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Eagle LakeProperty Owners’ Associationwww.elpoa.ca
J U N E 2 0 1 7
In this Issue
1 President’s Message
2 The Beauty of Moths
4 Newsletter Distribution: Move
to an Electronic Version
4 Butternut Tree Recovery
5 Winter Activities at RKY
6 Water Levels this Summer
8 Lake Trout Management
N E W S L E T T E R
President’s MessageBrian Devlin
Welcome Spring and Summer. This should prove to be a memorable one for us all as we celebrate Canada’s 150 birthday. Our family has had the pleasure of celebrating 30 Canada Days on Eagle Lake. Most have been celebrated in a traditionally Canadian way, quietly with our children and now grandchildren at the lake. This year, we are looking forward to participating in some of the activities planned by the Sharbot Lake, Canada 150 Committee. Should be a grand day!
If you are not a member of the Eagle Lake Facebook group please consider joining. Frequently, there are pictures and other items of interest posted. For example, a number of lost items, docks and canoes have been located and returned to their proper owners and locations.If you are interested in serving as a Board member, please contact me in the next few weeks.
The 2017 ELPOA AGM is scheduled for July 15th. The Annual General Meeting will be held in the morning at RKY Camp. In addition to the traditional items, we will have a presentation by Mayor Smith and Council Member Heese on the Township’s septic system inspection plans and status. This will be a consultation opportunity for all parties. Your Board of Directors sent a letter to the Mayor indicating the Board’s support of the plan to have all septic systems within the Township inspected on a regular basis. Come and hear the latest on this important environmental topic.
During the AGM, I will outline the Board’s plan to publish future newsletters electronically. Please read the article prepared by Irv and Rick in this newsletter.
Our AGM in 2015 had a fun social component after the meeting and lunch. Doug Cummings and a committee are planning similar activities to help celebrate Canada’s birthday and to foster a sense of community. We hope to see you and yours at this year’s AGM, it should be an informative and fun time!
2 Eagle Lake Property Owners’ Association
Many of us on Eagle Lake particularly enjoy “getting back to nature” and we each have our own activities to enjoy the great variety of natural life. For some it is listening to and watching birds, the loons, the hummingbirds at our feeders, the migrating geese, the wild turkeys that forage across our backyards, and those red eyed vireos that sing more than 10,000 songs a day! For others it is the spring progression of wildflowers, identifying butterflies and dragonflies, catching fish, or watching the antics of chipmunks, or snakes devouring their prey.However In this article I would like to encourage you to check out some of our beautiful nocturnal wildlife that typical goes quite unnoticed, the moths! This is one of those projects that is wonderful if shared with your children or grandchildren, but even delightful to expand your own enjoyment of cottage life. Do you know that there are about 160,000 species of moths on the planet, and interestingly only about 15,000 species of butterflies. Usually we only see a few flitting around our outdoor lights, but here is how you can attract many different varieties of moths, and see them up close, and still enough to see their remarkable shapes, colours and sizes and even photograph and identify them.What you will need: A large, preferably old, white double bed sheet, some rope for a clothes line, a portable bright electric light on a cable, and possibly some plastic pill containers or glass jam jars to catch them in.Setup: Find a good spot on your cottage lot that has several large trees, and string up the rope between two trees, like a clothes line, so that it is high enough that the sheet, when attached, just touches the ground (see figure 1). When it is dark, arrange the electric light so that it illuminates the entire sheet and wait for the moths to arrive. If you have one of those very bright battery powered portable lights it often helps to bring down more moths that happen to be flying by overhead, if you direct its beam vertically up in the sky in front of the sheet. Since nearly all insects including moths see ultraviolet light, you can also use a black light obtained from most hardware stores to place behind the sheet, which may bring in other species.Some moth enthusiasts also make up a sugary concoction, often referred to as “goop”, which they paint on the bark of a nearby tree to attract nectar-feeding moths. The recipes vary considerably, but a common one combines in a blender, a soft banana, a scoop of brown sugar, a dollop of molasses and a couple of ounces of beer (make sure you drink the rest of the bottle to also enjoy the process!!)
