Nest building

Early one May morning in 2019, I disembarked from the ferry in Port aux Basques, Newfoundland, bewildered and discombobulated from too many days of long-distance driving and too little sleep. The previous evening, I had left continental North America behind; however, I still had a long way to go before reaching my new home in St. John’s.

The route from Port aux Basques to St. John’s.

Back when I started planning my inter-provincial move, it seemed an entirely reasonable proposition make the 900 km drive from one end of Newfoundland to the other in a day. Blinking in the cold, salty ocean air that morning, I wasn’t quite as sure. But turning around wasn’t an option, so I filled my travel mug with coffee and climbed back into my car.

However, as the day wore on, it became clear to me that I had severely underestimated the size of my new home. By early afternoon, I was barely at Grand Falls-Windsor (town motto: “Perfectly Centered”). Many hours later, I crossed onto the Avalon Peninsula – only to find an impenetrable fog blanketing the highway. I gripped the wheel a bit tighter as my mind filled with images of moose lunging suddenly into the path of my car.

The sun had long since set by the time I drove into St. John’s. All day, as my tires ate up the miles, my panic had also been ratcheting up. I had moved to Newfoundland to coordinate a breeding bird atlas – a massive citizen science initiative to inventory all the bird species breeding on the island. But as I drove…and drove…and drove…I couldn’t help but think, “We have to atlas all this?”

A very different view.

And my panic went deeper than that. The scraggly fir and spruce trees and quiet waterways scrolling uninterrupted past my window were very different to the deciduous trees, crop fields, and suburbs of southeastern Ontario. The landscape felt very alien, and I felt very out of my depth. It seemed impossible that this place would ever be home.

***

If left to my own devices, I might never have left my apartment. But I had moved to Newfoundland to do a job, and part of that job involved learning what fieldwork in Newfoundland was like. If we were going to ask citizen scientists to brave the island’s bogs, forests, and windswept cliffs, it seemed only fair to understand what we were asking of them.

Where’s Waldo?

And so, less than a month after arriving, I found myself setting up camp on a small island off the north coast, spending my days plunging my arm into underground burrows, groping blindly for Leach’s storm petrels, and my nights untangling them from mist nets by the dozens. A few weeks after that, I perched on the edge of a precipice at Cape St. Mary’s, staring at northern gannet nests until my eyes crossed and my vision blurred. (Magic eye pictures are nothing compared to trying to find a particular nest among hundreds packed onto a rock ledge.) And shortly after that, I was in a helicopter, heading out to the rugged backcountry of Gros Morne National Park.

***

Yup.

And suddenly a year had passed, and I found myself right back where I started. After a long day on the road, my car was suddenly encased in fog. Between the dark and the dense air, it was impossible to see more than a few meters ahead; I crept along at a snail’s pace just in case a moose suddenly got the urge to cross the road. Our headlights lit up two words painted onto a rock by the side of the road: “Fog off”. I couldn’t have agreed more.

The parallels were striking. But over the year, many things had changed

“You know, it’s a mistake to think of Newfoundland as a terrestrial place,” said my friend from the passenger seat. “It’s half marine, at least at times like now. That fog? That’s the ocean paying us a visit.” I couldn’t decide whether that made the fog more benign or less.

My friend and I were on the first leg of an epic journey to survey for birds in some of the farthest flung places on the island. In planning for the trip, we decided to target locations citizen scientists would be unlikely to get to. In other words, we picked a few peninsulas and followed them right to the end.

A perfect day for a dip in the ocean.

And so my second summer in Newfoundland consisted of exploring some of the small towns, dirt roads, and hidden gems of the island’s interior, serenaded by the omnipresent “Oh-sweet-Canada-Canada-Canada” of white-throated sparrows. From an ocean dip in St. Alban’s, to the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted in Grand Falls-Windsor (they should put that in their town motto!), to exploring an enchanted little park in Summerford, it was the kind of trip that can make you fall in love with a place.

I’ve often said that fieldwork offers a unique opportunity to get to know a landscape. But I don’t think I realized just how true that is until I moved here. Over the last year and a half, fieldwork has given me the means and opportunity to get out and explore this windy, foggy, magical island. Newfoundland still isn’t home to me, but it no longer feels impossible that one day it might be. And in the meantime, I can’t wait to get back out there next summer and explore some more.

We’re back!

After taking a much needed break over the summer, we at Dispatches from the Field are back in action and ready to bring you more stories of fieldwork adventure from researchers all over the world!

Here in Canada, Sept. 21-27 is Science Literacy Week, and this year’s theme is “B is for Biodiversity”. One of the main goals of our blog is to bridge the gap between the elusive scientist and the public. Sharing our experiences and adventures as field biologists is a great way to communicate why we love what we do!

