest à jour. La plupart d’entre vous avez d’ores et déjà visité la iteration of our website and discovered the new features it nouvelle version de notre site Web et avez découvert les offers. First of all, and most importantly, virtually the whole nouvelles fonctionnalités qu’il offre. Tout d’abord, le site site is now available in both French and English – it is internet est presque entièrement disponible en français et en important that we are able to speak to and for all birders in anglais. La possibilité de communiquer avec tous les Quebec and that they can find the information about us and ornithologues amateurs du Québec est primordiale et ce our charitable endeavours, the sanctuaries we own and the nouveau site nous permet de le faire.