In our area you may get to see the giant and incredible beautiful lunar moth, which, if you look carefully, has a pattern along the top of it forewings that look remarkably like a tree branch, complete with buds. Then when it opens its hind wings, two compelling eye spots appear which when they are suddenly flashed, scare off predatory birds (see figure 3).
The Beauty of MothsBarrie Frost
Figure 1. Showing the sheet(s) hung up on a clothesline and illuminated with a bright light to attract the moths.Some of the moths have very drab colouration so that they are quite camouflaged when they rest on the bark of a tree, but occasionally they might have bright hind wings, such as the underwing moths, that are revealed only when they open their wings (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Yellow banded underwing caught on Opeongo Point showing moth with folded wings which makes them very difficult to see when on tree bark, and below with wings open revealing distinctive coloured hind-wing pattern.
elpoa.ca 3
Here are two more photos of moths that we happened to see in Australia, The first is a very large beautiful emperor gum moth, which also sports wonderful eye spots, and the second is another type of underwing moth.
If you get really hooked on this activity the Peterson “Field Guide to the moths (of Northeastern North America)” by David Beadle and Seabrooke Leckie is an excellent book to help you identify some of the moths you find. Likewise the websitehttp://www.insectidentification.org/butterflies-and-moths.asp is one of many websites that is helpful.Good hunting and send in pictures if you find something rare.
Figure 3: Lunar moth also caught on Opeongo Point showing branch and bud pattern on leading edge of forewings and eye spots on hind wings.
Figure 4(right): top Emperor Gum moth and bottom, an Australian underwing moth.
4 Eagle Lake Property Owners’ Association
The time has come for ELPOA to fully embrace the modern technological era. We had begun the process so that a proportion of our membership now receives our newsletter electronically. Many current reasons exist to expand the digital newsletter presentation to encompass virtually all of our membership.It has become increasingly difficult to find board members with software skills required to sort the membership database and perform “mail merge” to print address labels. Plus, there is a time commitment to prepare envelopes, fold newsletters and stuff the envelopes, as well as purchasing and applying postage. Transferring all the necessary, multiple steps for printed newsletters to other board member volunteers is problematic. Associated with printing and mailing of newsletters is the considerable expense: In 2015, this totaled $1,400.00.
We ask the few members with limited computer skills or who lack a printer to email us (Rick at [email protected], Irv at [email protected] or drop us a line at Irv Dardick, 2428 Rosewood Avenue, Ottawa, ON K2B 7L4) and we will put you on a list to print a copy on our equipment and mail this to you. As an alternative, a friend, neighbour or relative could print and supply a copy from the provided PDF file version of the newsletter (we can even add them to our email distribution listing).
At the AGM in July 2017, providing ELPOA’s newsletter solely in an electronic version will be on the agenda for discussion. But, the Board of Directors wants you to consider the advantages prior to this meeting.
An example of the current electronic newsletter format can be viewed at: http://www.elpoa.net/elpoa15/index.html#/0
Newsletter Distribution: Move to an Entire Electronic VersionRick Cousins & Irv Dardick
What are the advantages of electronic newsletters?:1. Considerable cost savings with potential for lowering the
membership fee and advertiser’s charges;
2. Frees up funds for important environmental projects;
3. Removes restrictions for the number of pages;
4. Increased content, frequency and timeliness of newsletters;
5. Increased graphics and photographs, a venue for announcements, and
6. It can also include active links to documents that cannot currently be provided.
Butternut Tree Recovery Program
Our Canada 150 Legacy Project
We have had an excellent response to our request for volunteers from our membership to plant Butternut seedlings at Eagle Lake. Your board of directors aimed for planting 20 seedlings and we had commitments for 30!A special thank you to the following volunteers, who will plant Butternut tree saplings on their properties: Martin Lee, Olivia Culver, Louise Giannocarro, Tom Karlson, D’Arcy Munn, Sondra Feasby, Corinne Howes and Bill Steele. RKY Camp, with the assistance of campers and councilors, will plant and care for some saplings as part of their Nature Program this summer. Some of the Butternut tree saplings planted previously in 2014 and 2015 have survived.This project was made possible through the efforts of Rose Fleguel, Butternut Recovery Specialist, at the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority facility on Dilworth Road south of Ottawa.
above: Year-old Butternut saplings temporarily potted for eventually planting at the lake in May.