So in honour of Science Literacy Week, we wanted to highlight some field research stories on Dispatches that showcase the magnificent biodiversity we have here in Canada:

Cheryl Reyes shares her love of sampling aquatic invertebrates with the Crowe Valley Conservation Authority in central Ontario.

Alannah Gallo tells us about surveying birds and pollinators in western Canada.

Alex Sutton narrates his adventures of chasing Canada Jays in Algonquin Park. Photo credit: Alex Sutton.

Paige Bissonnette talks about studying polar bears in the Arctic and sharing her excitement with tourists.

Help us celebrate biodiversity by checking out these archived posts, and stay tuned – we’re excited to bring you new stories about field research in Canada and around the world starting in October!

Patrolling for pufflings

The prisoner looks up at us from his metal enclosure.  Huddled in a corner, he freezes against the wall, hoping we haven’t seen him.  But as the beam of our flashlight comes to rest on him, he’s gone.  With a flip of his wings, he dives beneath the surface of the shallow pool, disappearing into the shadows of the enclosure.

“Well, crap,” says one of my companions.  “He’s not going to be easy to rescue.”

***

When my friend asked me if I wanted to join her doing Puffin Patrol, it sounded almost too fantastic to be real.  But it is: run by the Newfoundland and Labrador Chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Puffin and Petrel Patrol is a program that provides an extra helping hand to newly fledged seabirds which have lost their way.

The program takes place in the communities surrounding the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve.  The reserve is home to the largest breeding colony of Atlantic puffins in North America, and the second-largest colony of Leach’s storm petrels in the world.

This is what the word ‘puffling’ conjures for me…

The puffins (and petrels) nest in burrows on islands close to shore.  They lay only one egg, and after it hatches, the puffling remains in the burrow for 6-7 weeks.  (Can we just pause here to enjoy the fact that baby puffins are called pufflings?  Whenever I hear that word, I immediately picture the tribbles from Star Trek…)

The trouble starts when it’s time for the pufflings to leave the burrow.  They fledge at night, giving them protection from predators as they first venture into the outside world.  For centuries, pufflings have emerged from their burrows in the dark and followed the light of the moon and stars out to sea.

But growing development along the coast poses a problem for the fledglings.  An increase in the number of houses and businesses also means an increase in artificial light.  More and more, pufflings are being drawn towards the streetlights, headlights, and house lights that illuminate the shoreline.  Many of these confused travellers land on dark streets, and fall victim to traffic mishaps.  Even those that avoid this fate are unlikely to make it back to sea without help.

This is where the Puffin Patrol comes in.  Every night during the fledging season (mid-August to early September), volunteers armed with butterfly nets patrol the streets of the coastal towns near the ecological reserve.  When they find a stranded puffling, it is scooped up in a net and placed into a plastic bin to await release the next morning.

Releases are sometimes done from a boat, but also frequently occur on the beach – and they gather quite a crowd.  While biologists weigh and measure the birds, and fit them with a band to allow for identification if they’re ever recaptured, CPAWS takes the opportunity to tell the watching group a bit about puffins.

Watching  a freshly released puffling make his way out to sea.

So not only does the Puffin and Petrel Patrol help two species of birds, both designated as vulnerable by the IUCN, it’s also a great outreach tool.  In addition to the public releases, locals and visitors alike can volunteer to be patrollers, providing they sign up in advance.  Since its inception in 2004, the program has attracted hundreds of volunteers, and has captured the imagination of Canadians across the country: to date, it’s been the subject of a picture book and the focus of an episode of The Nature of Things.

***

It’s a foggy, cool night in mid-August, and my first time out on patrol.  As I don a fluorescent safety vest and arm band reading “Puffin Patrol”, it feels a bit surreal that we’re going to spend the next few hours wandering around in the dark looking for stranded pufflings.  Only in Newfoundland.

At first it’s a fairly quiet night, with only a few teams reporting puffling encounters, and I start to think that maybe our services aren’t needed.  But as we make the rounds of a local fish plant, my friend shines her flashlight into the flat-bottomed barge used to take waste offshore for disposal.  There’s a shallow pool of water at the bottom – and there, pressed into a corner, is my first puffling.

As soon as the light hits him, he dives under the surface, eventually reappearing on the far side of the enclosure.  The barge is several feet below us as we stand on the dock, and we realize quickly that to get him out of his prison, we’re going to need a longer net.

