April 2024
And some
clever quip...
Science Fair!
Nara has competed in three year of Science
Fair. Her first year was in grade 6 when she did a project
showing that copper is toxic to brine shrimp, which is very
similar to how the Britannia Mine basically sterilized Howe
Sound. Because she was in grade 6, she couldn't go to
nationals so she didn't make it out of her school (Kerrisdale)
science fair. In grade 7 she did a project on Kelp's
ability to remove fertilizer from sea water. We converted
our cooler into an aquarium and built a life support system to
keep the kelp alive. She made it to Greater Vancouver
Regional Science Fair (GVRSF), won gold and then went to Edmonton
for nationals where she won Silver. This year she has a new
project - using machine learning to find probable miscarriages in
the local resident population of Orca's. GVRSF was her
second show and this year she was able to go to the show with her
younger friends from Kerrisdale. She had a great time!
We mostly just drop off Nara and she runs around with her friends,
but after all the judging, lab tours and public shows there is an
awards ceremony. We played this game last year (junior is
early, intermediate and senior is later and if you are lucky and
get invited to Canada wide, expect to be there for a few hours) so
Nara had her homework for school on Monday and her laptop so she
wouldn't miss her french class.
When Nara did her Kelp project, we redid
her whole project between the school science fair and GVRSF.
Lucky for us, she was happy with the results from her project so
we didn't have to do it again. Less lucky - you need to make
new boards for nationals and it takes dozens of hours to get
everything perfect.
We don't go with Nara to nationals (this year in Ottawa) but we do
watch the awards ceremony online. This year Nara won gold at
nationals and an additional award.
Vancouver Art Fair
Vancouver Art Fair is an annual spring
show that has both local artists and international artists.
There are local companies showing art products like prints and
framing. There are lots of talks by artists and workshops
where you can learn new techniques. Claira and I got a day
pass and went for a walk to see the artists.
I don't like taking photos of just other
peoples art - I don't bring much to the table in that
scenario.
Reifel Bird Sanctuary
I have this dream of going to Reifle Bird Sanctuary and seeing
endless fluff ball chicks. This wasn't that trip. It was
a nice spring trip walk with lots of birds doing pair and nest
building behaviors.
I really like Marsh Wrens in
Spring. They are high on breeding hormones so they still out
on limbs (easy to photograph) trying to attract a mate. In the
fall, you can hear the Marsh Wren's but your chance of seeing them
is almost zero.
Reifel bird sanctuary is one of the
best places to see Sandhill Cranes in the lower mainland.
(There is an estuary in Masset that is also a great place to see
them). The Cranes are also a little hormone crazy so this
isn't a great time of the year to try and hand feed them.
One of my favorites are the tree sparrows and their nest boxes.
The Sanctuary does have a lot of ponds. As I have roughly a
million photos of ducks so I'm not going to spend the morning taking
photos of birds.
Funny enough - I did a search of
which species I have the most photos of. Number one species is
currently Orca's with 33 photos. Bald Eagle is number 2 with
30 photos, followed closely by Great Blue Heron with 29
photos. One of those features I have wanted to write for a
while is a ranking system against tags so I can identify which is
best. Someday.
Last bird I saw a
Lesser Yellowlegs - it was in a pond right next to the parking
lot. I have a soft spot for these small wading birds and we
don't see a lot of them this late in the spring.
Tags: Reifel Bird Sanctuary(11), art(2), sign(1)
People: Claira(3), Nara(3)
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2024 to 2005 > April 2024
Last Modified Tuesday, June 4th, 2024 at 22:09:10 Edit
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