Apology  from  editor

1001 apologies from your editor (Margaret Dragu) for 2 errors in the summer Tidelines issue. I spelled Edwin’s last name incorrectly: it should be Huovinen. Also, he is holding up a gorgeous sockeye salmon -- not a cohoe as I erroneously printed. My apologies to Edwin and all the Tideline readers!

WOODY WOOD PECKER

There have been many sightings of many kinds of woodpeckers this autumn including the western flickers, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, sapsuckers, and the infamous pileated woodpecker. The pileated woodpecker  is enormous, noisy and a joy to have frequent Finn Slough.

With the virtual disappearance of the Ivory-billed woodpecker, the Pileated Woodpecker has become the largest woodpecker found locally. Approaching the crow in size, the pileated woodpecker was the model for the famous cartoon character Woody Woodpecker – that is, in Woody’s World War II version – (not his later cutesified ‘60’s TV image.) The pileated woodpecker spends a lot of time on the forest floor feeding on the fallen trees where carpenter ants are abundant and feeding in dead trees. The woodpeckers deal with the insects infesting dead and dying trees.  Not a lot of help to the dead and dying tree you'd say.  But their control of those insects is crucial for the health of the rest of the trees and shrubs in the area.  And it is an argument for NOT tidying up natural areas.  The dead and dying plant life fosters these birds. The cyclical nature of ecology is such that death is generative, and fosters life.  Woodpeckers demonstrate this daily. The practice of 'cleaning up' a woodland area of dead wood almost guarantees the absence of this grand species.

HOW CAN YOU REACH US?






FINN SLOUGH HERITAGE & WETLAND SOCIETY

9480 Dyke Road
Richmond, BC
V7A 2L5
Email: tidetables@hotmail.com
Web: www.finnslough.com
Phone:  604-878-FINN (3466)