As we turn to leave, we come face to face with another puffling, only a few feet away, looking for all the world like he wants to know what we’re up to.  As we stare at him, he begins sidling towards the edge of the dock and the barge – until my friend makes a sudden, heroic lunge with the net.  One puffling trapped on the barge is more than enough to deal with.

Up close and personal: a puffling being banded prior to release.

We stow our captive safely in a plastic bin and take him to Puffin Patrol headquarters, then return to the first puffling to see what we can do.  But even with a longer net, as soon as we come anywhere close, he disappears under the water and pops up at the other end of the barge.  We can only access the end closest to us, so we are forced to wait for him to come back within reach.  At one point, we actually do get him in the net – but as we lift it towards the dock, he jumps right back out.

It’s getting late and we’re all tired and frustrated…but we persevere.  We’re not leaving the puffling to die if we can help it.  It’s well after 1 a.m. when we get him in the net again.  This time we take no chances, holding the open end carefully against the side of the barge as we lift the net, giving the puffling no chance to escape.

And then he’s in our (gloved) hands, looking none too pleased with us as we place him into his plastic bin.  But that’s okay.  We’re pretty pleased with ourselves, because we know that tomorrow morning he’ll be going in the right direction, headed back out to sea.

Tourists for a day

We often say the best part about fieldwork is getting to go to places that most other people don’t get to see. But sometimes we conduct fieldwork in locations that the public is able to visit too.

The welcome sign to the park.

I was very busy this past year with starting my doctorate degree. This included learning French, taking classes (in French), reading and writing literature reviews, and planning experiments. So I was super excited when the time for my field season arrived. This spring, I conducted my field research on Bonaventure Island, off of the coast of Quebec’s Gaspé region in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Bonaventure Island has one of the largest colonies of Northern gannet, a large seabird. In any direction you look, there are thousands of gannets sitting on nests as far as the eye can see. I have been on a lot of bird colonies, but I have never seen so many birds clustered in one area.

Gannet nests as far as the eye can see.

Gannets nesting beside and on one of the viewing platforms.

Despite the island’s status as a bird sanctuary, the cool thing about it that the public can visit too! It offers a rare chance for visitors to get pretty much as close to the nesting colony as us researchers. In fact, we even used the tourist viewing stations to conduct our research on gannet nesting success. And given that some of the gannets choose to nest beside and even under these stations, they don’t seem bothered by human presence. Rather, they seem to show off, allowing visitors to watch their behaviour for hours (and yes, this includes us researchers!).

Field team making use of the viewing platform.

Bonaventure Island is off the coast of Percé, a very small town with quaint restaurants and small tourist shops where you can buy a homemade gannet ornament. However, a small tourist town isn’t the most useful when you need something specific for research. One morning I realized that our dry ice, which I use to keep my samples frozen, was evaporating too quickly, meaning that the samples were in danger of thawing.

It was one of those times where you need to draw a decision tree with pros and cons. Should we keep sampling in the colony to make sure we get all the data points we need, but risk losing earlier samples? Or should we take time off to find dry ice and save the samples already collected?

In a panic, my assistant and I started to call around to try to find a place to purchase more. After a few frustrating answers like, “the closest distributer is 4 hours away”, and, “It will take 4 days to deliver it”, we finally received a positive response. The medical lab of a hospital about 45 minutes away said they could give us enough to last the rest of the week! We decided to skip the morning of sampling on the island to pick up the dry ice to save the already-collected samples, which represented hours and hours of work. Crisis averted!

I thanked the hospital technician for saving my PhD and we headed back to the dock to catch a boat. On previous mornings, we had taken the employee boat over, which goes straight from the mainland to the island. But lucky for us, by the time we got to the dock that day, the tourist boat was the only option to get to the island. So instead of putting our heads down and going straight to work, we got to enjoy the scenery and a tour around the whole island. It was interesting to hear what the tourist guide said about the island, especially when we could say “We’re contributing to that research!”. And despite the delayed morning start as “tourists”, we still made to the colony it in time to finish all of our sampling!

I’m on a boat! (as a tourist)

The tourist boat.

Tagging along on the Great Trail

One of the reasons Amanda, Sarah, and I started this blog five years ago (!) is because we wanted to use stories to share some of the amazing places field biologists get to work – places that often aren’t accessible to everyone.  And over the years, we’ve highlighted a lot of stories from these places, from Sable Island to Line P in the Pacific Ocean to an uninhabited islet in Cape Verde.

But you don’t necessarily have to be doing field biology to access amazing places.  In many cases, all you need is enthusiasm and possibly a healthy dose of determination.

