Submitted by The Wild
Discoveries Committee
The long anticipated 2021 Orchid Festival will be available to be streamed into your home on the evenings of July 15th to 17th. Tune in to this FREE event on ZOOM. There are two virtual presentations each evening starting at 7pm and both presentations will be followed by a question-and-answer period.
The Friends of Bruce Peninsula National Park are hosts of the Orchid Festival in collaboration with Bruce Peninsula National Park.
This year’s theme is: “WILD DISCOVERIES: Orchids & Pollinators.”
At 7pm on Thursday July 15th, Brian Popelier from The Bruce Trail Conservancy will open the Festival by identifying many of the numerous varieties of Orchids found on the Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula.
Following Brian, at 8pm, Tyler Miller from Parks Canada will tell us about “time travel” on the alvars found on the Peninsula. He will inform the participants of the changes the alvars have experienced over the last quarter century.
Audrey Armstrong is the first presenter on Friday July 16th starting at 7pm. Audrey’s love of nature and gardening will be most obvious as she teaches us how to turn our properties into a welcoming habitat for birds, bees, and butterflies.
Audrey will be followed at 8 pm with a virtual tour of Vidal Bay on Manitoulin Island. Megan Bonenfant from The Nature Conservancy of Canada will introduce us to this 18,800-acre property with over 18 kilometers of shoreline and is home to a variety of plants and animals.
On Saturday, July 17th at 7pm Peter Rasberry shares some technical tips for successful, and – more importantly- ethical wildflower photography. This will be such useful knowledge when hiking on the trails.
An Interpreter from Bruce Peninsula National Park will close the Festival with a pictorial hike in the Park focusing on the orchids in bloom right now. After this “hike” they will introduce “iNaturalist”. This is a phone app used to identify what you have photographed, be it birds, insects, trees, or fauna. iNaturalist is an excellent learning tool for the citizen scientist.
How do you join this free ZOOM event?
The easiest way is to go to orchidfest.ca. This web page has detailed information about the speakers and their topics. Below each evening’s information is a link to take you directly to the ZOOM meeting. Many thanks to our web designer (NewMedia Designs) that has made it so easy for non-ZOOM savvy folk!
Alternatively sign in with this address: HTTPS://US02WEB.ZOOM.US/J/8377719402
