Red Deer River Naturalists

Bird Focus Group Walk
2017-11-18 13:30 - 15:30 (America/Edmonton) | Bower Woods, Selkirk Boulevard, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
Location: Bower Woods
Meet in the green space across from 35 Selkirk Boulevard.
Host: Keith Kline

Speaker of the Month
2017-11-23 19:30 - 21:30 | Kerry Wood Nature Centre, 6300 45 Avenue, Red Deer, AB, T4N 3M4, Canada
RDRN Members Meeting/Coffee Time – 7:30 p.m.
Speaker: Bradley Peter, Alberta Lake Management Society – 8:00 p.m.

Bradley will provide an overview of Citizen Science monitoring of lakes in Alberta, with a focus on the Red Deer River Watershed. Also new technology used to monitor lakes as well as emerging threats to aquatic ecosystems will be explored.
Bradley Peter is a Professional Biologist and the Executive Director of the Alberta Lake Management Society (ALMS). ALMS works to promote the understanding and comprehensive management of lakes, reservoirs and their watersheds. Their flagship program, LakeWatch, partners with the public to collect data and information to increase knowledge of lake functions and management options. Bradley has spent time as a field technician collecting data on lakes across Alberta and six years co-ordinating Citizen Science programs for ALMS.

Bird Focus Group Walk
2017-11-25 13:30 - 15:30 | Rotary Park, 4837 43 Street, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
Location: Kin Kanyon
Meet at Rotary Park Picnic area parking lot.
Host: Keith Kline

Bird Focus Group Walk
2017-12-02 13:30 - 15:30 | Gaetz Lakes Migratory Bird Sanctuary, gaetz lake mirgratory bird sanctuary, red deer, alberta, Canada
Location: Gaetz Lakes Migratory Bird Sanctuary
Meet in Kerry Wood Nature Centre
Host: Keith Kline

Bird Focus Group Walk
2017-12-09 13:30 - 16:30 | Gaetz Lakes Migratory Bird Sanctuary, gaetz lake mirgratory bird sanctuary, red deer, alberta, Canada
Location: Gaetz Lakes Migratory Bird Sanctuary
Meet: In Kerry Wood Nature Centre
Your Host: Keith Kline
Bring your binoculars, camera and dress for the weather. After we will enjoy cake and coffee/tea in the RDRN board room in the Kerry Wood Nature Centre. Last meet-up of the year.

Board Meeting
2017-12-12 19:30 - 21:30, 2018-01-09 19:30 - 21:30 | Kerry Wood Nature Centre, 6300 45 Avenue, Red Deer, AB, T4N 3M4, Canada

Christmas Bird Count
2017-12-17
Choose a place to count the birds. Please register where you will be counting with Judy Boyd (403-358-1098) so there will be no duplication of counts. Potluck supper for participants will start at 6 p.m. at the Kerry Wood Nature Centre.

Flower Focus
2017-12-20 10:00 - 12:00 | Kerry Wood Nature Centre, 6300 45 Avenue, Red Deer, AB, T4N 3M4, Canada
Your Host: Don Wales
Topic: Christmas Flowers and the Weird and Wonderful!

Flower Focus
2018-01-17 10:00 - 12:00 | Kerry Wood Nature Centre, 6300 45 Avenue, Red Deer, AB, T4N 3M4, Canada
Your Host: Don Wales
Speaker: Caroline Harris
Topic: Wildflowers of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California’s Largest State Park

Annual General Meeting
2018-01-25 19:30 - 21:30 | Kerry Wood Nature Centre, 6300 45 Avenue, Red Deer, AB, T4N 3M4, Canada
Come join us and hear our Reports, Achievements, Up-coming Events and Speakers. We also need Board Members for the New Year. Think about joining the Board.
The RDRN Board has been working hard to update our bylaws. RDRN members can vote to rescind the old bylaws and accept the revised ones at this Annual Meeting. You must be a RDRN Member and have paid your dues for 2018 in order to vote.
To see the Bylaws go to the home page, click on links. The first two links are the revised RDRN bylaws and the old RDRN bylaws. Look for the owl logo.
Get involved! Check out our bylaws.