This spring, hikers Sonya Richmond and Sean Morton sold their house in Simcoe and the majority of their possessions, and set off on the adventure of a lifetime.  Over the next three years, Sonya and Sean plan to hike across Canada from coast to coast to coast, along the 24,000 km Great Trail.  Obviously, this will be no small feat – in fact, as Sonya has pointed out, fewer people have finished this trail than have gone to the moon.

So why do it? Sonya and Sean are undertaking this epic journey with one major goal: to inspire people to connect to the natural world.  In collaboration with Bird Studies Canada, they hope to encourage this connection with nature through birding, and will be sharing information about ways to help birds, bird citizen science projects, and Important Bird Areas across Canada with the people they meet on their journey.

On the morning of June 1^st, Sonya and Sean set off from Cape Spear – the most easterly point in North America.  To start them on their way, Nature Newfoundland and Labrador (a local naturalist group) had organized a group hike to keep them company for the first few kilometers, and I was lucky enough to tag along on this hike.

It was a cool, overcast morning (as far as I can tell, Newfoundland is several weeks behind the rest of Canada when it comes to spring), but the crisp air turned out to be perfect for cooling down after long scrambles up rocky slopes.  The air was quiet and calm, unusual for these normally windswept coastal barrens, where the trees are bent from bracing against the wind, and the grey-blue water turned the most amazing shade of turquoise where the waves met the rocky coast.  Of course, the highlights for me – as a newcomer to Newfoundland – were the two icebergs we came face to face with along the trail.

I also learned something important about hiking in Newfoundland.  What counts as an ‘easy’ trail here is not the same as an easy trail in Ontario.  When I set out that morning, I couldn’t find my hiking boots or clothes in my pile of suitcases – but I figured it was an easy trail, so I threw on a pair of jeans and some sneakers and assumed that would be good enough.  I quickly came to regret that decision, as I slipped and slid my way up and down the steep ascents and precarious descents.

It took us a couple of hours to reach the end of that first trail segment (only about 3.5 km away from where we’d started – but those 3.5 km involved an awful lot of ups and downs!).  It’s embarrassing to admit just how happy I was to stop and take a break – particularly since I had made the walk completely unencumbered, while Sonya and Sean were loaded down with their huge packs.  It was impossible not to be impressed by their determination and energy as we waved goodbye to them, and they continued on their way to St. John’s, their destination for the day.

As they make their way across the country, Sonya and Sean will be blogging about the places they see and the people they meet, and we will be reposting some of those blogs on Dispatches from the Field.  But to keep up to date with them, learn more about their travels, or find out how you can help, check out their website.

Safe travels and good luck, Sonya and Sean!

 

Origins of a Naturalist

This week Dispatches from the Field is happy to welcome Megan Quinn, the Coordinator of Conservation Biology for Eastern Ontario with the Nature Conservancy of Canada to share how she ended up working for the environment. For more about Megan, see the end of this post. 

Most people working in conservation have a story about how they got into the field. In my case, environmental work wasn’t my first, second, or even fifth career choice, but it did turn out to be my favourite. Although it took some time for my dream career to go from veterinarian, to actress, to radio DJ, to journalist, to author, and eventually to naturalist, in hindsight there were some clues in my childhood that might have gotten me there a lot quicker.

My family tells the story of taking four-year-old Megan to the park, where I just lagged further and further behind. They couldn’t figure out what I was doing, until my coat had grown two sizes from stuffing my pockets with rocks, twigs, and pine cones. Turns out that 20 years later, I’m still doing the exact same thing. I am now the Coordinator of Conservation Biology for Eastern Ontario with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, which means I manage over 28,000 acres of land, and spend my day identifying the plants, animals, and natural features that live there.

Here’s two recent pictures of me on holiday in England and the Netherlands. Although this time I left the nature in its place.

Growing up, the place where I did the most exploring was my Grandma’s garden. Her garden was unlike anywhere else I knew: a maze of stone paths with brilliant insects to discover, delicious raspberries to eat, and a new world to explore. The Troddy Nature Book – Things to Collect in a Bag came into my life just as I was starting to explore the world around me. Like a lot of things at Grandma’s house, nobody is entirely sure where the book came from, but it was an instant family favourite.

“Things to Collect in a Bag” is one of four books in a series written by Stuart Cowly, and published by Brian Trodd Publishing House Limited. There is also “Things to Collect in a Bucket”, “Things to Collect in a box”, and “Things to Collect in a Jar.” Together, they are the Troddy Nature Books.

The book guides children through nature projects they can “collect in a bag”. It offers activities such as making a herb pot, learning about fossils, and drawing a wildlife map. At the back of the book, there is “Troddy’s County Code”, a set of rules for young environmentalists to follow. Looking through them, I realised that I’m still following the code today.

