Nature and family
We’re coming up on the holiday season once again, and if you’re like me, you’ll probably be thinking about making time to spend time with your family. Sometimes family members spread out, but the holiday season has a way of pulling loved ones together, and reminding us of the bonds that create families.
One of the amazing things about Riverwood is that reminders of the importance of family can appear all year round!
That was the case earlier this year when we spotted an adorable family of wood ducks in our wetland – a mother and father along with their four ducklings!
In past years, we’ve had occasional wood duck sightings in the late winter and early spring, but this year was the first time I’ve seen a pair of wood ducks nesting and raising their young at Riverwood.
This rare sighting of a wood duck family is a testament to The Riverwood Conservancy’s ongoing conservation and restoration work. By undertaking the work to remove invasive species like Phragmites from our wetland areas, we can create healthy habitat for a variety of species.
And it’s people like you, who support The Riverwood Conservancy’s programs, that make wildlife success stories like this come true. Thank you!
As we enter the holiday season, I’d kindly ask you to make a special holiday gift which helps create families among our precious wildlife, while also giving families in our community a chance to connect with nature. Your gift will keep our nature-focused programs going strong into the new year. When you give before December 31, our friends at Scotts Canada will match your donation* so that your gift will have double the impact.
Volunteer David Reid, and staff members Taya Kehler and Stephanie Keeler, work on a restoration area, which helped create a healthy habitat for wood ducks at Riverwood. Photos by David Reid.
In my role as Community Program Coordinator, I always find it amazing to be able to lead a birding program through Riverwood and then come across a rare sighting like the wood duck family. When I can tell our program participants more about a unique species, and how our restoration work helped draw it here, that gets the public more interested in conservation and the role that humans play in our ecosystems.
Here within Riverwood’s ecosystems, we’re seeing changes for the better. Changes like healthier wildlife habitat that’s better suited to nesting, and increased activity not only from wood ducks, but also belted kingfishers, great blue herons, muskrats, green frogs, and many more!
It’s because of caring supporters like you that biodiversity is alive and well at Riverwood. But you’ll no doubt understand that preserving nature is an ongoing task. One that our staff and volunteers are more than up to.
With your gift this holiday season, we’ll continue removing invasive species, planting native trees and wildflowers, and preserving our park for the benefit of plants, animals, and people. After all, nature makes family members of us all.
Wishing you and yours the very best for the holiday season and the New Year!
Sincerely,
Stephanie Keeler
Community Program Coordinator
* Our partners at Scotts Canada will match all individual donations until December 31, 2024, up to a maximum of $10,000.