Spotting species in Norfolk Forest
Jenna Siu and Kayla Ellis ready to blitz! (Photo by Amanda Bichel)
It was 11:30 a.m. on an early summer day, and a steady trickle of people were arriving at the Bird Studies Canada (BSC) headquarters in Port Rowan, Ontario. The Norfolk Important Bird and Biodiversity Area BioBlitz was set to start in just a half...
Celebrating National Forest Week the Conservation Volunteers way
Volunteers heading out to pull invasive garlic mustard at a CV event in Happy Valley Forest (Photo by Miguel Hortiguela)
I grew up near an urban forest in Hamilton, Ontario, on the west side of the mountain. The Niagara Escarpment, recognized by the UNESCO as a World Biosphere Reserve in 1990, runs through the middle of the city, dividing it into what’s known...
Banding together to protect birds
Warbling vireo that was just banded. Also shown are the banding pliers used to apply the band, data sheet, wing chord ruler and digital scale. (Photo by NCC)
In a previous blog post, I discussed how scientists determine long-term trends in bird populations through annual monitoring. Those estimates provide valuable information about a species, but are limited in their capacity to explain the underlying...
A star- and conservation-filled weekend
A young CV capping the posts with post caps provided by Mosaic potash. (Photo by NCC)
There was just the occasional raindrop as my wife, Gail, and I began to set up our tent Friday morning at Old Man on His Back Prairie and Heritage Conservation Area (OMB). We had watched the rain move across the landscape for the last hour, as we...
Places worth protecting: The Canadian prairies
Prairie Day event, Manitoba (Photo by NCC)
So you’ve decided to conserve biodiversity. This decision may lead to many false starts, disappointments and re-negotiated deadlines, but ultimately and eventually, it will lead to land conservation! Now, how does the Nature Conservancy of...
Building homes for bats in the prairies
Conservation Volunteers from across Saskatchewan joined together to build bat boxes. (Photo by NCC)
Every year, the Nature Conservancy of Canada's (NCC's) Saskatchewan Region holds a Conservation Volunteers event at its Old Man on His Back Prairie and Heritage Conservation Area (OMB). This year, one of the activities involved building bat boxes...
Celebrating the father of environmentalism
Alexander von Humboldt, 1806 by Friedrich Georg Weitsch
Do you know who has more places named after themselves than anyone else in history? Can you guess the eponymous hero who has close to 300 plants and more than 100 animals with the same namesake? Maybe you have heard of a town, river, lake or...
Sinkholes, cliffs and ravines – oh my!
Amy exploring a section of karst forest in Cape Breton, NS (Photo by NCC)
As a conservation intern for the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC’s) Atlantic Region this summer, I’ve battled mosquitoes and deer flies, bushwhacked through rose bushes and hawthorns, almost lost a rubber boot in an open bog...
Places worth protecting: The Canadian Rockies
A pair of mountain goats (Photo by Nigel Finney)
Spectacular scenery, beautiful rivers and lakes, and abundant wildlife. As I look out my office window, in the small town of Invermere, BC, I’m struck by the sheer beauty of the landscape where I live and work. As director of conservation...
20,000 days of nature conservation
At the end of this summer, on August 30, 2017, the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) will mark exactly 20,000 days of conservation. This milestone provides an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the work done by NCC and our partners each day,...
