Peterborough Field Naturalists host an i-Naturalist walk through Harper Park

21/09/2017

September 10th proved to be a sunny, warm delightful morning as 13 people arrived at Harper Park for the Peterborough Field Naturalists’ inaugural iNaturalist walk.

With smartphones in hand, we gathered for a quick overview.  iNaturalist has become a popular method to engage citizens who want to learn about the nature around them, and to document observations of species for further scientific research.  An inventory of the species in Harper Park will provide a baseline of biodiversity, and help to monitor and assess changes due to the impacts of development. All good stuff!

Although iNaturalist is user friendly the website iNaturalist.org and the Getting Started video are worth exploring. But first, everyone needed to make an iNaturalist account from the website, iNaturalist.org.

In order to maintain a species list for Harper Park in one spot, The Harper Park Stewardship Initiative Project was setup in iNaturalist.  Therefore, the next “to do” was JOIN this project and make certain each observation …

Continue Reading →

Getting the Word Out: Raising the Profile of Harper Park

28/04/2013

Where is Harper Park?  Never heard of it.  Oh, is it that place in the SW end, north of Sir Sandford Fleming Drive, you know, the one with the barbed wire fence around it?  Isn’t that an industrial park, or an old dump?  

For a park that has been described in reports as:

“easily the most ecologically important area in Peterborough”

And recently in a CHEX interview with author Drew Monkman,

“like a piece of Algonquin Park…dropped into the City of Peterborough”

Harper Park remains relatively unknown to the citizens of Peterborough. Some may say that this is a bonus, that the cryptic nature of the park has allowed it to remain in its natural state, with its wild inhabitants relatively undisturbed.  The flip side of this argument of course, is that it is hard to feel an attachment to a place if you have never interacted with it in a meaningful way.  Such is the conundrum with Harper …

Continue Reading →

Clean-up and Mapping Day: Reducing Obstacles to Public Enjoyment of Bridlewood & Harper Parks

30/11/2012

Well, it seems like only yesterday, but it was actually October 13’th acknowledged the beleaguered blogger, that a fantastic group of 14 enthusiastic stewards hauled some major trash out of Bridlewood and Harper Parks. An important goal of the HPSI is to promote nature-based education, as well as aesthetic and spiritual enjoyment of Harper Park.  Removing hazards from the park facilitates this goal by increasing the safety of those who regularly enjoy the natural beauty of this ecologically diverse nature area through quiet walks, photography and bird watching.

Continue Reading →

What we did on our summer vacation

27/08/2012

Normally, we would have given each of the newsworthy events listed below their own post, but the joys of exploring Harper Park, especially in the summer months, took priority over blogging.  So, this somewhat lengthy post is devoted to updating our followers on some exciting developments.

  1. Green light given for HPSI activities within Harper Park
  2. Looking for the Gallerucella spp. beetle
  3. Researching park history
  4. Planning for a clean-up and mapping day in October

1.  On July 31, Kim Zippel met with Renee Recoskie of Dillon Consulting Ltd.  Dillon Consulting Ltd., as you may remember from a previous post, was the firm awarded the contract to complete the initial Environmental Site Investigation of the Harper Road landfill.  Renee informed Kim that Dillon would NOT be using the North Tributary as a reference stream for their sampling program.  The HPSI have been given the go-ahead from Dillon to complete enhancement work within the park, as long as the date and location of

…

Continue Reading →