Falaise St Jacques Birder's Blog

Picked up the last remaining shopping cart (that is near the trail) plus a couple of bags of garbage.  Then I rode back along the Bande Verte.

 I went to buy some new bird seed and on the way back over to the Falaise stopped by to inspect the Super C parking lot on 6900 Rue St Jacques.  This parking lot is directly above the biggest remaining garbage field visible from the hiking trail that runs the entire length of the Falaise.  It is where we are now concentrating our on going efforts in cleaning up this wooded eco-territory.    Directly behind the Super C supermarket there are multiple piles of tires (about 20-30 tires in total) that have been tossed over the fence that separates the Falaise and the parking lot.  These may be pushed down the steep hill on to the hiking trail below at any time so I think we should organize a group of volunteer workers to toss them back over the fence into the parking lot where they can more easily be removed. In addition there are a number to shopping carts that have also been tossed over the fence and are in similar danger of being pushed down the hillside....

 Following a Montreal Bicycle Club tradition of meeting at the Shaika Cafe, W.G. Ross , Doreen Thomas and A.T. Lane came together for coffee before heading out to the Falaise work day. Doreen informed us that she was there just for the coffee.  Undeterred by their small numbers A.T. and W.G. first tackled the runaway truck tire that had rolled down the ravine on an earlier trip, bringing it home to the Central Access road.  Following that success, they took on one of the 3 shopping carts from below the Super C parking lot, bringing it over to the Western Access road. Smiling with pride, W.G. had to depart early and A.T. made a stab at cleaning up the garbage directly below the Super C parking lot .  The lower stuff was put into piles along the trail while the upper garbage was tossed back over the fence from the Falaise back towards the parking lot. Heading home, he single highhandedly took one of the truck tires from the Falaisosaur to the Central Access road with...

 Various individual efforts of note were made over the weekend in the continuing effort to clean up the Falaise. Barclay wrote to me of how he moved a dozen tires from the Eastern Falaise along the Bande Verte to the Central Access road on his electric bicycle.  Great work!!! Chris and Malcolm combined their efforts to do some clean up work on the hillside below the Super C Parking Lot .  They moved 2 tires down from the hillside to the Central Access Road,  collected 3 shopping carts from the hillside and moved them over to the trail, and we moved the very heavy truck tire up from the Ravine to the trail. Current tire count 242.

   The Falaise's He- Man / She Woman Tuesday morning work attracted a large force of Montreal Bicycle Club members today.  Using sobriquets A.T. Lane , W.G. Ross , H.S. Tibbs and Louis Rubenstein they were met unexpectedly by Alfred Welsey Sherritt. The Gazette box was moved from the Falaisosaur to the Central Access Road and added to the collection of garbage. While near the Falaisosaur it was noticed that a large tree has recently fallen down blocking the trail to the Western Access road.  Ahhh...another work party in the future.

 Following the success of the Eastern Falaise, the second day of the clean up took on the Western side.   Rather than tires, found primarily in the East, the Wild Wild West was home to the shopping cart. The Volunteers quickly spread out attacking the problem. By the time noon came around, there was quite a display on show at the Central Access Road. The first visitor noticed that day was in the Valley of the Birds, a Cooper's Hawk. Some came too late for the main event, but still in time to view the progress. A complete list of the photos can also be viewed, as well as a spreadsheet listing the progress of the tire removal .