2015 - A natural reflection and year list
Belted kingfisher at Lake Ontario (Photo by Tianna Burke)
Blogging for me has always been as much about sharing nature with others as it has been about personal reflection. I have never written a year-end post before, however after learning about the Nature Conservancy of Canada's (NCC's) Creative...
My 2015 nature year in review
Ralph River (Photo by Alistair Taylor)
When you’re on Facebook and other social media you start following a plethora of organizations and groups that interest you. Before long they start to accumulate and your timeline is full of stuff to read, interact with and comment on. At...
An osprey family affair
An osprey soars around its nest (Photo by Lorne)
This journey of an osprey family, between early May 2015 and mid-August of the same year, is almost as much my journey as theirs. It begins as a young boy some six decades ago, when my maternal grandfather would pick me up to spend some quality...
Excerpt: Safe Passage
Grizzly bear (Photo by Erwin and Peggy Bauer/USFWS)
On a soggy September afternoon in southeast British Columbia, Nancy Newhouse swung her truck through a bank of pearl-colored fog and bounced to a halt on the shoulder of Highway 3A. Newhouse, Tom Swann and I emerged into the cold mist, stepping...
Reptiles and amphibians of the Happy Valley Forest
Red eft (the immature form of the spotted newt) are the commonest reptile in the Happy Valley Forest and crowd the forest trails during egg-laying time. (Photo by Dr. Henry Barnett)
The reptile species in the Happy Valley Forest number 19. The area provides one of the last redoubts for the threatened Jefferson’s salamander. Red efts are common, red-backed and spotted salamanders will be regularly seen in the but the...
Memorable 2015 fieldwork moments
Tall grass prairie in NCC's Interlake Natural Area (Photo by Cary Hamel/NCC)
I asked the Manitoba Region’s talented group of field biologists, “What was your most inspiring or challenging fieldwork moment of this past summer?” Here are some of the highlights of last year's field season in...
Wetlands update from the Cowichan Garry Oak Preserve
First light on the Garry oaks. (Photo by Ren Ferguson)
The morning was a beauty, with mist rising from Quamichan Lake illuminated in the rich sunrise. I was in for a treat. As I walked through the fields past huge Garry oak trees, I saw a fine black-tailed deer buck with shiny antlers and muscles...
A natural take on Black Friday
Crow (Photo by Linda Tanner, Wikimedia Commons)
Learn more about a few of our Canadian species and share these tweets to show others how natural #BlackFriday can be! ...
Something's Fishy: The old fish and the lake
Juvenile bowfin from Ontario waters (Photo by Raechel Bonomo/NCC Staff)
What if I told you there are living fossils swimming in our waters right now? A few fish species that inhabit Canadian lakes and rivers have such ancient lineages, they are considered prehistoric. Some of these species swam alongside the...
Close encounters with a pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker female foraging on a dead stand. (Photo by Claire Elliott)
When I’m feeling unmotivated to go for a hike, I usually try to suppress those feelings and go anyway. I never regret the time I spend outdoors, and again that was the case this past weekend. I was sitting restlessly at my desk, which was...
