A busy, productive year for the Butterflyway Project!
by Val Morton, Butterflyway Ranger
With the weather cooling down and the bees and butterflies getting ready for the winter, this is an ideal time to reflect on what the Lions Bay Butterflyway Project has accomplished this year. Much of our effort goes into maintaining our existing pollinator gardens. This includes the Mary Comber Miles Indigenous Plant Garden, the Sunset Drive Trailhead Garden and the native plant garden near the stairs by the village office. In addition, each participant in the Butterflyway Project spends time tending his or her own pollinator patch and we have more than 15 participants. This adds up to a lot of weeding and watering!
In addition to regular garden maintenance, various specific activities were undertaken this year. For example, in February we participated in a Bird Friendly sponsored coffee session where we presented information about the Butterflyway program.
On a rainy day in March we hosted an ivy pull on the bank just east of the Firehall where ivy has been slowly creeping over the ferns and other native plants. That particular area is in need of some maintenance as the ivy does grow back over time.In April, as part of the Entrance Beautification Project spearheaded by Victoria Rogers and Kim Mailey, with the support of the Blink 49 Studio, we organized a large invasive plant removal at the village entrance to help prepare the ground for beneficial native plants. That project is still ongoing and there will be a request soon to continue with the ground preparation.
At the World Migratory Bird Day event in May, we highlighted the importance of caterpillars in the life cycle of butterflies and moths and streamed the video “The Extraordinary Caterpillar”, which has amazing photography of a wide variety of amazing caterpillars, and stimulated lots of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ at our table.
Our most recent event was a village wide ivy pull during Labour Day Week. Each home was challenged to fill one green waste bag or bin with invasive plants, including ivy, morning glory, Himalayan blackberry, periwinkle, and lamium. We were thrilled that we counted at least 80 bags with butterfly sketches and logos on them to identify that they were filled with invasive plants!
Finally, we were asked to help prepare the area at the mouth of Magnesia Creek to become a Lions Bay Memorial Garden. Our contribution to this project has been to work with interested villagers to remove invasive plants and prepare the area for native plants. To this end, we received a grant of $500 from the West Vancouver Foundation to purchase plants to replace the invasive plants. This project is ongoing and we anticipate that the memorial garden will be ready for a memorial service in December for Barbara and David Enns who perished in the Battani Creek landslide. The garden is intended to be a beautiful meditative space where any villager can come for private contemplation and remembrance.
Thank you sincerely to all the volunteers who have helped to create native plant gardens in Lions Bay which support butterflies, bees and birds. Working together, we can make a significant contribution to a healthy ecosystem in our beautiful village!
