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Dr. Jeff Wells is the Senior Scientist for the Boreal Songbird Initiative. During his time at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and as the Audubon Society's National Conservation Director, Dr. Wells earned a reputation as one of the nation's leading bird experts and conservation biologists. He is now dedicated to understanding and protecting the land where North America's birds are born and raised, the Boreal Forest of Canada and Alaska. Check back regularly to read Dr. Wells' perspectives on the conservation, migration and interesting habits of Boreal birds. |
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97% of Short-billed Dowitchers breed in the boreal forest
Credit: Jeff Nadler
When many of us think about the word ‘biodiversity’, we often think of it to mean species diversity—the number of species present within a specific area. However, biodiversity represents so much more than just how many species occur where. There are a number of [...]
Last Thursday world-renowned conservationist J. Michael Fay came to Seattle at our invitation to talk about some of the emerging mining threats to the remote northwestern corner of British Columbia. The area was mostly untouched by human development until the past several years until an enormous number of large-scale mining projects, driven by rising gold [...]
Aerial view of rivers converging in NW British Columbia.
Credit: Michael Fay
We here at the Boreal Songbird Initiative (BSI) are proud to host internationally renowned conservationist J. Michael Fay on a speaking tour about a new ‘gold rush’ of mining development in the otherwise-remote northwestern corner of B.C. and the impacts it could have on [...]
Evening Grosbeak
Credit: D. Faucher, Ducks Unlimited
Every other year on average, boreal breeding finches and sometimes other birds as well, push further south in late fall and winter into parts of the United States. This year is already shaping up to be a major “invasion” year for these birds in the eastern U.S. with some [...]
Caspian Terns in Maine
Credit: Mike Fahay
A comical looking bird the size of a small gull with a black cap, gray back and a bill that looked like a carrot was spotted stopping off on a beach in mid-coast Maine last week on its way south. Staying close by its side and making regularly whistley-squawky [...]
A few weeks ago Chris Smith of Ducks Unlimited Canada went out on a boreal adventure to northwestern Manitoba along with some of our other campaign friends. Along the way, they passed over some beautiful and intact boreal forest, including many lakes and rivers. Given Canada’s boreal is the largest source of unfrozen freshwater on [...]
Today is World Water Day. With high temperatures scorching much of the United States and Canada many of you may be turning World Water Day into World Water Park Day, but regardless of how you spend it we should all spend a minute to appreciate the ultimate source of life on earth.
The UN’s theme this [...]
While many were excited to see Punxsutawney Phil, the famous groundhog of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, rise out of his hole facing his own shadow this morning (it looks like we’ll have 6 more weeks of winter), many others around the world are celebrating a separate event: World Wetlands Day.
Wetlands within the James Bay Lowlands of Ontario
Credit: [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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