Beak to beak: The importance of Bird and Biodiversity Areas and Migratory Bird Sanctuaries
Semipalmated plover, Johnson's Mills, NB (Photo by Mike Dembeck)
Protecting land is critical to the survival of Canada’s natural world. With approximately 80,000 known plant and animal species, many of which are in decline, it is no wonder that the protection of wildlife habitat has never been more...
Lights, camera, nature: An ode to Canadian landscapes in film
Nodwell, AB (Photo by R. Berdan)
One of my favourite things about living in Canada is getting to experience different seasons. However, my personal favourite season may not be on everyone else's list…Oscars season! As an avid film junkie, one of the most exciting times of...
A mega-rare mistle thrush visited my mountain ash
Mistle thrush (Photo by Peter Gadd)
On Christmas Day 2017.... It is here! It is here in the mountain ash tree at the crack of dawn. It is a brief appearance, as it turns out, but one long enough to perhaps sense it is sending a Christmas greeting. A bird, once known as the ...
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...
Something's Fishy: Shock me like an American eel
American eel (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)
The electrofishing boat gently rocked against the current of the water below. It was a scorching summer day in late August on a tributary in Lake Ontario, and no amount of SPF could have saved my freckled shoulders from the sun’s...
Why Canada matters on World Wetlands Day
Wetlands in the Marion Creek Benchlands, British Columbia (Photo by Tim Ennis/NCC)
While other nations have picked wetland wildlife, such as Finland’s whooper swan or Pakistan’s Indus crocodile, to represent their country, Canada is the only country in the world that has selected a wetland engineer as its national...
From woodsman to grandsons to Canadians
Alan Bonnyman and his two sons (Photo by Mike Dembeck)
Whether they live in big cities or small villages, Canadians often see their identity as defined by nature: by our dramatic seasons, by the sheer size of our country and by living near oceans, rivers, lakes, mountains, prairies and forests. This...
Need to ID a plant in Nova Scotia? There's an app for that!
Bunchberry (Photo by NCC staff)
Those red teaberries look so yummy, but can I eat them? What can I collect to make tea? What goes well in a salad? These questions and more may be answered for you in a recently released app created by developer Gordon Isnor and me, curator of...
Out for a walk
Approaching the Bay Bulls lighthouse with the last of the daylight (Photo by Lanna Campbell/NCC)
An unnatural thirst for physical pain and the lure of making memories set the stage as we carefully planned out nine days’ worth of trail food. My tent-mate, Megan, would later ask me a few days in, “Did I want to do this hike, or did...
Something's Fishy: Here comes the sun(fish)
Warmouth up-close (Photo by Clinton & Charles Robertson/Wikimedia Commons)
“We rise when the fish do!” exclaimed my grandfather just as I was settling into the guestroom, known fondly as my room-away-from-home, at my grandparent’s house. “When’s that, grandpa?” I called back in...
