An Outside Chance

the eyes have it

PHOTO POST To see, or to be seen? That is the question. The birds and plants in the woods and waters of Port Darlington show us some of the ways in which the invention of the eye has shaped life history. Many birds (for example the Yellow Warbler, above, and the Scarlet Tanager, below) are … Read More

plastic swamp

The billions of pieces of plastic floating in ocean gyres begin their watery journeys in ditches and creeks in almost every location inhabited by people. Many are tossed into tributaries in the centre of continents, far upstream from any ocean, including the small watershed where I live. Also published at Resilience.org The neighbouring coastal marshes … Read More

flight paths

PHOTO POST Amateur photographers who try, as I do, to capture birds in flight soon learn that the smaller birds tend to be more difficult to catch than the big birds. You need to get that much closer to a small bird, and with some exceptions they tend to be skittish. Their takeoffs are amazingly … Read More

walk on the wet side

PHOTO POST Through the past week’s intermittent rains returning migrants have joined our full-time residents around the bird feeders and in the marsh, while green shoots have begun to decorate muddy creek banks. This Black-Capped Chickadee looks for food in a freshly-pruned Forsythia. Our many sparrows include a Tree Sparrow (which likes to feed on … Read More

the colours that are spring

PHOTO POST The calendar says spring started weeks ago – and there has been a quiet explosion of new colour. As modelled by our migratory birds, the season’s first flashy hues run to black, white, and the whole gamut of earth tones. The marsh, of course, hasn’t warmed enough to start sending up new vegetation. … Read More

Bicycling on the Polar Sea

Thirty years ago this week, near the end of my first winter in the Northwest Territories, I completed a bike ride I’d been planning for months: north along the Mackenzie River ice highway from Inuvik to the coast, and then across the sea ice to Tuktoyaktuk. The journey seemed like the sort of thing one … Read More

13 seconds in march

PHOTO POST In these parts we can usually hear spring coming long before we can see it. On the second day of March when this coyote was making midday rounds, the marsh was frozen solid and it didn’t even feel like spring – except that the snowflakes landed almost like soft rain. But non-wintering birds … Read More

Pulling the plug on fossil fuel production subsidies

Also published at Resilience.org How long would the fossil fuel economy last if we took it off life support? Or to state the question more narrowly and less provocatively, what would happen if we removed existing subsidies to fossil fuel production? Some fossil fuel producers are still highly profitable even without subsidies, of course. But … Read More

Designing Climate Solutions – a big-picture view that doesn’t skimp on details

Also published at Resilience.org Let us pause for a moment of thanks to the policy wonks, who work within the limitations of whatever is currently politically permissible and take important steps forward in their branches of bureaucracy. Let us also give thanks to those who cannot work within those limitations, and who are determined to … Read More

the light of a nearby star

PHOTO POST A tree at the base of the Port Darlington breakwater stands watch over wind and waves and grows a new coat during winter storms. Last week’s blasts from the west whipped up the waves and funnelled splashes high into the tree. By the heat of the noon-day sun the glow was a glorious … Read More