STANLEY PARK NOTEBOOK

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by Nate Lewis
(click images to enlarge)

WEST END RESIDENTS KEEP A
WATCHFUL EYE ON LOCAL HERONS

West End residents living near Park Lane are perfectly positioned to observe the Pacific great blue heron colony on the south edge of Stanley Park. 

The panoramic views from the rooftops are breathtaking, as yours truly got to experience when accompanying Bruce Mohun, a building resident and heron survey volunteer, along with Stanley Park Ecology Society (SPES) staff for their bi-weekly rooftop nest and egg/chick count. 

The change of perspective felt rather shocking, as someone who’d never seen Stanley Park from that height. An eagle that soared overhead felt nearly at eye level, while a tiny Anna’s hummingbird that zipped around the viewing platform where we stood seemed almost out of place 28 stories up. 

Bruce Mohun’s rooftop provides a panoramic view of Stanley Park, and nesting herons. (Nate Lewis Photo)

Mohun, in his third year volunteering with SPES on their rooftop surveys, is casual about his level of involvement. “What this is, is essentially letting them in the building,” he said, though the binoculars around his neck and clipboard in his hand suggest a level of interest and preparation that go back to his days as an amateur naturalist growing up in Ontario, and later as an award-winning science journalist and filmmaker. 

“When we first moved here, I was fascinated by the idea that I was at eye level with 100 herons. So it only seemed natural – because I kept an eye on them, I took a lot of photographs that first year – to come up and help count them,” Mohun said. 

Mohun and Holinda use a sheet that includes photos of the nesting trees – which are each assigned a letter and each nest a number – for easy identification. (Nate Lewis photo)

This heronry, as nesting heron colonies are called, has been active around the Park Board building and the tennis courts since 2001. But the current location of the colony is not the first of its kind in Stanley Park. The peninsula has been home to this species of herons for at least 100 years. The birds – rare and large as heron subspecies go – lived near Brockton Point until the 1970’s when they moved to the now-abandoned Stanley Park Zoo for 30 years, before making their new home near English Bay. 

Maria Morlin is a biologist and biology instructor at Vancouver Community College. Raised in Vancouver, Morlin has lived in the same West End apartment building for 23 years. Coincidently, some winged neighbours settled next door just a year later when, in 2001, the Stanley Park herons moved to their current location. 

It was around that same time SPES put up a notice asking building residents to help them count the herons. “So of course I jumped on that,” Morlin said. 

Morlin worked with SPES to collect data on the colony for over two decades, before recently passing the baton to Mohun. 

“Because I’m a biologist, I tend to have a scientific kind of relationship with [the herons],” Morlin said, “I don’t think about it very emotionally.” 

However, Morlin sees emotional attachment to animals as a good conservation strategy, making people more likely to donate, participate in ‘adopt a nest’ programs, or generally be more aware of conservation needs. 

In 2019 Morlin filmed, narrated, and produced an hour-long documentary about the colony – shot over a three year period – titled “Flying Dinosaurs in the City.” 

Morlin has shown the film at Science World, the public library, and to folks in her building. Despite what Morlin described as an “incredibly steep learning curve,” the documentary was well-received, particularly from locals. 

An adult heron spreads its wings to shield its chicks from the view of a threatening bald eagle. (Maria Morlin photo)

Shots of eagles attacking and feeding on young herons disturbed some people, Morlin said. As shown in her documentary however, those eagles are raising their own hungry chicks that also need to be fed. 

A 2016 report from Environment Canada cites “predation and harassment” by bald eagles as one of the main threats facing Pacific great blue herons. Eagles can cause colony abandonment and reduced productivity among the subspecies. 

Interestingly, great blue heron colonies are often found close to active eagle nests. The theory is that by nesting nearby, some herons “pay a cost in lost eggs, nestlings and adults, but the colony may benefit from reduced predation overall,” due to the territorial nature of eagles, which keeps other birds of prey from coming across the colony. 

Colonies are very important to the survival of the subspecies, Morlin said, because they provide a centralized location for herons to find mates. Great blue herons are seasonal monogamous and disperse over the fall and winter, living relatively solitary lives when they aren’t breeding. The one place you’ll find herons together out of nesting season are places with lots of food, like the eel grass beds on Tsawwassen’s west coast. 

Herons prefer to breed within 10 kilometres of fishing grounds, as they require a massive amount of food for their chicks. Chicks are entirely dependent on their parents for food and grow rapidly over a month long period. To feed their chicks and themselves during this time, Morlin said, adult herons can take in nearly 2,400 calories per day (similar to how much humans eat!).

