My First Book of Canadian Birds

My First Book of Canadian Birds by Andrea Miller (text) and Angela Doak (art) Hardcover Children’s Picture Book 7 x 9 inches/32 pages Nimbus Publishing ISBN: 978-1-77108-635-0 /$22.95 Publication date: October 1 2018 My First Book of Canadian Birds makes me wish I had a three- or four-year-old grandchild. This lovely …

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Canuck the Crow, our new ambassador

By Sharon McInnes How does a wild crow come to be the unofficial ambassador of Vancouver? What does it say about Vancouverites that they chose a crow over a man who’s devoted much of his life to Parkinson’s research? Or to environmental justice? According to a tweet by Justin McElroy, …

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On Becoming an Urban Birder

We moved from Gabriola Island to North Vancouver two months ago and I’m just beginning to get the hang of urban birding. It’s quite different from backyard birding, since I don’t have a yard full of feeders, bird baths, a pond, or plants, like this Trumpet Vine in bloom, to …

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The Trials and Tribulations of Bird Photography

Hello from North Vancouver! As some of you know, Dennis and I recently moved from our house on Gabriola Island to the twenty-second floor of an apartment tower in North Van, just off Lonsdale. Change is in the air!   The day we moved in, Violet-green Swallows swooped along the …

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Alison’s Fishing Birds

By Sharon McInnes When I first read Alison’s Fishing Birds, just published by Caitlin Press, my impulse was to co-opt children from the playground, gather them around, and read them the stories. But I didn’t, hoping instead that you will read these lovely stories to the children in your lives. Roderick …

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Birds & Tailings Ponds – a deadly combination

Imagine you’re a bird in flight, high in the sky, heading from your wintering grounds in South America to the Boreal Forest, along with a dozen other birds. You make the journey every year because that forest is your breeding ground. Migration, built into your genes like the colour of …

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Billions of Birds, Thousands of Islands … & Extinction

Islands and birds. An island full of birds. Birds in flight over a tropical island. Lovely images, right? But there’s more to it than meets the eye. I count myself incredibly lucky to live on an island, Gabriola Island, in the Salish Sea just off the coast of British Columbia. …

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Who’s Making Babies Where?

It’s a little embarrassing to admit this but when I discovered the BC Breeding Bird Atlas tears came to my eyes. I know. I should get a life. My tears weren’t about sadness, though, they were about so many people, largely volunteers, working together to create this extraordinary resource. Over …

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The Gabriola Commons: habitat extraordinaire

It’s a remarkable place both physically and in terms of how it came to be. A twenty-six acre  parcel of land, The Gabriola Commons is owned by the people of Gabriola Island under a unique “Commons Covenant.”   The Commons was once a privately-owned goat farm. When it was listed …

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