T – Take home all litter

When I’m out in the field, my team and I always spend time collecting rubbish that has been left in, or blown into, the area. By getting into the habit of carrying a garbage bag and a pair of gloves, you can make a big impact in your neighbourhood. Spring is a great time to get outside, and clean up any litter left behind by the melting snow.

R – Recycle whenever possible

It’s inevitable that we’re going to use resources. As conservationists, we try our best to reduce our impact by recycling materials. Doing simple things like using printed pages for scrap paper and re-using signs, and materials, saves money (thus ensuring more money goes towards conservation), and reduces our footprint. Over the past few years I’ve been paying more attention to my own consumption habits. Small changes like forgoing plastic bags, and bringing reusable containers while shopping are things that everyone can integrate into their lives.

O – Observe, but never interfere with nature

Unnecessarily interfering with nature can negatively impact organisms and the ecosystems they inhabit. Like with all rules, there are exceptions, but it’s important to consider what you are doing. If you are picking up a turtle to help it safely cross the road, then you’re performing a positive act, but if you are just picking up a turtle so you can take a cool selfie with it, then you’re likely causing more harm than good. The energy animals have to put into getting away, or the stress caused by unnecessary handling, could impact their survival. I think even the most seasoned conservationists are guilty of this sometimes, but it’s important to take a step back, and evaluate what we’re doing.

D – Don’t ride when you can walk

I do a lot of walking as a conservation biologist. Some field days I get over 40,000 steps. I find that taking the time to walk in nature slows down my mind, and helps me to appreciate the world around me. It can be as simple as a walk in the park, or around your garden, or even sitting by a window to watch the environment outside. We are lucky to have so much accessible nature in Canada, and this point reminds me to appreciate it.

D – Do join a wildlife or nature club

Getting involved with the work that organizations such as the Nature Conservancy of Canada are doing across the country is a great way to contribute to the environment. There are many ways you can do this: getting out and exploring a local natural area, such as NCC’s Nature Destination Properties, donating to a cause, or volunteering at conservation events. Every little bit helps, and you may find yourself picking up a new favourite hobby or past-time.

Y – YOU ARE THE FUTURE

This doesn’t just mean youth! Although it’s the young people that will inherit the earth, the actions that all of us take today will impact the future. We can choose to make that a positive impact by engaging with nature in a sustainable way.

This book has followed me throughout my environmental career, and even though it’s almost 30 years old, the lessons it teaches are still relevant today. When my grandma passed, the Troddy Nature Book made its way across the ocean to Canada, where I still have it today. It may seem a bit silly to base my conservation values on a 30-year-old book, but looking back, the lessons it teaches are valuable. The Troddy Nature Book will always have a place on my bookshelf, and one of these days, I may actually complete all of the activities in it!

Megan is the current Coordinator of Conservation Biology, Eastern Ontario with the Nature Conservancy of Canada. She was inspired to pursue a career in the environmental field after moving to Canada in 2004, and studying Ecosystem Management at Sir Sandford Fleming College. In her spare time, Megan is a an avid horse rider, competing in eventing horse trials with her horse, King. 

Wow, time flies!

Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe that we started Dispatches from the Field four and a half years ago, back in June 2014.  Where has the time gone?!?

2018 marked a busy year for all of us. Catherine and Amanda both received their Ph.D. and started new jobs, while Sarah started a Ph.D. That didn’t stop any of us from getting out into the field though! Some of our notable blog posts from this past year include Catherine learning to love mornings, Amanda falling into a swamp, and a fox getting the better of the nests at Sarah’s study site.

We’re excited to have welcomed guest bloggers who added new markers to our map, including Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Israel’s Red Sea. We also learned what a real field work resume might look like, the (maybe not so) best way to make a first impression, and how to fall in love with fieldwork.

We shared some sentiments familiar to anyone who does fieldwork (for example,  You’ve got to be kidding me!) and learned some new sayings appropriate to situations such as having all of your gear washed out to sea (Morabeza!). And a number of our posts raised important issues, such as what it’s like being a parent in the field, the importance of citizen science (first, second), and how fieldwork is more than just data.

I guess time flies when you’re having fun! Stay tuned for more of the good, bad, and ugly of fieldwork on Dispatches in 2019. We will be posting every other week to give everyone more time to enjoy each story! If you’re interested in submitting a guest post, please email or tweet us!

Catherine (left) and Amanda (right) receive their official Ph.D. documents! Finishing the degree was worth it to wear the red robes & funny hats (and to collect lots of funny field stories!).