Casino
2018-02-06 - 2018-02-07

Board Meeting
2018-02-13 19:00 - 21:00, 2018-03-13 19:00 - 21:00, 2018-04-10 19:00 - 21:00, 2018-05-08 07:00 - 21:00 | RDRN Office, Kerry Wood Nature Centre

Speaker of the Month
2018-02-22 19:30 - 21:30 | Kerry Wood Nature Centre, 6300 45 Avenue, Red Deer, AB, T4N 3M4, Canada
RDRN Members Meeting/Coffee Time – 7:30 p.m.
Speaker: Elly Knight – 8:00 p.m.
Topic: Birds of the Unknown – Ecology & Conservation of Nightjars in Canada

Thanks to their nocturnal and cryptic nature, Nightjars (Family Caprimulgidae) have slipped through the ornithological cracks and are arguably the most poorly studied birds in North America. Now, two of the three species in Canada are listed as threatened and the third has been assessed as data deficient. Come learn more about the ecology of Nightjars in Canada, current Nightjar research and what’s being done to conserve them! Learn how to identify each of our three species and where to find them. We’ll go over the new Canadian Nightjar Survey Protocol and how Citizen Scientists can help collect valuable baseline data for this understudied group of birds.
Elly Knight is a PhD Student at the University of Alberta, Program Manager for the WildResearch Nightjar Survey and a Professional Biologist with the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists. Elly’s research focuses on understanding the biology and conservation of Nightjar species and developing methods to reveal the secrets of these understudied birds.

Insect Focus Group
2018-03-21 10:00 - 12:00 | Kerry Wood Nature Centre, 6300 45 Avenue, Red Deer, AB, T4N 3M4, Canada
Your Host: Don Wales
Topic: Introduction to Insects and Primitive Insect Orders
After at least ten years of Flower Focus, thank you Eileen Ford, we are making a temporary shift to Insect Focus, beginning on March 21, 2018 through to the end of 2018, and maybe beyond, depending on the response.
I have wanted to do something like this since I retired in 2008. I still retain extensive resources from my days of teaching Entomology in the Biological Technology Program at the Red Deer College (RDC). I am hopeful that I still have access to the insect collections and related resources at the RDC. I graduated with a BSc in Entomology in 1967 and have forgotten more than I ever knew, since then. But, not to worry, the focus is less on the highly specialized area of insect taxonomy and more on the natural history of the insects and, in many cases, their relationship with wildflowers.
All this will be sprinkled with pointless stories about experiences I have had in the field of Entomology. So, if you share my fascination with the world of insects join us for Insect Focus!

Speaker of the Month
2018-03-29 19:30 - 21:30 | Red Deer Polytechnic, 100 College Blvd, Red Deer, Alberta, T4N 5H5, Canada
RDRN/Red Deer College Lecture – 7:30 p.m.
Margaret Parsons Theatre – Red Deer College
Ticket is required and can be obtained at the Kerry Wood Nature Centre

Speaker: Dr. Philip J. Currie, PhD

Topic: New information about the quintessential “Raptor” of Alberta. Saurornitholestes langstoni
Saurornitholestes langstoni, about the size of a German Shepard dog, made big waves as a small dinosaur when it was discovered in 2014 at Alberta’s Dinosaur Provincial Park. Excavated by University of Alberta Palaeontologists, the 75 million year old skeleton is the most intact version of a small meat-eating dinosaur ever found in Canada and the only complete specimen known in the world. The specimen, part of the Laboratory for Vertebrate Palaeontology, is on loan to Japan’s National Museum of Science and Technology where U of A Scientists will continue to unearth its secrets.
Dr. Philip J. Currie is a Professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of Alberta in the Department of Biological Sciences. He is the former Curator of Dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. He has a PhD from McGill University and received honorary degrees from the Universities of Calgary (2008) and British Columbia (2015). He has published more than 225 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, another 50 scientific papers in conference volumes and books, 158 popular articles and 20 books focusing on the growth and variation of extinct reptiles, anatomy and relationships of carnivorous dinosaurs and the origin of birds. He has given hundreds of popular and scientific lectures on dinosaurs all over the world. He has received many awards and most recently in 2017 he received The Romer–Simpson Medal. The highest award issued by the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology for “sustained and outstanding scholarly excellence and service to the discipline of vertebrate palaeontology”. Also involved in the development of University of Alberta’s first massive open online course (MOOC) called DINO101 which premiered September 2013 and more than 100,000 students worldwide have taken. A new mini-course (MOOC) entitled Palaeontology: Theropod Dinosaurs and the Origin of Birds, was released in 2016.

Bird Focus Group Walk
2018-04-07 10:00 - 12:00 | Rotary Park, 4837 43 Street, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
Location: Kin Kanyon
Meet at Rotary Park Picnic area parking lot.
Host: Keith Kline
Bring your binoculars, camera and dress for the weather.
All are welcome, you do not have to be a member to attend.

Bird Focus Group Walk
2018-04-14 10:00 - 12:00 | McKenzie Trails, McKenzie Trails Red Deer, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
Location: McKenzie Trails
Meet in the parking lot near the shelter.
Host: Keith Kline
Bring your binoculars, camera and dress for the weather.
All are welcome, you do not have to be a member to attend.

