Evening meetings of the Nicola Naturalist Society are held once a month from September through May. We generally meet at 7PM on the third Thursday of the month in the Lecture Theatre of NVIT (Nicola Valley Institute of Technology) on Belshaw Road, Merritt. Admission is free to members. We have awesome raffles.
Field Outings are usually held in spring, summer and fall and are listed below. Members will receive e-mail notices too. Field trips are restricted to paid-up members (but visitors can sign up as a member for the day for a nominal fee).
We are on Facebook. Check out our Facebook page: NNS Facebook
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Thursday September 19th 2024: AGM and Members’ Photo Night.
We keep the essential business meeting short and have lots of time to enjoy our members’ photos of local wildlife, wildflowers and scenery. An annual favourite.
Hummingbird Clearwing Moth. Photo by Nicola Naturalist Society member © Murphy Shewchuk
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Thursday October 17th 2024: Megan Blackmore – Rooted in Nature: Cultivating Beauty and Biodiversity with Native Plants
Megan is a certified horticulturalist, avid naturalist and Thompson-Shuswap Master Gardener. She will explain how to integrate native plants into the home landscape. Whether you want to create habitat to support native biodiversity, reduce your water usage, or simply bring the beauty of the surrounding forests and grasslands home, there are native plants for every garden. By choosing the plants that are naturally adapted to our region, gardeners can create attractive, low maintenance green spaces that benefit birds, bees, butterflies and beyond!
A bee pollinates Mountain Sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale). Photo: © Megan Blackmore
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Thursday November 21st 2024: Kristi Iverson – Wildfires in BC Interior Forests – Past, Present and Future
Increased severity and frequency of fires, attributed to climate change and accumulating fuel, pose significant threats to our dry-belt Douglas-fir and Ponderosa Pine forest communities. Without interventions, drought and frequent wildfire suggest a trajectory toward a substantially non-forested landscape. Kristi Iverson, a Vegetation Ecologist with the Ministry of Forests, delves into fire history and the historical and present structures of our interior forests. She summarizes climate-change projections, the implications for future wildfires and examples of recent harvesting and restoration work. Together, this information can guide us to more fire-resistant forests in the future.
Terrifying wildfires have become a regular reality in the BC Interior and have profound effects on the forests.
Photo courtesy Kristi Iverson (BC Ministry of Forests)
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Stay tuned for further events this fall and early winter – Merritt Christmas Bird Count and more.
And coming up in 2025 …….
The Nicola Naturalist Society is hosting the 2025 BC Nature Spring Conference & AGM – May 22-25, 2025. The theme of the meeting is Nature in the Rain Shadow – Grasslands, Forests & Wetlands. Planning is underway for a fabulous array of presentations, field trips and social events.
Keep in touch – to join the Nicola Naturalist Society go to our Membership Page – click here.
