WINNERS ANNOUNCED IN JRA’S “WHAT A HEALTHY RIVER MEANS TO ME” POSTER CONTEST

Everyone wants a cleaner James River, but not everyone can put their wishes into images.  But that’s exactly what JRA asked middle school students in the City of Richmond, City of Lynchburg/James City County and public middle schools in Henrico County and Chesterfield County that were situated within five miles of the James River  to do for the JRA’s 2012 “What a Healthy River Means to Me” Poster Contest.  Judging from the 381 entries that were received, it seems that a healthy river means happy wildlife, lots of fish, smiling faces and fun.

The winning students are:  First place:  Katie McCrum, Manchester Middle School , Chesterfield County;  Second place: Aaron Burstein, Sandusky Middle School, Lynchburg; Third place: Courtney Doss, Elizabeth Davis Middle School, Chesterfield County; Fourth place: Kirsten Street , Midlothian Middle School, Chesterfield County; Fifth place: Gabriella Cao, Manchester Middle School, Chesterfield County.  

The winning artists’ science teachers are Deborah Bodsford, Manchester Middle School (double winner); Erin Davis, Sandusky Middle School; Naomi Swyers, Elizabeth Davis Middle School; Karen Jaeger, Midlothian Middle School.  Matching cash prizes were awarded to each of the top five students and their teachers.

Katie McCrum
Manchester Middle School
Chesterfield County

 

 

 

Aaron Burstein
Sandusky Middle School
Lynchburg

Courtney Doss
Elizabeth Davis Middle School
Chesterfield County

Kirsten Street
Midlothian Middle School
Chesterfield County

Gabriella Cao
Manchester Middle School
Chesterfield County

Honorable mentions in the contest were awarded to:  Kaylee Rathbun, Robious Middle School, Chesterfield County;  Rosa Patterson, Binford Middle School, Richmond; Delorise Charlton,  Sandusky Middle School, Lynchburg; Jake Thomas, Robious Middle School, Chesterfield County; Victoria Huynh, Robious Middle School, Chesterfield County.  

 JRA would like to congratulate the winners and thank all the students and teachers who shared their vision with us. We couldn’t agree more!

Kaylee Rathbun
Robious Middle School
Chesterfield County

 Rosa Patterson
Binford Middle School
Richmond

Delorise Charlton
  Sandusky Middle School
Lynchburg

Jake Thomas
Robious Middle School
Chesterfield County

Victoria Huynh
Robious Middle School
Chesterfield County

 The Poster Contest was made possible through a generous grant given by Technical Foundations, Inc., a Richmond-based contractor, and a long-standing member of the James River Association. 

Happy Birthday!

By Nick Kotula, JRA Guest Contributor

I have been thinking about how to see if there are GBH (Great Blue Heron, I’m starting a thing here) chicks at the heronry for quite some time.  Do I get a bunch of balloons and strap them to a lawn chair and float from the Mayo Bridge?  Do I go out and buy a $300 remote controlled plane and ask for permission to buzz the tower?  Do I contact some people that I know and have NASA position a satellite in geosynchronous orbit above the heronry?  Fortunately (for my well being, my wallet, and not getting questioned by the CIA), my wife vetoed all of these ideas.  Instead, I decided to just pay three dollars and go to the top of the Troutman Sanders parking garage with my telescope, a camera, and a dream.

I’m not going to lie to you, taking pictures through a device designed to let me see the rings of Saturn and the Great Red Spot of Jupiter (it is actually fairly great) seemed a lot like bringing a bazooka to a knife fight.  I also felt a little weird on a bright sunny day at the top of a parking garage (no one parks on the top) with a telescope, and the resulting pictures were not fantastic.  However, I was able to snap this shot.  It wasn’t until I got home that I realized that if you look just to the right and down from the stooping back of the GBH you see… a small GBH!  Houston, we have a chick!  (Keeping with the astronomical theme.)  I’d light up a cigar, but I don’t know if it should be an Itsaboy or an Itsagirl…

 Meanwhile, at ground level, the GBHs continue to prowl the waters looking for food.  We’ve already seen a GBH swallowing a whole fish, but GBHs have also been known to eat snakes, frogs, mice, and even rabbits.  Pretty much whatever they can get their bills on.