 

Life with owls

This week, Dispatches is excited to welcome a good friend of ours, Lauren Meads.  Lauren is the Executive Director of the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC – and is in the enviable position of working with some of the most charismatic (micro)fauna around.  For more about Lauren and the BOCSBC, check out the bio at the end of the post.

As the Executive Director of the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of British Columbia, I’m often asked how I wound up working in this field. I don’t have a simple answer. My path to this career — which I love — has been somewhat meandering. And honestly… birds?! I never thought in a million years that my passion for birds, specifically owls, would be such an important part of my life.

I’ve always loved animals and growing up had dreams of being a zookeeper. This led me to an undergraduate degree in Biology and then an internship working with exotic cats in the US. To further my career, I went back to school for my master’s degree in Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare at the University of Edinburgh. My first job after finishing that program was at a zoo that focused on conservation, which drew me into the world of breeding animals for the purpose of reintroduction into the wild. My expertise in working with mammalian carnivores led me to working with raptors. And from there, I found myself working on the beginnings of the Northern Spotted Owl breeding program in BC.

Remember how I said the route was meandering? Well, after two years working with spotted owls, I decided it was time to move on to another job. During a co-op placement in my undergraduate degree, I had dabbled a bit in lab animal work and I decided to give that a try again. This was a short-lived decision, as I quickly realized that world was not for me. I longed to get back into conservation and working in the wild. Luckily, I had kept in contact with my colleagues from the Northern Spotted Owl project. When I reached out to them, they alerted me to an opportunity to work in the field with burrowing owls. That was ten years ago, in 2008. And ever since then, I have been deeply involved with burrowing owls. First volunteering, and then working in the field monitoring releases, and now overseeing the breeding and reintroduction of a native grassland species throughout British Columbia. As you can tell by the length of time I’ve been working at this job, I finally found my calling working with the Western Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia hypugaea).

4-week-old burrowing owls after banding. (Photo credit: Lauren Meads.)

I fell in love with burrowing owls as soon as I started working with them. I love how unusual they are among owls. While they do fly, like all owls, they also spend a lot of time on the ground hunting and roosting. They nest underground and are active during both day and night.

Unfortunately, burrowing owls are also currently threatened across North America, and endangered in Canada. Populations in Manitoba have been extirpated, while in Alberta and Saskatchewan they continue to decline.  And where I work, in British Columbia, burrowing owls have been extirpated since the 1980s. While the causes of these dramatic population declines are complex, we do know that losses of burrowing mammals, such as badgers, have played a major role in the owls’ decline.  Despite their name, burrowing owls don’t excavate their own burrows, but instead use those abandoned by other animals – so without animals like badgers, they have nowhere to nest.  Other issues facing the owls include pesticides, increases in populations of aerial predators such as red-tailed hawks and great horned owls, road construction, and climate change.  Conservation efforts are underway in all four Canadian provinces, as well as several places in the States.

In 1990, volunteers in British Columbia initiated a comprehensive re-introduction program, including three captive breeding facilities, artificial burrow networks and field monitoring research. The Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC (formed in 2000) produces over 100 owls each year to release in the Thompson-Nicola and South Okanagan grasslands of BC. In recent years, improved release techniques have resulted in higher adult survival and greater numbers of wild-hatched offspring with the potential to return in following years.

Preparing for release: (left to right) Leanne, Lia, and Lauren banding and assessing owls for release. (Photo credit: Mike Mackintosh.)

What my work looks like varies greatly depending on the season. Right now, in winter, I’m busy with the joys of writing reports and grant applications, as well as fixing the breeding facilities, installing artificial burrows in the field, and providing outreach to the public. Come spring, I and a field assistant (more than one, if funding is good!), plus some dedicated volunteers, will check each of the ~600 active burrows across our field sites. Our task is to check each one for owls returning from migration, and to ensure the burrow is in good working condition. In April, we will take the 100 owls bred in our facilities and release them into our artificial burrows. We have placed these burrows on private ranches, land owned by NGOs, Indigenous band lands, and provincial parks. This work requires a LOT of driving — sometimes up to 3-5 hours per day as we go from site to site.

After the release, we continually monitor the nesting attempts of the released owls, as well as those returning from migration, and provide supplemental food to help them raise their chicks. Along the way, we band the young born in the field. We monitor them until they all leave in September and October to head south.

Banded and ready to go: Lia, Chelsea, and Lauren getting ready to return a banded clutch of burrowing owl nestlings to the nest. (Photo credit: Dawn Brodie.)

