Welcome to the latest instalment of the Nearby Nature Project! Over 25 years ago I learned that fostering my relationship with Mother Nature is essential to my well-being. So I garden, walk, hike, cycle, kayak or otherwise spend time with Nature, just about every day.

I’m not alone in discovering that being outside is good for mind and body. Mainstream media articles regularly extoll the benefits of spending time in nature. And hashtags like #playoutside, #optoutside, and #greentimenotscreentime have communities of followers. I reflect on my Nature connectedness and share resources and news stories in these Nearby Nature Project posts.

Regular readers will notice a slight change in the title format this month. I’ve begun numbering the Nearby Nature Project posts. Previously, I labeled them with the applicable year(s) and month(s). But that gets pretty cumbersome when it’s a post covering two months over a year end. Sequential numbering is simpler. And it gives me a better sense of the size of the body of work I’m building. I went back to January 2022 to rename issue number 1. And as I worked forward through the years, I was delighted to find I surpassed the 25 issues mark in the fall of 2024. Here’s to making it to at least 50!

News Feed

2025 = UN International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation

January 2025 was the hottest month on record. And also the wettest month on record in parts of Europe. Looking out my window, there’s little to no snow on the ground at valley bottom in the Bow Valley. In fact, when we visited Snow Days in Banff at the end of January, we wondered where they’d found the snow used to make the snow sculptures!

Over our three decades of hiking in the Canadian Rockies, we’ve observed several glaciers recede, including Rae Glacier in Kananaskis and Stanley Glacier in Kootenay National Park. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Rocky Mountain Oulook reported that Peyto Glacier may be gone within a decade.

All of which is to say that I think it’s very timely that 2025 is UN’s International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation (IYGP). It’s a struggle to feel anything I do personally can make a noticeable difference to the rate of glacier melt. So I am grateful for the information on Canada’s IYGP website, which sums up how I feel:

“In Canada, we know already that ice and snow matter. But we need to do more to translate that knowledge into action.”

Unfortunately, while that website is rich with information about why glaciers matter, the implicit “slow/stop/reverse climate change” message is not empowering. Fortunately, there is a nugget embedded in one of the upcoming event pages. Specifically, the launch of the 1st World Day for Glaciers and World Water Day, taking place Friday, March 21, 2025 in New York City identifies “the need for developing water-related adaptation strategies.” That, I can get behind.

In fact, everyone in the Bow Valley, particularly Calgary and downstream, had to take action last summer after a water main break. I wondered last fall whether I’d find the motivation to continue some of my water saving habits come spring 2025. I have my answer!

Media Bias – Only Some Crises Sell

I am a long-time follower of Professor Miles Richardson, author of several books and the Finding Nature blog. Over the last three years, Professor Richardson was one of more than 100 leading experts from over 40 countries working on a report outlining changes needed to halt biodiversity collapse. The week before Christmas, 147 governments approved this report, plus a second report by the UN founded Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

The IPBES report, also referred to as the Nexus report, highlights the need to tackle our five interlinked global crises in biodiversity, water, food, health and climate change in unison. It also demonstrates that continuing with compartmentalized, “siloed” responses to these crises – basically disregarding their interconnectedness – will lead to greater negative outcomes at higher financial costs. The Nexus report received considerable media coverage, including such venerable outlets as the New York Times and BBC.

However, the Transformational Change report, authored by Professor Richardson et al, received very little media coverage. It’s key message? That human life is interconnected with nature. Our current worldview that makes it societally acceptable to dominate and consume nature is breaking everything. A new worldview fostering the interconnectedness of humans and nature would unite the well-being of people and planet, paving the way for humanity to tackle the five interlinked global crises.

Human-Nature Connectedness

So just how do you go about prompting a shift to a worldview based on the interconnectedness of humans and nature? I like to think that this blog series is a small part of the answer. Fortunately for the world, other people are hard at work on this problem, including a small – but highly dedicated and productive – group of researches at the University of Derbyshire.

Following their previous handbooks, which offer an introduction to connecting people with nature, and helping organizations connect with nature, they’ve just launched a new handbook – the Nature Connected Communities Handbook It’s “a guide for inviting communities to notice, engage and relate with the more-than-human world, for closer community-nature relationships.”

This latest handbook explores how community initiatives can nurture relationships between humans and the rest of nature that support the recognition and celebration of the interconnectedness of humans and the rest of nature. For more on the Nature Connected Communities Handbook, check out this Finding Nature blog post.

Cultivating My Nearby Nature Connection

We headed to Banff in Late January. While the annual “Snow Days” event was our initial reason for going, we enjoyed two glacier-related exhibits at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies even more. One exhibit is specifically tagged for the UN’s International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. Both are primarily photographs, but there is also a film – Losing Blue, which I mentioned about a year ago.