If you head down to the heronry, make sure you take a look at some of the more human activities going on as well.  Right next to the parking lot is an art walk with a bunch of murals (officially sanctioned murals, unlike some of the other works of art you might see) commissioned as part of the RVA Street Art Festival.  Here’s a picture of one of my favorites.  (For obvious reasons.)

 

Gone Fishing

By Nick Kotula, JRA Guest Contributor

There’s more than one way to catch a fish.  You could make like a human and buy a reel and some worms and sit for a few hours.  You could pretend to be an eagle or osprey and fly above the river looking for the first sign of a fish and dive head first after it.  Or you could be a Great Blue Heron (which lacks the keen eyesight of the raptors, and does not have opposable thumbs or an understanding of economics) and stand in the middle of the river waiting until something swims by.  Egrets do the same thing, despite what watching this guy soar around made me think.

Herons are especially well adapted to these aquatic adventures.  Like the beginning of a film noir movie, herons have legs that just won’t quit.  Much as a giraffe’s neck gives them access to leaves that other animals can’t reach, a heron’s legs (now I have a ZZ Top song stuck in my head) allow them to wade into deeper areas than most birds can get to.  This heron was so busy hunting that it let me get extremely close.  Notice that she (I have no way of actually knowing, but she felt like a she) is making full use of those legs to keep the majority of her body out of the water. 

If half of a heron is leg, a significant portion of the remaining half is neck.  Herons use their long necks to deliver a quick dive into the water that will either spear an animal with their long, sharp bills or simply catch them to swallow whole.  If you look along the neck and the back of the heron you will notice that some of their feathers are longer and thinner.  These are powder down feathers and are designed to break apart during preening.   (Of course there is a fancy term for when birds clean themselves, did you expect anything else?)  This powder helps wipe of any slime or dirt that can occur when you routinely dunk your head into a river looking to catch a fish in your mouth.

Last but not least are their feet.  Unlike a lot of birds that spend so much time in the water, they only have partially webbed feet.  The webbing found between their front two toes help prevent them from sinking into the mud while wading, while the non-webbed feet allow them to grasp rocks and branches.

On my last visit there were at least ten herons in the water actively hunting at any given time.  It is truly an interesting sight to watch these niche feeders patiently waiting/wading through the James.

Virginia LID Design Competition Winners Announced

The competition was fierce, the efforts were strong, but decisions eventually had to be made.  The winners of the Virginia Low Impact Design (LID) Competition were announced at the 23rd annual Environment Virginia Symposium held in Lexington, Virginia.  And the winners are:

• Green Roadway:  William H. Gordon Associates, Chantilly, VA
• Urban Infill:  Williamsburg Environmental Group, Williamsburg, VA  
• Suburban Mixed Use:  Hinchey & Baines, PLC. Culpeper, VA

The purpose of the Virginia Low Impact Development Design Competition was to challenge teams of development professionals to demonstrate cost-effective approaches to replicating the natural treatment of stormwater on development sites.  This Virginia-wide competition was held to provide landscape site designers with a hands-on experience of working in LID to reduce stormwater runoff and protect local water quality.  Each winner took home a $15,000 cash prize. 

These talented consultants from the Virginia LID Competition have demonstrated that minimizing the impact of development on streams is not only possible, but cost-effective.  We hope that developers and regulators alike will implement these types of natural approaches on all development plans in the future.  At a time when the quality of the James and its tributaries is being measured against the Chesapeake Bay Cleanup goals and development is a growing issue affecting water quality, the need to increase protections and minimize impact with cost-effective methods is more important than ever.

For more information on the first ever Virginia-wide LID Competition, check out the Competition website: www.VirginiaLIDComp.org