Where exactly the owls go during the winter is still something of a mystery. We sometimes get reports of sightings of our banded owls, and we also get data from groups in the US and elsewhere in Canada that have deployed satellite tags.  (We’d love to use satellite tracking tags ourselves, but they are expensive, and our organization runs on limited funds!) Based on the information we’ve received, we know that BC owls have been seen throughout the western United States, and most likely spend the winter in Mexico.

Recent years have seen an increase in the number of owls that return to BC in the spring; however, currently we still don’t have a self sustaining population.  Our next step is to work on understanding the owls’ migration movements, and determine ways  to increase survivability.  This will involve working across Canada and internationally.

Something else I’m often asked is what the next steps are for burrowing owl conservation. Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to this question either. While there are many organizations dedicated to conserving these unique owls, they all run on limited funds and resources. BOCSBC uses almost all of its funding breeding and releasing owls, as well as creating and maintaining the artificial burrows they use.  Certainly, this is essential for the species’ recovery, but we also need to tackle the many unanswered questions about the causes of their decline before we can hope to reverse it.  At the moment, there’s still so much information we’re lacking, including where the birds’ winter, issues of migratory connectivity, changes in prey availability and shifts in climate across their range.

The path that brought me to working in burrowing owl conservation was unconventional. But ten years into this career, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be!

Photo credit: Lia McKinnon.

Lauren Meads is the Executive Director of the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC.  She has worked with owls for over 10 years, although she still has a passion cats both big and small.  She lives in the South Okanagan Valley in BC with her husband Tim and their three (small) cats.  To learn more about the ongoing effort to reintroduce burrowing owls in BC, check out this video from Wild Lens.  If you are interested in helping out with this project, you can contact the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC at bocsbc@gmail.com or donate via Canada Helps.

Check it out: Faces of Fieldwork

This week on Dispatches from the field, we wanted to highlight a really cool site called Faces of Fieldwork (http://facesoffieldwork.com/). With a tagline of “Scientists are people too. We show the personal side of scientific fieldwork” how could we resist? Using pictures, they highlight what it is really like to do fieldwork from different fields all over the world. You’ll find pictures that make you say “aww”, “ouch”, “what?”, “cool”, and “no way!”. Check out their site to submit your own photo and follow them on twitter: @facesfieldwork!

Here are just a few examples of Faces of Fieldwork. Make sure you go to the site to read about them!

Here at Dispatches from the field, we also believe that sharing a more personal touch on what we do is the key to having others understand why we love to do it! So here is the post that I originally shared on Faces of Fieldwork:

Sarah – (Too) warm and dry on the coast

For my first time on the west coast of Canada for fieldwork I wanted to make sure I was prepared for the dreary, cold, and wet type of weather I was likely to encounter…but some might say I was overprepared. This is a picture of me on my first day: I was wearing two pairs of socks, rain boots, two pairs of pants, rain pants, 3 shirts, a rain coat, a thicker rain over jacket (of heavy plastic), a toque, mitts, and a lifejacket (safety first!). The layers weren’t very useful for traversing remote islands looking for seabirds so inevitably they had to come off! Read more about my fieldwork on my blog!

The Wildlife Confessional

This week Dispatches from the Field welcomes Matthew P. Bettelheim, an editor of the new book The Wildlife Confessional: An Anthology of Stories to share with us how he came up with the idea to put this together. It sounds like we fit right in! Check out the end of the post for ways to pre-order the book.

When the late biologist Dr. Charles Jonkel, co-founder of the Great Bear Foundation, was given the rare opportunity in 1966 to pioneer the first ever study of polar bears in the Arctic, little did he know that the years to follow would not only change how the world sees polar bears, but would also leave him looking back at those years to wonder how he even survived the experience:

“The night he scared himself, he sent his friend Henk Kiliaan home after all their remembering. It wasn’t hard to do – scaring himself – what with the whiteouts and the polar bears (always the polar bears), helicopters falling from the sky, and the vast whiteness of it all and everything in between. Lost in the high Arctic where he couldn’t have been more alone no matter the company he kept. He might have done stupid things in his youth. Hell, he had done stupid things in adulthood, too. But he had also lived a full life, all in the name of science, that truly began in the high Arctic when he set out to answer a simple question: How do you catch a polar bear?”

So begins “Kick it in the Ice Hole,” the adventures of a bear biologist that recounts how learning to catch a polar bear launched Jonkel’s storied career. This is just one of the tales that make up The Wildlife Society’s new anthology, The Wildlife Confessional, a collection of fifteen stories by thirteen biologists, including published authors Marcy Cottrell Houle (Wings for my Flight, One City’s Wilderness, The Prairie Keepers) and J. Drew Lanham (The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature. In short, it is a collection of biologists’ adventures, misadventures, revelations, reflections, mishaps, and pivotal experiences with wildlife.

