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A September to Remember: Bioblitz Secrets of the Bell Woodland Preserve
Press Release
Mississippi Valley Field Naturalists
February 4, 2010
by Cathy Keddy
A September to Remember: Bioblitz Secrets of the Bell Woodland Preserve
Do you like magical mosses, lovely liverworts, vascular plant variety, phenomenal fungi, intriguing insects, amazing amphibians, writhing reptiles, fabulous fish, big birds, or marvelous mammals?
During the Mississippi Valley Field Naturalists’ (MVFN) 24-hour Bioblitz of the Bell Woodland Preserve near Clayton this fall, the 100 participants and 23 experts looked for them all, counting the organisms whether large or small. Not only was the biodiversity of the area enumerated, but the site was ideal for investigating our more than a billion-year-old foundation. Lanark County rocks! If you missed this September spectacular, here is your opportunity to participate—and from the comfort of a warm chair at MVFN’s February lecture!
The fungi found on the Bioblitz were fantastic! What other group of organisms could include novelties such as dead man’s fingers, chocolate tube slime, eyelash cup, bear’s head tooth and chicken of the woods… follow the trail of our mushroom experts for more of these delights. The turkey tail—bird or bracket? Detective Jim and the bot fly. A minnow in the woods? Henri’s wriggling raccoons. Voices of the evening with Joel. Giant caterpillars and moths befitting a king. Martha and the children. A liverwort in snake-skin with nodding ladies’ tresses? So many stories to delight! All will be illustrated by the images captured by the professional photographers who recorded this magnificent event.
Before the lecture begins, put in your guess for the total number of species recorded during MVFN’s Bioblitz 2009 and you could win a copy of Earth, Water, Fire: An Ecological Profile of Lanark County. Listen as the species tally climbs from the results of every guided walk to see how close your guess might be to the final number!
Follow the experts’ trails to uncover what they discovered on this 95-acre wooded preserve. Join MVFN’s Tineke Kuiper as your intrepid guide and interpreter as she leads you through her presentation “A September to Remember: Secrets of the Bell Woodland Preserve,” Thursday February 18, at 7:30p.m., Almonte United Church, 106 Elgin St., Almonte. For further details, please contact Cathy Keddy at 613-257-3089, or visit www.mvfn.ca.