Tag Archives: Dillon Creek Restoration project

Animals

Autumn Barrett-Morgan: Soundscapes

The audio portion of this story starts with a chorus of croaking frog voices, rising up from a wetland. After a few seconds, the distant call of an owl is introduced.

Autumn Barrett-Morgan first learned about soundscapes when she was studying bird identification in college, but it really come alive after she became a Monitoring Technician with the Friends of Cortes Island Society.  

“In the past two or three years, I started  really diving into the soundscape on the Dillon Creek Wetland Restoration Project. I found it really important in birding, because not all birds are visible or make themselves visible and that left me not knowing who I’m listening to. So it got me really inspired to dive into observing the soundscape through studying the bird calls once I got back home.” 

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Environment

2023 Broom Bash at Mansons Spit

Close to a dozen volunteers and two Park Rangers participated in the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) annual Broom Bash on Saturday, March 18.

They swept the spit at Mansons Lagoon in about 3 hours. 

“We really appreciate all of the help from the volunteers here on Cortes. It’s really amazing that the local community comes out and takes ownership of this place. We couldn’t do it without the volunteers,” said Eli Simcoe Metcalfe, of BC Parks.

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Waste

This past year at FOCI, an interview with Helen Hall

Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) recently had its AGM. This is also Helen Hall’s seventh year as Executive Director. So Cortes Currents asked her for an overview of this past year and how the organization has changed during her tenure. 

Helen Hall: “That’s a big question, FOCI has always been doing a lot of different projects. I act as the central point for FOCI, but there’s a lot of work going on with volunteers and our contractors.” 

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Cost of Climate Change, Weather

FOCI’s Climate Change and Drought Report

When the rain finally started about 5 PM on Sunday, October 23, Cortes Island had received almost no precipitation for 97 days. The “Rain’ chart at Cortes Island School shows that 3.5 mm of rain fell overnight and I can hear the drizzle continuing to fall on my roof early Monday morning. Hopefully light rains will continue to soften up the soil before we receive a downpour.

“The 2022 drought is worse than people think, it’s worse than scientists predicted, and its impacts up and down the coast are a lot worse than I had even feared when I started researching it,” said Forrest Berman-Hatch, author of FOCI Report: Climate Change and Drought.

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Tourism

Summer offerings from FOCI

The Friends of Cortes (FOCI) have just released their summer program of daily offerings for 2022. 

“It’s about educating people about the natural environment, but also really having people getting out there, having fun and enjoying themselves. So whether it’s locals or visitors, we’re really pleased to welcome anyone  who wants to come along,” explained Helen Hall, Executive Director of FOCI.

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