The Wildlife Confessional was first conceived many moons ago, long before 2014 when I began exchanging emails with co-editor Thomas A. Roberts about an idea I had for an anthology. My first introduction to Tom was more than ten years earlier when my editor loaned me a copy of Tom’s very own anthology, Painting the Cows. At that time, I had just joined the ranks of an elite group of scientists known as “wildlife biologists” and was interning at Bay Nature magazine, so a collection of stories about wildlife biology seemed a natural fit. It was. In love instantly with Tom’s brand of self-effacing honesty and insight, I hungrily devoured Painting the Cows and its companion anthology, Adventures in Conservation, and then loaned my copies out to friends and colleagues until one day I realized my books hadn’t found their ways home.

In 2005 I lucked into Tom’s email address and reached out to him about meeting for drinks – hopeful I might be able to meet another local writer/wildlife biologist – but because it it too easy to get swept up in the current of everyday life, we never made it happen. And then, during a happy hour for our local San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of The Wildlife Society in the fall of 2007, I heard someone mention “Tom Roberts” and realized that Tom Roberts, the Tom Roberts, was sitting at the next table over. So I did what any normal person might do when faced with a “celebrity crush” and rushed over to introduce myself and heap praise on his work, coming across no doubt as a babbling fool in the process. By the time all the pieces began falling in place in 2014 to plant the seed for this anthology, Tom Roberts seemed the natural person to reach out to as a co-collaborator. And so The Wildlife Confessional was born. Together, we waded through more than 45 submissions to carefully curate The Wildlife Society’s first anthology, a true window into the wildlife profession.

This is a career peopled by wildlife biologists, game wardens, land managers, researchers, students, and the community of peers who have built their careers (and sometimes, their lives) around working with wildlife. Members of the biologist community may specialize in a certain group of wildlife – like entomologists (insects), ichthyologists (fish), ornithologists (birds), herpetologists (reptiles and amphibians), and mammalogists (mammals) – or practice their “–ology” on a larger scale – like law enforcement, policy, habitat restoration, resource management, research, outreach and education – but they share in common a passion for wildlife and the outdoors, and a learned (resigned?) resiliency to the pitfalls and mishaps inherent in a career that revolves around wildlife.

The authors whose stories we’ve collected represent men and women from all walks of wildlife biology – State and Federal biologists, consultants, students, professors, interns – and take place across North and Central America, from the Gulf of Alaska to San Ignacio, Belize, from the tropics of the Hawaiian Islands to the deserts of Arizona, and in the desert springs, coastal bluffs, national parks, stock ponds, pick-up trucks, traplines, doctor’s offices, roof tops, outhouses, and bombing ranges scattered everywhere in between.

To bring the stories behind The Wildlife Confessional to life, anthology contributor Ivan Parr (“A Terrible Bird is the Pelican”) – who is also gainfully employed as a wildlife biologist, botanist, and nature photographer – put pen to paper a second time. But this time around, Ivan set out to create the lighthearted illustrations that accompany each story. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Ivan’s art speaks volumes about the wildlife profession and the adventures wildlife biologists face every day.

In early January 2018, the print-side of the project launched through the crowd-source publisher Inkshares (https://www.inkshares.com/books/the-wildlife-confessional-an-anthology-of-stories) and was successfully funded at the end of February after pre-selling over 250 copies. Today, with over 300 copies sold, the book is still available for pre-order (eBook: $6.99 / Paperback: $14.99) as we navigate the final stages of layout, design, and publishing before the anthology goes to print.

 

 

 

Here’s a sneak preview of what you can expect in the forthcoming book:

• In The Pirate Kit Fox, kit fox expert Brian Cypher recounts the one that got away – a kit fox so formidable and cantankerous, it nearly brought a grown man to tears.
• On an island, no one can hear you scream; so we learn the hard way in The Long Drop, in which Eric Lund must get his hands dirty while stationed on Laysan Island after a gray-backed tern finds itself doing laps in the loo.
• Islands can also be a place of reflection, as we experience through the eyes of Brianna Williams in The Tower Colony during her turn working with breeding seabirds in an abandoned Air Force station radar tower.
• In Lost and Found, J. Drew Lanham looks back on the formative years that shaped his inevitable career as a birder, a path especially rocky for a young African American growing up in South Carolina in the 1970’s.
• In The Big Horn Sheep De-Watering Device, veteran author and wildlife biologist Thomas A. Roberts makes a beginner’s mistake and pays for it when a four-and-a-half foot long pipe wrench becomes his cross to bear in a trek across the desert.