Page Al2 THE REVIEW 978!]-2nd St., Sidney B.C. Wednesday, March 2, 1988 Spring brings peopl Spring is certainly well on its way and with all of the recent warm weather, many people scem to be spending more time out- doors, walking and spotting intcresting things. Flowers are blooming in backyards and parks, pussy willows are well out, brown buds are rapidly expanding in preparation for bursting into leaf, finches, juncos and dark song sparrows, silent during the unusually mild winter months, have begun their welcome territorial songs. A number of callers have been down to the Island View sand dunes and have been fortunate in sccing the female marsh har- rier, the northern shrike, the red-shafied flickers and ‘the peregrine falcon. One visitor from Nova Scotia telephoned saying that he and his wife had observed the northern strike tak- ing a starling and consuming most of it. So all we need here is another 40,000 hungry northern shrikes! Mrs. Hibberson, Bourne Terrace, was thrilled at secing her first red-bellied sapsucker on her grounds. It was evidently a very bright male in full breeding plumage -- red head and breast, ’ snow-white slash along the shoulder -- a sight to remember, for sure. A slender Cooper hawk was there as well. Mrs. Jim Cumming, Tatlow,. reports the ivory- -colored, pale orange-breasted partially -albino robin, Undoubtedly the same bird that has been reported by Burn Chisholm, Ardmore; Bunty Watt, Lands End; and others I’ve failed to write down. Yours truly hasn’t yet caught up with the robin in person. _ Mary and I took a quick run around the Esquimalt Lagoon where the waters were teeming with waterfowl, gulls, coots, some shorebirds and a few grebes. We were particularly inter- ested in the contingent. of canvasback ducks with their white-ish backs and dark reddish-brown heads, necks, and breasts. Better writers ETER’S A group of University of Vic- toria researchers wants to help Grade 6 students become more descriptive writers. by teaching teachers to be more effective. _ A team. of doctoral -can- didates, all. certified teachers, plans to teach 20 one-hour lessons at North Saanich Middle -School in English language.arts VELIGHT 1/2 CHICKEN BREAST SALAD -hope to use the classroom ex: ‘perience. when. developing: new courses; said’ -project . ‘leader Terry Johnson, an education’ ae 6 Ola _ WED-SUN | 11:30-9 PM> professor. mR KEATING X naan on tial e outdoors | Then we spotted several flocks of sanderlings and semi- palmated sandpipers along the shoreline. The sanderlings were in their characteristic light winter plumage and heaven only | knows where they’ve been! These small shorebirds travel to many very distant parts of the world, particularly in the southern hemisphere, during winter but breed only in very remote regions of the High Arctic. The tiny, pale, black-legged semipalmated sandpipers travelling with them were unmistakable. So was the small, dark pied-billed grebe in the water behind them. The short, chicken-like, ivory colored bill with the black ring around it, could belong to no other ‘‘hell-diver.’” This is the bird with the repertoire of loud, strange, maniacal notes that drift down a lake in the dusk and excite the imagination. T read Nyland’s Ictter on woodpeckers and hasten to agree with him regarding the senscless shooting of these birds because of their presumed killing of many of our forest trees. Certainly, the big black. pileated woodpecker, the “‘cock of the north woods,’’ excavates sizcable cavitics in some of our trees, partic- ‘ularly into the bases of trunks and into exposed roots. - But careful examination of these same cavilics with a long- bladed knife will reveal that they are already galicricd ¢ex- tensively with the borings of carpenter ants which the wood- peckers were secking. Such trees are already doomed and in the not-too-distant future. Woodpeckers, as a group, are: amazingly varied in their food- procuring activitics since each occupies a distinct ecological niche. The flicker in our photo today docs a good deal of his foraging on the ground wherc he picks up enormous numbers of ants. The large black and white hairy woodpecker picks off grubs, pigeon horntails, wood-boring beetles, ctc., securing them an inch or so below the surface of rotting wood. The still smaller downy uses his much shorter, sharp beak for probing just below the surface while the two species of three- toed woodpeckers gather their food items from immediately beneath the bark of trees which have recently died of other causes. The already dead tree is stripped of its old. bark and small flakes of it litter the ground below. | The sapsuckers have still another way of life. They excavate cavities in the bark of trees from which they later gather the: oozing sap and. the insects trapped in it. This is the only wood- pecker which I have ever known to kill a young tree, and that very rarely and in a region in which there was a flourishing pop- ulation of sapsuckers and but a very few of their favorite tee, over an eight-week period. They. the: paper birch. -In this’ case, the sapsuckers had so concentrated their com- bined. activities on the few food trees available that they had 7 ye a ee eas typ es ae TO emer E CTT se te hy ‘ t : ‘ “Outdoors! ‘Unlimited “By Cy Hampson, . a . | e Ts wa. _ — om, ry 1a, ringed them and prevented the movement of materials up and ‘FLICKER WOODPECKER down the cambium. It is a rare combination of circumstances indeed i in which one can attribute the death of a tree to the normal activities of wood- peckers. —=¥ cy Hampson photo . why —@ GRASSFIRE fire- ine Saanich Road on Saturday. « sit looked: “worse. his.winter: ,. Dry winter weather took its. toll on” one’ North ‘Saanich backyard. Heavy ; grass: caught ‘the .: 9000-block | East. = ‘than. was;’’ said’ Terry Towle, North i Saanich fire chief, adding that © -. “the early. season ‘fire. indicates: “how: dry.-the weather: has: been: CRISPY CAR A Datsun caught fire after. a traffic accident on Beach:-Road.. > at 5:22 p.m. Thursday. .The in- terior was: destroyed,.said Cen- : ~ tral Saanich fire department. © a “Two. people were: ‘arrested at. be the scene. A’ Sidney: RCMP. in- |; vestigation continues. ae “WASHER BURNS -Wash- day at. a: Brentwood : Bay house was } Postponed Fries Central “Fire report: from car fire to 9 chimney fire . day when there was an electrical fire in the washing : machine. The .10°a.m. fire. ruined the machine, but the house: ‘was not fire department... ree * CHIMNEY FIRE _ OA chimney: caught : fire in a ~ house. on Llanfair ‘Crescent:in: “Brentwood < Bay. last - Tuesday... aon ‘firefighters Ri Saanich: - damaged, said Central Saanich aot --responded' around = 5” p:m: ‘and. 2 ‘soon Put out the fire. x ere