Limitations on available food and competition with humans for coastal habitat are the biggest factors keeping the adult population from proliferating. Great blues are a species of “special concern” in Canada.

The July 2022 fireworks drew thousands of people to the West End. (Nate Lewis photo)

“These particular herons are very resilient. They’ve been in the park for such a long time that I guess they’re just used to there being so many people around,” Morlin said. 

While many heron colonies are sound intolerant, SPES’s Conservation Projects Manager Dacyn Holinda said this particular group seems to be very habituated to sound disturbances. People and dogs walk right underneath the nesting trees and the tennis courts directly on either side of the colony are well-used, yet none of this action seems to deter the birds.

Some residents are concerned that the annual fireworks in English Bay cause the birds to leave for the season. But in her 22 years living beside the colony Morlin has never seen the fireworks displacing the herons.

“Usually, they’re pretty much done [breeding] by then anyway. By the end of July most of the young chicks are gone. Of the ones that are left, we’ve never noticed before that they’ve all left the colony after the fireworks,” Morlin said. 

Local residents and SPES staff reported the herons left the colony following the first firework display on July 23, 2022 – which were the first fireworks following a two-year pandemic hiatus – though Morlin said she didn’t notice it. 

Holinda said they will continue to track the possibility of the fireworks disturbing the colony. However, SPES’s 2022 report concludes that, “with this year’s monitoring results falling within the relative range of previous years (although lower than last year’s), breeding success may not strongly be affected by human activity.” 

These early season counts are crucial because the bare limbs of the deciduous London plane trees that house the colony allow the surveyors to see most of the nests clearly. Later in the spring and summer, the leaves of the canopy obscure many of the nests making surveys less effective. (Nate Lewis photo)

The Stanley Park heronry had a down year by the various measures SPES tracked for their 2022 report. Their estimates had active nests down to 73 this year, lower than the 16-year average of 94. The colony produced an estimated 90 fledglings in 2022 to join the regional great blue heron population, down from an 23-year average of 126 fledglings per year.

These figures are estimates, meaning the conclusions SPES can draw from the decline are limited. The estimates are based on a smaller sample of about 40 nests, chosen for their continued visibility from the rooftop as the foliage grew. Sample results are then extrapolated to make estimates about the colony as a whole. However, SPES notes on their website that the sample nests’ necessary lack of foliage may also increase their “susceptibility to predation,” compared to more hidden nests. 

This year SPES tweaked their methodology in an effort to get a more complete picture of the colony’s health. For the first time they are monitoring all the active nests from the rooftop and the ground, rather than basing their results on a sample. Early season surveys give SPES a sense of how many nests are occupied, and if those herons are incubating eggs. 

Morlin suggested that the regional and scientific importance of the Stanley Park colony, though still very significant, has diminished with the shrinking size of the colony since 2007.

“It’s kind of a nice sense of continuity that they’ve been here for this long. There’s something sort of comforting about that,” Morlin said. 

BOTTOMS UP AT SECOND BEACH

In other news, just up the street from the heronry is Stanley Park’s newest drinking spot. It’s not another brew pub… it’s Second Beach! 

In late April the Park Board approved by-law amendments to allow alcohol on seven Vancouver beaches, including Second Beach, between June 1 and September 4. The alcohol on beaches program is a pilot project, which may become permanent in future years. 

The Park Board also made the alcohol in parks program permanent aftering it operated for two years over the pandemic as a temporary measure. 

Parks that now allow alcohol consumption year-round include Lumberman’s Arch (minus the splash pad), the Second Beach picnic area and Ceperley Meadow (minus the playgrounds), as well as the fields beside and behind the lawn bowling club, up to Park Lane. 

“Our previous pilot programs demonstrated the importance of creating shared spaces for socializing and we saw how effectively Vancouver’s parks and beaches can accommodate safe drinking,” said Park Board Chair Scott Jensen in a press release. 

“Park rangers and operations staff will work with the Vancouver Police Department to monitor the beach pilot sites and ensure that they are safe, properly managed and well maintained,” Park Board communications staff added.

The Park Board also approved a by-law change to prohibit the use of glass beverage containers in parks and beaches. 

Drinking is allowed between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. at the designated locations. 

CELEBRATE THE BIRDS!

The Greater Vancouver Bird Celebration is happening May 13-30 across the Lower Mainland. 

This includes events at the Nature House on Lost Lagoon like wild bird photography workshops, introductory birding walks for the queer community, and a bird appreciation event. These events all offer free registration. Bird-themed crafting (felting, specifically) is also being offered at the Stanley Park Pavilion for $25. 

You can find registration details for these feathery events and many others across the region here.

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