Why turtles don't make the best roommates: A caution against keeping turtles as pets
Hatchling map turtle (Photo by NCC)
At the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), we often receive inquiries from well-meaning Canadians wanting advice about how to help the animals and plants they encounter in their daily lives. Case in point: we recently received an inquiry on the...
The Ontario BioBlitz Program
Dave Ireland (Photo by Tallie Garey)
A bioblitz is a biodiversity snapshot: an intensive survey of all living things in a given area within a set time, usually within the span of 24 hours. Biologist E.O. Wilson helped make the concept mainstream in 1999 when he suggested that citizen...
Western University “BUGS” Students About the Environment
After months of hard work, the Western University BUGS’ Fundraising and Finance committee gather together after the talent show. (Photo courtesy Jenny Phan)
There’s a bevy of non-government organizations (NGO) supported at Western University, all with admirable objectives that fall on the grand spectrum of charity. Every academic year there is competition between clubs, each championing for...
Deciphering the nesting behaviour of barn swallows: What are THEY looking for?
Three barn swallow eggs spotted during a nest check in spring 2014! The nest cup edges and interior area are built up with mud pellets and beautifully lined with feathers. (Photo by Carolyn Zanchetta)
The unique song, fantastic flight pattern and beautiful colouration are just a few of the many wonderful features of the barn swallow that make it a favourite species to many bird watchers — myself included. Barn swallows are the most...
Fighting the good fight: getting rid of garlic mustard
NCC staff tackle invasive garlic mustard (photo by NCC)
Spring on Pelee Island for Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) staff Mhairi McFarlane and Jill Crosthwaite is a bittersweet time, because although the wildflowers are emerging and birds are returning, so too is a nasty invasive plant: garlic...
Dealing with the periwinkle problem
Hand pulling periwinkle (Photo by NCC)
Jill and I did some follow up to some invasive species removal we did last year at Lathrop. Just a few fragments of the very invasive Periwinkle left! We picked them out by hand, leaving the native mayapple, trillium, Jack-in-the-pulpit and...
Many hands make light work: National staff lend a hand in restoration work on the Rice Lake Plains
Micheline Beevis, Christine Beevis Trickett and David Beevis, Rice Lake Plains, ON (Photo by NCC)
On a warm autumn day in 1832, Catharine Parr Traill boarded a wagon “comfortably lined with buffalo robes,” and headed from Cobourg, Ontario into the rolling hills of the Rice Lake Plains. “We now ascended the plains — a...
Helping turtles cross roads safely
Snapping turtle on road (Photo by Tricia Stinnissen)
I see a large dark shape ahead. As I drive closer, I begin to make out a long, outstretched head and neck and an even longer, trailing tail and I realize that it’s a large snapping turtle. It’s sitting right on the white line of the...
Jetbead: A new threat to conservation
Mhairi McFarlane with leucospora (Photo by NCC)
Conservation is full of mysteries. Recently, my colleague Jill Crosthwaithe and I found ourselves having to turn to gardening literature in order to identify the many non-native, ornamental shrubs and other plants that we kept stumbling across in...
Tales from the pond - Part 1
Kristyn Ferguson out for a snowy day of field work (Photo by NCC)
At a property owned by the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) in the Georgian Bay–Huronia sub-region, a beautiful stream courses through a deciduous forest, providing excellent habitat for coldwater fish species including brown trout, and...