Insect Focus Group
2018-04-18 10:00 - 12:00 | Kerry Wood Nature Centre, 6300 45 Avenue, Red Deer, AB, T4N 3M4, Canada
Your Host: Don Wales
Topic: The Orthopteroid Complex and the True Bugs (Order Orthoptera – crickets, grasshoppers, katydid, etc.)
An order of insects that comprises the grasshoppers, crickets and their relatives. They have a saddle-shaped thorax, hind legs that are typically long and modified for jumping and a characteristic song which the male produces by stridulating. Including also the stoneflies, stick insects, earwigs, cockroaches, mantises, and termites.

Bird Focus Group Walk
2018-04-21 10:00 - 12:00 | Gaetz Lakes Migratory Bird Sanctuary, gaetz lake mirgratory bird sanctuary, red deer, alberta, Canada
Location: Gaetz Lakes Migratory Bird Sanctuary
Meet in Kerry Wood Nature Centre
Host: Keith Kline
Bring your binoculars, camera and dress for the weather.
All are welcome, you do not have to be a member to attend.

Speaker of the Month
2018-04-26 19:30 - 21:30 | Kerry Wood Nature Centre, 6300 45 Avenue, Red Deer, AB, T4N 3M4, Canada
RDRN Members Meeting/Coffee Time – 7:30 p.m.
Speaker: Wes Olson – 8:00 p.m.
Topic: The Ecological Bison
Bison once occupied most of North America and they had complex interactions with almost every other bird, mammal, amphibian and reptile that shared their ecosystem. With stunning photographs of bison across their historical range, this presentation highlights some of these fascinating relationships and explores the keystone role that bison continue to play in maintaining healthy landscapes wherever they are found.
Wes Olson has had a life-long association with wild places and wildlife. Wes worked for several years as a Wildlife Technician for the Yukon Government and then, after a stint at the Banff School of Fine Arts in 1981, began a career with Parks Canada as a National Park Warden. He focused on bison management in Banff, Waterton Lakes, Elk Island, Prince Albert and Grasslands National Park, where he retired in 2012. This long history with bison and the spectacular natural areas they occupy has given Wes an international reputation for his knowledge about both plains and wood bison. Wes has combined his extensive scientific knowledge about bison with his wife Johane’s photography to create compelling stories about this charismatic animal.

Bird Focus Group Walk
2018-04-28 10:00 - 12:00 | River Bend Golf & Recreation Area, 3800 River Bend Drive, Red Deer, Alberta, T4P 0Y4, Canada
Location: River Bend
Meet in the parking lot on your right at the bottom of the entrance to River Bend Golf Course.
Host: Keith Kline
Bring your binoculars, camera and dress for the weather. All are welcome, you do not have to be a member to attend.

Bird Focus Group Walk
2018-05-05 10:00 - 12:00 | Lockerby Natural Area, AB-816, Pine Lake,, Red Deer County, Alberta, T4E 1C1, Canada
Location: Lockerby Natural Area
Host: Keith Kline
Bring your binoculars, camera and dress for the weather.
We will car pool to the site as there is limited parking available. Please meet at 10:00 a.m. at Kerry Wood Nature Centre.
Call Keith if you plan to attend.
All are welcome, you do not have to be a member to attend.

Insect Focus Group
2018-05-16 10:00 - 12:00 | Kerry Wood Nature Centre, 6300 45 Avenue, Red Deer, AB, T4N 3M4, Canada
Your Host: Don Wales
Topic: Nerve wing insects and the order Lepidoptera* – moths and butterflies
*An order of insects that comprises the butterflies and moths. They have four large scale-covered wings that bear distinctive markings, and larvae that are caterpillars

Bird Focus Group Walk
2018-05-19 10:00 - 12:00 | Maskepetoon Park, Maskepetoon Park, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
Location: Maskepetoon Park
Meet: Located in the subdivision of Oriole Park West. Follow Kerry Wood Drive, meet in the parking lot and exercise area south of Overand Place. Parking lot is on the west side of Kerry Wood Drive.
Host: Keith Kline
Bring your binoculars, camera and dress for the weather.
All are welcome, you do not have to be a member to attend.

May Species Count
2018-05-26 - 2018-05-27
May 26 and 27 – May Species Count. Count all species (birds, flowers, mammals, insects). Registration is required to participate. Call Judy at 403-358-1098 to register or for more information

Bird Focus Group Walk
2018-06-02 10:00 - 12:00
Location: Hazlett Lake
Meet: 27432 HWY 1, go west on Highway 11A, take the last entrance on your right before the Highway 2 exit. Keith will be standing at the entrance.
Host: Keith Kline
Bring your binoculars, camera and dress for the weather.
All are welcome, you do not have to be a member to attend.
