Red-spotted Purple

On Sunday August 11th at 2pm, The Restore Cootes campaign will propose a vision for Dundas and Hamilton to enhance and restore natural areas on the periphery of Cootes Paradise degraded or lost to development.

“Cootes Paradise is at the heart of the city’s ecological recovery,” suggests Restore Cootes’ founder Randy Kay. “There’s so much potential for rehabilitation in places like McMaster’s west campus parking lots, which up until the 1960s functioned as a floodplain for lower Ancaster Creek where it empties into Cootes Paradise.”

This talk will explore issues relating to McMaster’s Lot M, which include the founding of McMaster University in Hamilton, the relationship between McMaster and the Royal Botanical Gardens’ properties, and will touch on Cootes Drive, electric railways, pioneer cemeteries, lost ponds, and “ghost” trails, the Parking or Paradise campaign and restoration along the Desjardins Canal.

The lecture will be co-presented by Randy Kay and Dr Jim Quinn, professor of biology at McMaster University and longtime environmental activist and conservationist. It will take place in the Urquhart Butterfly Garden, rain or shine.

For more information about the Restore Cootes campaign, visit restorecootes.blogspot.ca.

Question Mark

Saturday August 3rd at 11am the Urquhart Butterfly Garden will be holding its first ‘Free Guided Butterfly & Bird Identification Walks ‘ at the Garden. Join naturalist Matthew Mills to discover the diversity of life at the Garden.

Butterflies come in many sizes, some as big as your hand and others as small as a fingernail. Some butterflies are drab and shy others are bold and colourful, like the well-known Monarch butterfly. Visitors who walk through the Garden quickly are likely to see nothing but Cabbage Whites, but visitors who spend time at the Butterfly Garden are often rewarded with unusual sightings. Continue reading →

***Update: The September 26 workshop on Insect Identification has been canceled***

We are pleased to announce the schedule of the Urquhart Butterfly Garden Summer Education Series. These free workshops will be held in the garden throughout August and September. We will host free Guided Butterfly and Bird Identification walks, lead by naturalist Matt Mills on every second Saturday at 11am (August 3, 17, 31 and September 14,  28). We also invite you to our Public Education Workshops, the full schedule of which is below or on the poster.

In the coming weeks, we will be releasing descriptions of each workshop and short bios of our presenters, so keep checking back. Continue reading →