DNS Monthly Meetings
On the first Tuesday of every month, from September through June (with a two-month break in summer), the Delta Naturalists Society hosts 4 in-person-only, social meetings and 6 zoom meetings. The in-person social events take place in September, December, March and June and consists of an hour of social time, including a light meal and drinks, followed by a knowledgeable guest speaker. The zoom format allows for a half hour of online social time, a brief business/club info meeting, followed by a presentation.
For examples of past presentations, click here.
SCROLL DOWN FOR DETAILS ON THE NEXT MEETING!
Everyone is welcome; although, if you’d like to attend regularly, we’d love for you to become a club member!
Upcoming Monthly Meetings
| When: | 7:00 to 9:00 PM on the first Tuesday of every month, with the exception of July and August |
| Where: | Benediction Lutheran Church, at 5575 6th Ave. in Tsawwassen (quarterly) or on Zoom |
| June: Tuesday 9th, 2026 IN PERSON (NO ZOOM) (note: meeting has been moved from June 2) Social time 7:00 – 8:00 pm Presentation 8:00 – 9:00 pm Topic: Sandpipers’ Last Supper – documentary about how proposed RBT2 Expansion threatens Roberts Bank ecosystem, followed by Q&A Guest Speakers: Isabelle Groc & Dr. Pat Baird |
“Sandpipers’ Last Supper” tells the story of a tiny shorebird’s long-distance migration powered by biofilm, an invisible mud-based superfood that supports the species’ survival.
The intertidal biofilm generates fatty acids, essential to the presence and success of migratory shorebirds on Roberts Bank. Fatty acid production depends on the intensity of the interaction of the freshwater discharge from the Fraser River and the saline tide.
As in ECCC’s brief to the RBT2 panel and other independent scientific research, extending the terminal will dampen the interaction with the tide on Roberts Bank, reduce fatty acid production and result in “immediate, permanent, and irreversible” changes impacting not only migratory shorebirds but that whole ecosystem, including salmon, crab and killer whales.
Isabelle Groc is a writer, conservation photographer, and documentary filmmaker, with a passion for creating stories that increase our understanding and awareness of the natural world.
Isabelle has earned master degrees in Journalism from Columbia University, and Urban Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and brings a unique perspective in documenting the impacts of human activities on threatened species and habitats.
Isabelle has written and directed over a dozen nature films. Isabelle’s documentary “Toad People” has won a Wildscreen Impact Panda Award. Her latest feature, “Part of the Pack” was nominated for five Leo Awards, and is currently streaming on Knowledge Network.
Isabelle has a special connection to the shorebirds of Roberts Bank and has been visiting the spring migration for the last 17 years. A fellow of the Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Societies of Canada, Isabelle grew up in France and now lives in Vancouver.
Marine biologist Dr. Pat Baird began her research with the discovery of pattern recognition in lizards, followed by the behavioural ecology of coyotes and comparative ecology of two gull species. As a USFWS/USGS researcher, she surveyed the northeast Gulf of Alaska, the Bering, Chukchi, and east Siberian Seas for abundance and distribution of seabirds, and later headed up a research group that studied the foraging ecology and breeding biology of nine different species of seabirds in Alaska. After that, Pat completed post-docs in Washington (on Magellanic penguins in Argentina), and in California (on bald eagles and ospreys) before becoming a professor and researcher in the Biology Department at California State University where she developed a research program on the breeding biology and foraging ecology of the endangered California least tern.
fatty acids, and how the quantity of omega-3 can positively or negatively affect reproduction and growth of all members of the marine food web. She has ongoing collaborations with researchers in Canada and the United States on omega-3 fatty acids.
During this time she noted the alarming decrease in population numbers of many shorebirds, and designed a program to determine the current migration path of the western sandpiper as a model with the help of Ron Ydenberg at Simon Fraser University. Pat, her students and collaborators from Panama, Mexico, Canada, and the USA, attached radios to sandpipers over four years, following the birds up the coasts of Panama, Mexico, and California in a small plane, and listening for them in Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Roberts Bank in British Columbia.
This study raised many questions about why shorebirds stopped in some areas and not in others, and so Pat pivoted to studying the marine food web at the last staging area of the western sandpipers in BC — Roberts Bank — before their long hop to breeding grounds in Alaska. This is where she joined Bob Elner and they discovered the importance of diatoms, their unique production of omega-3 fatty acids, and how critical this micronutrient was not just for shorebirds, but for the entire marine food web in estuaries and in the Arctic. Pat’s research continues to focus on diatoms’ production of omega-3
Delta Naturalists Society 