Exploring Lloyd's River
A view of Lloyd’s River from atop the escarpment (photo by NCC)
When I woke up early on the morning of July 8 in my apartment in St. John’s, it was hard to believe that I’d be in the deep woods of Central Newfoundland that night. Weeks of planning and preparation had been leading up to this day,...
Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take ya...to Cockburn Island
Our team of expert naturalists and Cockburn Islanders outside the Tolsmaville Town Hall on Cockburn Island, May 30th (photo courtesy of Maria Diebolt).
The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) recently acquired land on a beautiful and remote island just west of Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron called Cockburn Island. Because of its remoteness, relatively little information about the biological...
Not wanted on the island: Combatting common reed on Pelee
Invasive non-native phragmites on Pelee Island (Photo by NCC)
No visit to beautiful Pelee Island is complete without a visit to the beach. The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) has protected more than one kilometre of globally significant shoreline habitat on the island. This habitat supports turtles,...
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...
Take a second look: Look-alikes in nature offer surprises in the field
Red bartisia (Photo by Kristian Peters, Wikimedia Commons)
It was late on a hot August day. I and my field partner were hiking across the tall grass prairie on one of our newly secured properties when we found a withered little reddish-purple plant. At first glance we thought, “Dang, that looks like...
Getting rid of invasive species has never been more…delicious.
Maria Olkinitskaya picking dandelions at Baie Verte CV event, NB (Photo by NCC)
If you can’t beat them, eat them! Getting rid of invasive species has never been more…delicious. Invasive species management as a whole is extremely complex. However, cooking with certain edible invasives is a creative, fun and...
The end of the rainbow: Invasive species and the real costs of ecological monkey-wrenching
The once common and now rare rainbow clam (Villosa iris) (Photo by Karen Little, courtesy of Illinois State Museum)
Somewhere in the rivers of southern Ontario is a species few people have heard of, and even fewer have ever seen. It’s simply named the rainbow. The rainbow is a freshwater clam that gets its name from the rich iridescent colours on its...
The rapid return of bees to an early restored NCC property
Bombus (Photo by Sheila R. Colla)
I started working on a Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) property in the South Walsingham area of Norfolk County in 2007. It is a unique 400-acre (160-hectare) property. Historically, 150 acres (60 hectares) of the property were used to grow...
Citizenship and biodiversity conservation
Cowichan Garry Oak Preserve, British Columbia (Photo by Tim Ennis/NCC)
Biodiversity conservation is no longer a topic reserved for scientists. It’s an issue that impacts all Canadians. That’s the message that was repeated by panelists at a University of Manitoba discussion on biodiversity that I attended...
Island time: The unique biology and geography of island habitats
Cockburn Island, ON (Photo by NCC)
While many Canadians are headed south to escape the frigid temperatures with some island time, we at the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) are warming ourselves by getting to know the islands closer to home, and the species that live in...