Irv Dardick
elpoa.ca 5
14253 Rd 38 Sharbot [email protected]
D’Arcy Munn
As some of you may know, RKY operates 12 months of the year. We have seen our year round Outdoor Centre grow over the past few years. RKY has developed a partnership with the Duke of Edinburgh organization in Ontario (www.dukeofed.org). We offer the “Adventurous Journey” requirement of the bronze, silver and gold level awards. As this is a wilderness trip component, it is a natural fit for RKY. Most of the longer trips take place in the local provincial parks. Our winter experiences are run exclusively off of our own site, and when the ice permits on Eagle Lake. We also provide winter programming for a number of other organizations. Beavers, Scouts, local schools and Queen’s University all take advantage of our site in the colder months, and we even send a bus into the city to pick up campers on Board PA Days. They participate in snow shoeing, cross country skiing, quinzee (snow shelter) building/sleeping, outdoor living skills and drinking gallons of hot chocolate.
Report on winter activities from RKY Camp
We have a full program calendar this year and are excited to introduce and foster a love of nature, outdoor recreation and the beauty that is Eagle Lake to a new generation of children and youth.
We launched a new website this year. It is full of information about what we do and pictures of the types of programs we offer on site. Feel free to check it out!
www.rkycamp.org
Here’s to another great summer on Eagle Lake.
Happy camping,
Happy winter campers from RKY on Eagle Lake.
Cardinal Café & Shop
14153 Road 38 Sharbot Lake
613.279.3734 / [email protected] Breakfast - Lunch - Espresso - Baked Goods - Licenced Patio
6 Eagle Lake Property Owners’ Association
Where are Eagle Lake water levels going to be this summer? Rick Cousins
Right now that is anyone’s guess! At the time of writing this (early May) the lake is on the very high side, due to the spring snowmelt and, even more, the amount of spring rain. On the positive side, communication with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) office in Kingston has been very good. The staff member there responsible for the dam operation and maintenance has been proactive, making adjustments to the dam as necessary in response to the lake level, rainfall received and rainfall forecasts. The contractor who has been engaged by ELPOA has also been able to remove beaver dams so that there is currently very good flow down Eagle Creek. Many thanks to ELPOA Director Mike Day for keeping a close eye on things and for maintaining regular contact with MNRF and the beaver contractor.
Lake levels last summer were quite low, about 0.5 m on MNRF’s scale. Early summer water levels were impacted to some degree by a small delay in closing of the Eagle Lake dam, but levels later in the summer were due almost entirely to the dry conditions. Lake levels throughout the region were very low.
The lake level recovered somewhat through the fall and then rose significantly due to beaver activity that impeded water flow down Eagle Creek. The contractor who ELPOA has
engaged was busy in late winter and had good success at removing the problem dams. However, the runoff from the heavy spring rains have added water to the lake at a rate greater than what the dam and creek can handle, leading to a significant rise in lake levels. The dam has been fully open since the first week of May. As of May 8, the lake level is near 1.3 m (a rise of almost 0.3 m / 1 ft, in a week!) but seems to have levelled off. The attached photo shows good flows through the dam into Eagle Creek.
MNRF has targets of lake levels that vary through the seasons, but it can still be tricky to keep the lake reasonably steady at these preferred levels. The lake can sometimes be hit by uncontrollable ‘Mother
Nature’ things - like occasional bouts of weird (very wet / dry) weather, Eagle Creek getting blocked by beaver dams,, etc. Any of these things can quickly and wildly change the height of the water. Subsequent dam operations can only slowly affect the lake level. So please understand, in some cases it might take a long time to get the lake level back to where we like it.
