by Chris Earley

'Tis the season for baby birds. Can you identify these chicks or eggs? Click here for a printable version. Answers at the end of the newsletter.

by Aron Fazekas

The Arboretum has now unveiled its ‘Arboretum Explorer’ website! After several years of work updating our plant records systems in the IrisBG platform, creating maps, and verifying GPS locations of our accessions, we are now pleased to be able to share this with the Arboretum community and the public at large.

The new website is a digital gateway to our collections. Through the website, visitors can explore the plant collections in a number of different ways. If you have a particular plant in mind that you want to find the location of in the Arboretum, you can search for your plant from the homepage by typing in either the common or scientific name. Alternately you can use drop-down lists of all the genera or families that are contained in our collections to find the species you are looking for. The resulting list of species can be filtered by country of origin of the plant, or by specific collections within the Arboretum. Clicking on a particular species name will provide additional information about the species and indicate on the map where individuals are located. The ‘Names’ section of the website provides an exhaustive list of all species if you can’t quite remember how to spell that scientific name.

For those who don’t have a particular species in mind, the entire collection can be explored using the ‘Map’ section of the website. By zooming in on the map you can see locations of every individual plant that we have GPS coordinates for.

Lastly, the ‘Features’ section highlights some of our most popular collections, with a brief description of the collection and what you might expect to find there.

The Arboretum Explorer site supports GPS enabled devices, which means that as you stroll through the collection, you can use the website on your phone or tablet to pinpoint your location and see what plants are nearby.

While we are pleased to share this with you now, the website is in many ways still a work in progress. As we continue our inventories of each collection we will add GPS coordinates where they are missing and update the map with new plantings and remove map markers for those plants that are no longer there. Pictures of the various species, additional species information, and even self-guided tours will be coming in the future. In the meantime, visit the new website, download a copy of our new map, and explore the collections!

A printable copy of this article is available by clicking here and Arboretum Explorer can be seen by clicking here.

by Alexandra Kocher

Barn Swallow Structure (Across from the J.C. Taylor Nature Centre)
Photo by Alexandra Kocher

“What on earth is that and where did it come from?” The Arboretum has been hearing this question a lot in the past month or so, so I am here to crack the case with you! This may look like a zoo’s elephant shelter, but it is actually a Barn Swallow habitat. The Arboretum was lucky enough to have two installed in April of 2015 in the grassland space across College Ave.

Barn Swallows are beautiful, insect-eating birds, who have adapted to live in old wooden barns by making nests out of mud in the crooks of old boards. However, their homes have been swallowed up by newer barns… metal barns which are sealed tight. And a lot of the structures that would be perfect for Barn Swallow habitation are deemed old, rickety, unwanted and therefore demolished by humans.

There have been some installations of the wooden structures in hopes to give some shelter to swallows where an old habitat was demolished. The shelters include a sturdy protective roof, wooden cross beams for nests and perching, wooden cup platforms for nests, and even metal tubes on the structure’s posts to deter predators like raccoons and squirrels from eating the eggs. But do they work? Well, a group of scientists were curious to see if Barn Swallows would use these structures and how they could be improved to entice more swallows to use them. In the study “Testing social cues for attracting Barn Swallows to new nesting structures”, Andrew J. Campomizzi, Zoé M. Lebrun-Southcott, and Kristyn Richardson erected a bunch of Barn Swallow structures in southern Ontario (including ours) and did experiments to see if they could attract more swallows to the structures. Swallows are community nesters and use a lot of social cues to determine if a site is a good place to build a nest, so bird vocalizations and old swallow nests were put on the wooden cups of the structure to make it look like Barn Swallows were nesting there already. The structures with vocalizations and nests were compared to structures without them (we call these ‘controls’), to see if the vocalizations and nests would attract swallows to the structures. They didn’t find much difference between the experimental structures and the controls in that nesting year, but they think it would improve nesting in the years to come. Looking at the big picture, they did find that swallows will use these structures, but unfortunately they aren’t as good as the old barns that Barn Swallows prefer.

Luckily for The Arboretum, we were able to keep the Barn Swallow structures while scientific observations are still being made today! However, since the grassland area across College Ave has been chosen by the University to become part of the Turf Grass Institute, we have had to move one of the structures to just outside The J.C. Taylor Nature Centre. Let’s hope we get some nesters soon!

A printable version of this newsletter is available by clicking here.


Barn Swallow
Photo by Chris Earley


The underside of the Barn Swallow structure (Swallow entry windows, cross boards used for perching and nesting, and wooden cups used for nesting can be seen)
Photo by Alexandra Kocher

It is time to discover our plants, animals, fungi and lichens! Meet at the J.C. Taylor Nature Centre any time between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. to learn about our wild species and/or to go on a hike to find as many examples as we can. Hikes on topics such as birds, dragonflies, spiders, wildflowers and tree will be starting at the nature centre at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.. In between, our local expert naturalists will be in the building identifying specimens and can show you how to do it. The Biobus will be there, too, so you can learn all about DNA bar coding and the diversity of life. This day is for all ages and all interests. See you there!

Join Jason, our new Summer Interpretive Naturalist, for Wednesday Night Walks at The Arboretum June through August. The cost is only $2 per person with children under 5 FREE! Walks take place every Wednesday evening from 7 - 8:30 p.m., beginning at the J.C. Taylor Nature Centre.

