The North Okanagan Naturalists’ Club recently welcomed guest speaker Lisa Scott to speak about the Wildlife Tree Stewardship Program, also known as WiTS.
The voluntary program conserves wildlife tree habitats through volunteer monitoring, landowner agreements and community education.
WiTS was first established on Vancouver Island through the Federation of BC Naturalists and has recently expanded to include the Lower Mainland and Okanagan-Similkameen, but not yet the North Okanagan-Shuswap area.
Cavity-nesting birds use wildlife trees for their homes and they are important habitat for a wide variety of species. Dead wildlife trees have sometimes been seen as a hazard and removed, but often these trees do not pose any danger. Other trees have been removed by developers. There are ways to develop around wildlife trees and some developers have left designated trees which, in many cases, have provided homes for our area’s wildlife.
Up to this point 113 Lewis’ woodpecker nest sites have been observed through the WiTS program. Almost half of these sites were re-occupied a year later and a few taken over by competing cavity-nesters including American Kestrels and European Starlings.
In Vernon, herons return each year to the heronry not far from Walmart. That heronry used to be at Otter Lake, but for unknown reasons the herons relocated several years ago. As a result, many of our citizens are familiar with the herons and their home in our city.
There are also many bald eagles around Coldstream Ranch and other local areas using the cottonwoods and other trees for their homes. This is the season that they are incubating their eggs and soon a new generation of eagles and herons will call the North Okanagan home.
The North Okanagan Naturalists’ Club (NONC) meets on the first Wednesday of the month from September to May. There are often weekend birding trips, Thursday hiking/cross country skiing events and summer field trips.
For more information, please check out our website at www.nonc.ca or call us at 250-545-0490.
Pam Jenkins is with The North Okanagan Naturalists’ Club.