Those interested can check out the data from the real-time remote water level gauge that MNRF installed last fall at the following link: https://hobolink.com/p/fa333626eb25ef3dcebb07c147b68a44
Figure 1: This photo shows good flows through the dam into Eagle Creek on May 10,
elpoa.ca 7
12821 Hwy 38 Sharbot Lake, Ontario
(613) 279 2455
" Handmade artisan fine foods for people who love to eat"
12821 Hwy 38Tichbourne, Ontario
(613) 279-2455
ELPOA 2016-2017 Board of DirectorsBrian Devlin, [email protected]
Irving Dardick, Past-president613-820-7300 [email protected]
Richard Holmes, Treasurer613-542-0654 [email protected]
Larry Cameron, Lake Stewardship613-547-2695 [email protected]
Barrie Frost, [email protected]
Dierdre [email protected]
Doug [email protected]
Mike and Joanne [email protected]
Steve [email protected]
Rick [email protected]
Mike [email protected]
Bill [email protected]
Russell [email protected]
Doug Ritter
Buying or Selling? Let us guide you with 30 years of experience! www.LakeDistrictRealty.com 14202 Rd 38, Sharbot Lake, ON www.EasternOntarioWaterfront.com Tel. (613)279-2108 [email protected] Toll Free (866)279-2109
THE WATERFRONT COMPANY™
8 Eagle Lake Property Owners’ Association
Back by popular demand…. StandUp Paddleboard Races. Multiple age divisions, some SUP’s provided, but bring your
own if you would like!
Eagle Lake Property Owners Association
2017 Annual General Meeting & Family Day BBQSaturday July 15th
At RKY Camp
Order of Events
10:00 – 11:00 Registration11:00 – 12:00 Annual General Meeting12:00 – 3:00 BBQ Lunch and Activities
As you may recall from the article in the February 2017 ELPOA newsletter, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (OMNRF) conducted a netting survey between August 8 and September 16, 2016 to get an indication of the numbers of lake trout in Eagle Lake. Despite a total 60 hours of sampling, only one large adult lake trout was captured.
At a meeting on March 8 with OMNRF Kingston Field Office staff options for future lake trout management at Eagle Lake were discussed. According to the fisheries management plan for the management zone which includes Eagle Lake, maintenance of lake trout populations is a priority, with management options to be determined on a lake-specific basis. In the case of Eagle Lake, oxygen and temperature conditions may be adversely affecting survival of juvenile fish, although according to OMNRF, the results of water quality sampling in recent years does not seem to indicate problematic conditions.
After some discussion, OMNR is proposing to conduct a spawning survey this fall at the spawning shoal opposite camp Oconto, as well as elsewhere on the lake, to determine the extent to which and where on the lake spawning is occurring. Spawning fish will be captured, scale samples collected and fish returned to the lake alive. Stocked vs native fish will be identified and scale samples will be examined to determine the age of the fish and for genetic analysis. Oxygen and temperature profiles will continue to be taken
in late summer/early fall, which is the time of year when conditions are least favourable for lake trout, to determine suitability for juvenile lake trout. OMNRF will also identify spawning shoals, including sites where additional rehabilitation work could be useful.
In the longer term, and if conditions in the lake warrant it, “rehabilitation stocking” may be considered in order to boost the numbers of spawning fish and in hopes of increasing recruitment of juvenile fish. At this point, “put-grow-take” stocking is not being considered,
since OMNRF is not yet convinced conditions in the lake are preventing juvenile recruitment. It should be noted that due to concerns about potential genetic implications for the wild population resulting from the introduction of incompatible strains of lake trout, stocking is typically seen as a measure of “last resort” to maintain viable lake trout populations.
Once OMNRF has finalized its plans regarding lake trout management activities for this summer and beyond, we will be advised.
Lake Trout Management at Eagle Lake – 2017 Update Steve Burgess
