St. Albert’s annual Arbour Day celebration had to make a slight detour this week to avoid a pair of ducks.
About 500 local students and adults came to Larose Park Wednesday to plant some 800 trees and shrubs in celebration of Arbour Day. The annual event has students plant and learn about trees as part of an international reforestation effort.
Students got to hear stories, walk in the forest, and sing songs with local musicians Rooney and Punyi as part of the city-run event. Each also got a tree to plant at home.
Trees give us oxygen, lumber and shade, said city arborist Kevin Veenstra, who spoke about tree rings at the event. “It’s a mutual symbiotic relationship.”
They also provide shelter for animals, which proved to be a bit of an issue during the setup for the event. The city had planned to add trees to a small grove near William D. Cuts school, Veenstra said, but found that a pair of mallards had made a nest in it. The well-camouflaged nest appeared to have 11 eggs, he noted. Crews put up barricades around the tree stand and had students do their plantings at another stand about 100 metres away.
The mother duck was still there as of Wednesday morning, said community recreation co-ordinator Erin Gluck, which suggests the city’s naturalization efforts are bearing fruit. “Obviously, we are providing habitat.”
Ducks seem to like the tall grass found at naturalization sites, said Veenstra. Another mallard nest had been spotted recently at the 2011 Arbour Day site in Willoughby Park, he noted.
Anyone who finds ducks nesting should leave them alone, Veenstra said. “Let them go through their process.” The ducklings may need escorting to the Sturgeon River once they hatch, and possibly rescue should they fall down sewer grates. (Wildlife officers often move them en masse in a box instead.)
The Gazette could not reach the Larose Park duck for comment.
The number of net-zero homes in the Edmonton region is set to triple this year thanks to a new townhouse development featured on the Eco-Solar Home Tour.
The 14th annual Edmonton region Eco-Solar Home Tour and the second annual Eco-Solar Tour of Energy Efficient Buildings starts next Tuesday. The free self-guided tours give residents an up-close look at 12 residential and eight commercial buildings that produce little-to-no net greenhouse gas emissions while in operation.
A lot of people talk about energy efficiency, said Andrew Mills, president of the Eco-Solar Home Tour Society, but the folks on this tour are the ones actually doing it.
There aren’t any St. Albert buildings on the tour, Mills said, but many are close to the city.
Mills was most excited by the works of the Landmark Group of Builders, which has two developments on the tour. The first, the Larch Park Townhome, is a 14-unit development with solar panels and drain-water heat recovery systems that produces as much power as it uses during a year. Next to it is the Larch Park Net Zero Lottery home, which is part of the grand prize in this year’s Full House Lottery.
“They’re putting 15 new net-zero (homes) into the city,” Mills said. That’ll take the number of net-zero homes in Edmonton to about 21 from about seven.
Commercial homebuilders are starting to buy-in to efficient homes, Mills said. “Landmark has said that by 2015 they’re going to build nothing but net-zero homes,” he said. “It’s starting to become mainstream.”
The commercial building tour runs from May 28 to 31 and from June 3 to 6. The home tour is June 1. Visit ecosolar.ca for details.
