On this month’s ‘Adventures with Nature Norm’, they will be celebrating Tall Grass Prairie butterflies and participants will be given the chance to win an incredible prize.
Norm Gregoire, the Community Liaison for Species at Risk from Shared Legacy will be the tour guide for the nature walk and will share information about butterflies. He discusses potential highlights of the walk.
“Around the Tall Grass Prairie preserve, there’s around 20 different species of butterfly that you can spot, but there’s one that’s found nowhere else in all of Canada. That would be a little butterfly called the Poweshiek Skipperling,” Gregoire explains. “It’s a tiny orange and grey coloured butterfly, about the size of your thumbnail. There are not many left of them in the world, I say only about 500 of them or so left internationally. There is a tiny population near Flint, Michigan but the only place we have them in Canada is in the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve.”
Poweshiek Skipperling. Photo Credit: https://sharedlegacymb.ca/photo-video-gallery/There have already been butterfly sightings in Manitoba, and Gregoire is anticipating more arriving leading up to the walk.
“They are starting with your early flyers,” he says. “One of the more common ones you see early in the Mourning Cloak. Another butterfly that I work with, much more recognizable is the Monarch butterfly, also a species at risk.”
Along this walk, Gregoire will also be sharing information on different wildflowers in the area and why they are important.
“What’s great about this time of the year is the start of summer and we say that on average in the Tall Grass Prairie, we have about 15 new species coming into bloom per week from about now until September. There’s always something to see,” he explains. “We’re starting to see our first real prairie wildflowers appear. Different flowers like Golden Alexander, Heartleaf Alexander, Northern Bedstraw, and various types of violets. The things that are really important for the butterflies, the flowers for nectar, we will get up close with those for sure.”
The walk will take place on June 8 and two time slots are available. The first walk will be from 8am to 10pm and the second, 10am to 12pm.
“The trail we are on is the Prairie Shore Interpretive Trail, which is a little bit closer to Tolstoi. It’s a completely new area for people to check out. It’s an easy walk, 1.5 kilometers or so.”
Gregoire shares that a once-in-a-lifetime experience can be won by a participant.
“Folks that come out on the tour will be able to enter themselves into a draw to win this experience with the Assiniboine Park Conservancy and actually doing a Poweshiek Skipperling release,” Gregoire says. “Letting a community member come out and learn from these experts that are literally saving the species from going extinct. Learn everything that goes into it, and actually get to release a butterfly back into the wild. The lucky winner will have the chance to handle and release one of the 500 or so amazing butterflies back into Mother Nature, it’s a really cool opportunity.”
Gregoire describes the release as sensitive, so only one participant from the walk can attend. He goes on to discuss the release and why it’s needed.
“There’s been amazing work done with the Assiniboine Park Conservancy and folks at The Nature Conservancy of Canada working to save this butterfly from extinction over the last few years,” he says. “They’ve done a captive rearing and head-starting program, essentially raising butterflies indoors and then releasing them back into the wild, supporting that population.”
The winner of the experience will have to be flexible with dates and times as they have little information on when the release will happen.
“The dates aren’t set in stone. It’ll be on a weekend towards the end of June. But things like weather, we’re talking about rain, wind, or various different things could push the release back or forward a couple of days or a week, so we can’t give the exact date.”
Gregoire encourages people to join in on the walk and learn more about nature and different species in Manitoba.
“The first one we did was last summer, and it was honestly one of the highlights of my job so far working as the Community Liaison for Species at Risk here at The Tall Grass Prairie.”
Nature Norm exploring The Tall Grass Prairie. Photo credit: https://www.facebook.com/sharedlegacymbFor more information about the walk or the organization, visit the Shared Legacy website.
-With files from Carly Koop
Thu, Jul 4, 8:30 AM
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