For more information please contact The Arboretum at 519-824-4120 ext. 52363 or go to our website.

June 15 - Anatom-tree: Trees stand still for ages and ages, occasionally swaying in the wind, and are often times neglected and under-appreciated. But in fact, they are incredibly complex as stand alone monuments, specially designed with unique and fascinating features. This Wednesday, we’ll take a closer look at the different parts of a tree, and why exactly they are such amazing organisms.

June 22 - Stop and Smell The Wild Roses: Carnations, hydrangea and roses are just a few of the many beloved flowers we see regularly, but how about the Buttercup, the American Dog Violet, and the Bittersweet Nightshade? A whole and completely different world of blooming plants await to be loved at The Arboretum. Come stop by and smell the wildflowers!

June 29 - Buffet For The Birds: Have you ever wondered what different foods birds would pick up in a buffet line? What are their favorite foods? The Arboretum is a place filled to the brim with a plethora of food options but the catch is, it’s not all served in a line; rather they have to go and find it. What’s on their plate?

July 6 - Nature’s Marks: Just as we leave marks in our surroundings be them tracks, fingerprints, or lost items, animals too leave many marks we can discover and learn from. What made that hole? Why are those markings there? Come and discover who and what hasn’t been doing a good job at leaving no traces behind.

July 13 - Nature In Da House! Never know what those creepy crawlers are that you stumble upon at home? Do you know what lurks upon your windowsill, under old shelves and behind drawers? How have these creatures among many others adapted to the arrival of humans? Become a hunter at the JC Nature Centre this Wednesday evening and hopefully by the end of the night, you’ll be able to put a name to each of these household friends!

                        
                          Jason leading a Wednesday Night Walk

This is the popular time to get married. We have two picturesque outdoor ceremony sites as well as indoor space with a fabulous view for wedding receptions. If you or someone you know is looking for a space for your wedding ceremony and / or reception please contact Dawn Ann Webster at 519-824-4120 ext. 54110 or [log in to unmask]. Further information on our unique reception facilities and outdoor ceremony sites can be found on our website.

 
West Lawn                                         Auditorium

The Arboretum’s grounds are the perfect setting for group tours. Our knowledgeable docents (trained volunteer guides) give pre-arranged 1 ½ hour tours of The Arboretum’s grounds, gardens, collections and other points of interest. The tours can be focused on the areas that are seasonally appropriate and / or that are of interest to you and your group. Tours should be booked a minimum of 2 weeks in advance. The cost is $5 per person, with a minimum charge of $60. Tours provide an excellent break for a meeting group. For further information on tours or to make a reservation please contact Dawn Ann Webster at [log in to unmask] or 519-824-4120 ext. 54110.

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"Look, See, Paint", Moth, Dragonflies and Damselflies and Butterflies workshops are approaching. The dates and registration deadlines can be found in our Coming Events Listing in the column on the left side of this newsletter. A detailed description of each course is available on our website. Help us promote our programs … please forward this e-mail on to your friends and colleagues who may be interested. The more participants we have, the more programs we can offer.

Registering early is important for us because we need lead time to decide if there are enough people registered to run the workshop or not. To encourage registering before the deadline, we now have an Early Bird Fee. You can still register after the deadline, but it will cost an extra $10, so why not register early?

Registration is available on-line, which allows you to register for our programs at anytime, not just during our regular business hours. A secure link is provided on our website for this easy registration process.

If you do not have internet access, registration can still be made by phone or in person at 519-824-4120 ext. 52358 as in the past. Please remember that a decision is made on the registration deadline as to whether the workshop will run or not, based on the minimum number of required registrants. You may still register after the deadline as long as the workshop is running and there is space.

Lots of exciting wildlife sightings to report for this issue. Our Pileated Woodpecker nest has been getting lots of visitors waiting in hopes to see the female feed the young. Unfortunately, one of the chicks left the nest too early and, even though it was doing well for a while at Songbirds Only Avian Rehabilitation, it eventually died. His two brothers are still thriving, though, and remain in the nest with mom bringing food. Other nests of Great Crested Flycatchers, Tree Swallows, Northern Cardinals and Eastern Phoebes have been observed, too. Two of our colour-banded chickadees are raising three young in one of our nest boxes. A female of our largest dragonfly species, the Swamp Darner, was seen laying eggs in a wet stump in Wild Goose Woods. Watch for colour tagged Eastern Gray Squirrels as a new project has started here on our healthy squirrel population! Go to citisci.org for more info. Many of our trees have been blooming with Tulip Trees, Cherries and Paw Paws lighting up the foliage.

                                 
                               Pileated Woodpecker Chicks
                               photo by Karl Egressy

 
Tree Swallow                                     Tulip Tree
photo by Chris Earley

Be a part of the BetterPlanet Project by donating on-line:

Your donation can be directed to The Arboretum online through the secure University of Guelph donation page: http://uofg.convio.net/arboretum

If you prefer not to make an online donation, there are several other ways to provide your financial support. You can choose to donate by telephone, mail, fax, or in person:

UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH Attention Alumni Affairs 50 Stone Road East Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1 Tel: 1-888-266-3108 ext. 56934 Tel: 519-824-4120 ext. 56934 Fax: 519-822-2670 Email: [log in to unmask]

If you would like information on bequests and planned giving to The Arboretum please contact:

Ross Butler
Director, Gift Planning
at (519) 824-4120 ext. 56196 or by e-mail at [log in to unmask]