If you’re Batman then I must be Robin, right?
Joe Poissant's (a.k.a. Batman's) office in the country (Photo by NCC)
I feel like there might be some real merit in an ecologist superhero movie. Hear me out before you rate me on Rotten Tomatoes. This summer I spent a couple of nights trying my best to help the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC’s)...
Cozy one-bedroom bird house available for a low price
A bird box (Photo by NCC)
This spring, the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) held a Conservation Volunteers event at NCC’s Edenwold property to install bird boxes. In typical Saskatchewan fashion, it had been 30 C all week, but as soon as the field day came, the...
Location, location, location: Building real estate for cavity dwellers
Black-capped chickadee (Photo by Lorne)
The number of tree cavities are often limited on the landscape, but there are many different species that require cavities for their home (such as squirrels, bats and birds). As a result, cavities that suit the needs of a given species are a hot...
Science is for the birds
MAPS station at Big Valley property, SK (Photo by NCC)
As a summer intern for the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), I have had the opportunity to participate in many cool conservation activities. One of the neatest projects I got to work on this past summer was the MAPS station that NCC is running...
Vinyl siding and the greater sage-grouse (really!)
Greater sage-grouse (Photo by Gordon Sherman © Audubon Canyon Ranch)
I expect that most of us are aware of the hazards that office towers and other large buildings in urban areas pose to birds. Buildings are not much of a problem in rural Saskatchewan, but fences are. Those barely visible wires can be hazardous to...
How animals judge distance
Peregrine falcon (Photo by Stuart Clarke)
Animals can jump great distances, dodge predators and catch fast moving prey. How do they do it? They use their binocular vision to judge the distance in a millisecond. The question of how this works came to me from a curious Saskatchewan...
Travels with Cary
Cary Hamel (Photo by NCC)
I really don’t remember many of the specifics from reading John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. I’m pretty sure Charley was John’s large, curly-haired poodle, which I guess is somewhat similar to my Manitoba counterpart,...
The blitz of the burdock brigade
Conservation Volunteers with bags of invasive common burdock. (Photo by NCC)
Thanks to the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), I can now cross off my bucket list my long-nurtured desire to hack away at invasive burdock plants with a machete. In truth, I’d never entertained the idea before signing up as a Conservation...
Sidney's paradise on the edge of the Moose Woods
Lucy Weston and her family (Photo courtesy of Lucy Weston)
To tell our story, you have to go back to November 1999 when I met Scott Lawrence, my life partner, on an idyllic beach on the Baja Peninsula, Mexico. I was hitchhiking with a girlfriend, bound for Costa Rica. Scott had motorcycled from Canada and...
Get to know 10 of Canada’s most significant (and big!) natural areas
(Photo by iStock)
Large, intact natural areas are home to Canada’s most valuable ecosystems. These spaces are key to our quality of life. Canada’s forests, grasslands, wetlands and coastal areas absorb carbon dioxide, provide buffers for flooding,...
