News Archive : 2003-03-26

Group lobbies city to adopt heron as official bird
 
Malcolm Curtis
Times Colonist
Friday, March 26, 2004

This heron nesting tree in Beacon Hill Park will have a global audience once a video camera is set up on the 12th floor of a neighbouring apartment building.

The huge popularity of Beacon Hill Park's great blue herons is spawning a drive to make the long-necked creature Victoria's official bird.

The suggestion arose Thursday after city council agreed to help pay for a video camera that will beam images of the park's herons to a Web site on the Internet.

"The heron could be synonymous with Victoria," Coun. Pamela Madoff said. The city currently does not have an official bird.
Coun. Chris Coleman said he wants to take the proposal to the parks and recreation advisory committee before formally presenting it to council.

Mayor Alan Lowe said the idea has possibilities. As a symbol, the heron fits in with Victoria's vision of becoming "the most livable city in Canada," Lowe said. "It's something quite unique to the area, having wildlife close to the hustle and bustle of downtown. "

With an estimated 210 birds, the heronry at Beacon Hill is one of the biggest on Vancouver Island and the most significant in an urban area, attracting hundreds of curious onlookers to the park.

" I think it would be a really good thing for Victoria to celebrate the birds," said Rhiannon Handi, a James Bay resident who first suggested the Webcam to the city.

Handi, a photographer who has taken hundreds of picture of herons since February 1999, said Victoria could organize a heron festival, similar to ones held for other birds in Parksville (brant geese), Comox Valley (trumpeter swans) and Brackendale, near Squamish, (eagles).

Council agreed to support heroncam.com through a $7,500 program funded by the city and the Parks and Recreation Foundation of Greater Victoria, a charitable trust. Lowe said earlier Thursday the first chick was born among the 105 nests counted in the park.

The video camera, located on the 12th floor balcony of a Douglas Street apartment tower, will keep a constant watch on the tree canopy where the herons breed from February to August.

The heroncam is a "non-invasive" way of viewing the birds, whose nests are located high above ground level where they are difficult to see, parks manager Mike Leskiw said.

These kind of birds can be easily spooked by human activity.
Many of the birds have relocated to the park after abandoning nesting areas on Saltspring Island and Cowichan Lake, where they were scared away by human activity. But not everyone is happy with the idea of the heroncam.

Betty Gibbens, a James Bay resident who monitors activity in the park, said the project will turn the heronry into a park attraction.

"They should just leave the birds alone," Gibbens said.
She criticized the placement of signs in the park that provide information about the birds as only serving to draw people around where they nest.

But Handi responded that both the signs and the video camera educate people about the importance of not disturbing the herons.

Actions taken by the city to ban parking near the nesting area off Douglas Street have resulted in an increase in the numbers of birds, she said.

©  Copyright  2004 Times Colonist (Victoria)