Here’s a bit of a look at MELTDOWN: A Drop in Time, which runs through April 13, 2025. The photography is from Jim Elzinga and Roger Vernon. Leanne Allison is the local talent behind Losing Blue. And Tiffany Shaw is the artist behind the sculpture.

Photographer Glen Crawford has a keen eye for detail, and I really enjoyed the images in his Etched in Ice exhibit, which also runs through April 13, 2025.

While at Whyte Museum, we headed downstairs to the Founders’ Room, where we found a 1940s/50s vintage oil painting by Peter Whyte, depicting the Athabasca Glacier at that time. It was interesting to consider that in contrast to the Athabasca Glacier photograph from 2024 by Jim Elzinga and Roger Vernon.

Insider tip for you = limited free parking outside the Whyte Museum, while visiting. Admission fee applies.

BTW, most of the snow sculptures for Snow Days were nature-themed. Our favorite was the bear, but we also particularly appreciated “Hiking with Mycellium” because it reminded us of one of our favorite nature-themed board games, Undergrove.

My Nearby Nature Projects

Birding

We haven’t been birding lately. And we held off for quite a long time before putting up any bird feeders this winter. The delay stemmed from concern about habituating coyotes to easy access to calorie-rich food. Not that they can reach the bird feeders. It’s the spillage that attracts them.

After spotting coyotes several times in November, but not in December, we finally put out a suet block feeder in early January. Still no coyotes. So in early February, we finally hung a sunflower seed bird feeder. Everything looked good for about 10 days. But at least two coyotes have come through a few times over the past two days, so once the birds empty the current supply of sunflower seeds, that’ll be it for this season. Only the suet block feeder will stay up through the end of March.

We’ve had a good range of birds visiting: Clark’s nutcrackers, Canada (grey) jays, magpies, red- and white-breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, hairy-backed woodpeckers, chickadees and pine grosbeaks. I’ve mostly watched them through the windows, but here are a few photos:

Nature-Friendly Gardening

After a “warmest ever” January, it’s shaping up to be the “coldest ever” February. But that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about the 2025 gardening season. Like last year, my vegetable garden planning has to take a long absence into consideration. Given the minimal snow pack, I expect we’ll be facing water restrictions again in 2025. So it’s likely to be carrots, onions and some hardier greens like kale for the veggie garden.

For the rest of the yard, the big project this year will be pulling out a section of traditional lawn. We still haven’t decided what to plant in this area. Our first thought was micro-clover, which can stand up to foot traffic and mowing. But it’s pretty invasive. So now we’re debating between a sedum sod and pollinator-supporting flowers and shrubs. Stay tuned!

Seasons

It’s been a weird winter. Two weeks ago, there was basically no ice on the Bow River as it flowed through Canmore. Last week, stretches were fairly frozen, with ice shelves showing the ebb and flow of the water level during this long, cold stretch.

Call to Action / Upcoming

The 2025 Great Backyard Bird Count is February 14-17. If you’re new to birding, prepare by taking a free intro to birding in Canada course. Details on how to participate in the GBBC can be found here.

I watched part of the Calgary Horticultural Society’s “Think Spring” workshop last weekend and plan to watch the other sessions this week. I plan to do a high level recap in the next issue of NNP. I’ve also got a few book recommendations / reviews in progress, so watch for those in the coming months.

Eastern Slopes of the Canadian Rockies Coal Mining

Finally, if you live in Alberta, please consider adding your voice to the grassroots movement against coal mining on the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies. I get that the UCP thinks reversing the moratorium on coal mining on the Eastern Slopes of the Canadian Rockies will create jobs in the relatively near-term and MAY cause coal company plaintiffs to drop lawsuits seeking $15 billion in damages from the provincial government. But what about the long-term effects of Grassy Mountain open pit mining on the landscape, and how that will be a detriment to tourism over the long-term? And how both open-pit and closed mining will almost inevitably leach selenium into our waterways, damaging fish populations (and Alberta’s amazing fly fishing sector) and contaminating drinking water? And also, how about the water burden on our already dwindling supplies, affecting southern Alberta farms and ranches?

Please consider:

1. Signing the Save Our Slopes petition, here: https://saveourslopes.ca/
2. Writing a letter using the letter writing tool here https://cpawsnab.org/our-work/coal-in-alberta/ or here https://albertawilderness.ca/act-now/send-an-email-coal-mining-in-the-eastern-slopes/ If you have a few minutes to personalize one of these letters, even better.

For more background information, here are some great resources:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/aer-grassy-mountain-eastern-slopes-brian-jean-1.7436871 https://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/coal-moratorium-lifted-pending-lawsuits-danielle-smithhttps://e360.yale.edu/features/from-canadian-coal-mines-toxic-pollution-that-knows-no-borders

Thank you!