Taiga Fox Sparrow
Credit: Andrew Aldrich
I recently posted on the Maine Birding listserv a simple request for a Fox Sparrow photo I needed for a project and was amazed by the results. I received photos from 9 people from a variety of places around Maine. Rather than letting these offers go unused I thought I [...]

Just over two years ago the unthinkable happened. After decades of disputes and fighting over logging in pristine parts of Canada’s boreal forest, environmentalists and forest companies finally decided to talk to each other directly about their concerns rather than by exchanging sound bites through the media.

Log pile in Canada’s boreal forest
Credit: Garth Lenz
Although [...]

American Black Duck.
Credit: Jeff Nadler
Yesterday several prominent conservation and wildlife organizations published The State of Canada’s Birds, a comprehensive assessment of population fluxes among birds within each major ecoregion of Canada. Released by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI-Canada), under the leadership of Environment Canada, Bird Studies Canada, Ducks Unlimited Canada, Nature Canada, [...]

Boreal forest
Credit: Valerie Courtois, Canadian Boreal Initiative
If you’re a regular returner to this blog you are likely aware that while we support bird conservation in almost every instance, our particular focus and passion is the preservation of Canada’s boreal forest. This (we think) is for good reason: the boreal is one of the world’s [...]

The Mackenzie River – largest in Canada
Credit: Irene Owsley
Canada’s boreal forest is big. Real big.
At 1.4 billion acres (think of two Argentinas), this lush and varied landscape spans the middle third of Canada like a green scarf. But it’s not all green. The retreat of ice from the last ice age has left the boreal [...]

After my May trip to the spectacular and birdy Pimachiowin Aki—Land That Gives Life—area of Manitoba in late May, I had the good fortune to be introduced to Christian Artuso. As Bird Studies Canada’s Manitoba Program Manager, Christian is heading up the Manitoba Breeding Bird Atlas project and had the opportunity to do some bird [...]

Preserving woodland caribou could have far-reaching beneficial impacts.
Credit: Howard Sandler.
Last week I wrote about the important policy briefing paper I coauthored along with the International Boreal Conservation Science Panel and some of the world’s most notable caribou experts. I thought I would provide a short follow-up and say that the paper received a great response [...]

A few weeks ago I had the honor of being part of a tour of the proposed Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Site. There is no doubt that the region and the people there are incredible and I will write more about the trip in an upcoming blog entry. In the meantime I wanted to share [...]

Common Loon
Credit: Jeff Wells
I glanced up while in our driveway in Gardiner Friday morning to see the black outstretched heads and sparkling white bellies of five high-flying Common Loons heading north as part of the immense wave of migrants that passed over the eastern U.S. Thursday night and in the early morning hours. Migration is at [...]

Quebec Premier Jean Charest and the boreal forest.
Credits: Charest: © Hans Westerling (via Flickr); Boreal: © Garth Lenz
The Premier of Quebec, Jean Charest, gave his long-anticipated Inaugural Address on Wednesday. For the majority of us living outside of Quebec most parts of the speech wouldn’t have been too relevant to our daily lives (things like education [...]