The stories we tell (and need to tell) about conservation
Connop Property in Alberta (photo by NCC)
It’s a crisis! A chunk of land of conservation value suddenly comes on the market, or it’s threatened with some form of development or in some way is scarce and connecting habitat for some charismatic megafauna that commands our...
Camping and birdwatching in Labrador
Battle Harbour, Labrador (Photo by Diane Griffin)
Rosemary Curley and I went to Labrador as her celebratory retirement trip this summer as she had just finished her last day as a biologist with the PEI Forests, Fish and Wildlife Division. We planned to camp, hike, birdwatch, fish, collect...
The force of fire on the Rice Lake Plains
Prescribed burn on Hazel Bird property, Rice Lake Plains, ON (Photo by NCC)
Wildfires cause a lot of destruction each summer. There are dramatic videos and pictures in the news every year. So why did the Rice Lake Plains Joint Initiative (RLPJI) partner organizations purposely light several fires this spring? In some...
The raccoon: A human’s perspective
Raccoon (Photo by Ken Thomas/Wikimedia Commons)
Most people who live in southern Canada have witnessed raccoons first-hand. However, due to the fact that they are usually observed tearing up garbage bins, they are often viewed with disdain. I must admit, although I love animals, there have been...
Pollinators (and people predators) galore
Bee on Hedysarum (Photo by Diana Bizecki Robson)
After the relative calm of my June field work on Nature Conservancy of Canada land near Riding Mountain National Park, I was kept very busy observing insects in July and August. In total I saw approximately 64 insect species making over 1,200...
Bad news for bats? How White-nose Syndrome threatens Canada's bat populations
Tri-colored bat with white-nose syndrome (Photo by USFWS)
Bats are an important part of Canada’s biodiversity. They eat huge numbers of insects, some of which are crop and forestry pests. In the U.S. alone, it is estimated that bats provide insect control services worth between $3.7 and $53 billion...
Why forests matter speakers series reminds us of the value of trees
Forest by the Humber River, ON (Photo by Michael Gil, Wikimedia Commons)
I think everyone intrinsically knows that nature matters. That forests, made up of trees, literally give us life. But I also think it’s easy to forget (I, myself, am guilty of this). The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) set out to remind...
Why not count some butterflies?
Identifying species at a CV butterfly count in Waterton (Photo by NCC)
This summer, my 12-year-old son Benny and I enjoyed helping out with two butterfly themed events for Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) in Alberta; one at the Ghost Horse Hills, and the other at the Weston Family and Bruder properties along the...
Wolverine sighting at Courage Lake
Wolverine at Courage Lake, Manitoba (Photo by Christian Artuso)
Many of you will know how much I have poured my heart and soul into coordinating the Manitoba Breeding Bird Atlas over the past six years. Some of you will also know how much emphasis I have placed on point counting (an extremely useful method...
Beavers: An inconvenient species?
Beaver (Photo by Cheryl Reynolds)
The beaver is quite a package: it swims like a fish, cuts like a chain saw, moves materials like a front end loader, is the first water engineer and the first logger and transforms landscapes at a scale that rivals human-based transformations....
