Saturday 28th March 2009

Looking out over the pond

Today we met at the pump house on Northwest Bay road. I was late and as soon as I arrived Thomas said okay time to go and away we went for a walk in the estuary.

On the way down we checked our trees which seem to have been pruned by the Deer but still look strong with lots of growth. Errol's Spruce is now over 6 feet though has suffered some damage to its trunk from Deer rubbing its horns.

One of our objectives was to re-rig our fishway pipe in the Ducks Unlimited pond which flows from Bonnel Creek into Nanoose Creek via a stop log device and culvert. Wild Coho smolts get trapped in the pond and without a pipe they would be trapped as the water recedes in June/July. Since we installed the pipe the fish have passage into Nanoose Creek and later on once the Ducks and Geese have hatched and their young and are moving out of the estuary we will remove all the stop logs to drain the pond to allow all the fish to move into Nanoose Creek's estuary.

Today the water was too high for chest waders and Craig would not volunteer to wade out without scuba gear. We will return once the water begins to recede and we can check the pipe with chest waders. The beaver has been around as evidenced by fresh sticks and lots of grass stuffed into the top stop log.

Some pairs of geese were observed doing what looked like starting to make their nesting sites on the hummocks. The field is flooded so most of them will have to wait until the water levels recede before they can make their nests. We hope this year they will be left alone to hatch their eggs without whoever comes down and addles their eggs. This is a way they say to reduce the numbers of Geese though I doubt whoever it is has not come back and seen the very sad looking Geese sitting on the nest of rotten eggs hoping to hatch them out. One year one Goose was sitting on her nest for weeks and looked almost starving to death, she would not even move when we came close she was so sad looking.

We walked out to the beach then back up Bonnel Creek to the wild apple trees, took a couple of cuttings to graft this afternoon, good tasting apples. We returned through the Nootka Rose patches looking for more trees we had planted in the past and it looks like between Mice, Deer and anyone else who considers young trees a real treat we will have to plant some more. This is borderline planting due to the influence of sea water in the estuary but we are learning where to plant with some success and where the survival rate is lower. Spruce seem the best suited if the Mice do not chew them down. We then walked back through the field up to the road.