The Kensington Conservancy is excited to announce the acquisition of the Turtle Rock Preserve. This is a 7.8-acre property with 168 metres (1,550 feet) of undeveloped shoreline along Quebec Bay within the St. Joseph Channel. This property was named Turtle Rock by its previous owners, as the shape of the peninsula gracefully curves like the back of a majestic turtle rising from the water.

The Kensington Conservancy is happy to announce the protection of Bowen Island, located in the Township of Tarbutt, Ontario, (35km southeast of Sault Ste. Marie). Bowen Island is a 15-acre island with 1.28 km (4,200 feet) of shoreline. The island lies in the St. Joseph Channel of Lake Huron, a section of the St. Marys River, which connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron.

The Kensington Conservancy was very fortunate to have three seasonal staff join us this summer. We asked each of them to write a brief recap of their time with us.

At least five Eurasian Tree Sparrows were recorded together at Fort St. Joseph. Before yesterday, Algoma had three records of five individuals already this year. How many of these birds are going undetected on the many days that there's no birders at Algoma's good migration hotspots?

Thank you to Roxane and Bella for their time with us this summer! We asked them to write about their experiences, which you can read here.

Thank you to Vince and Rachel for their time with us this summer! We asked them to write about their experiences, which you can read here.

Tomorrow is the first day of May. The days are getting longer, the flowers are slowly emerging, and the birds are migrating! Each spring, billions of birds in North American move northward to reach their breeding grounds. This month is the best time to see a wide variety of birds, wherever you might be located.

A big thanks goes out to everyone who participated in The Kensington Conservancy's Birding Big Day on September 8th! We had eight teams consisting of nineteen participants record a total of 101 different bird species over the course of nine hours in the Central Algoma area.

Winter is usually a good time to see owls. There are no leaves on the trees, making them more visible in the forests. Some species are also present more in the winter as they come south in search of food. Some species also begin their breeding season in the winter, making them more active than they are at other times of the year. 

I had the pleasure of joining a group of Sault Naturalists for a birding trip to Point Pelee National Park from May 7-11. The idea was that I would increase my knowledge of birds and observe the conservation and recreation efforts of the park and hopefully use this new knowledge during my work with the conservancy. Our group was one of a select few groups who had the pleasure of camping at the actual park, giving us a break on travel and parking each day.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Ontario Land Trust Alliance Annual Gathering, located at Geneva Park on Lake Couchiching, near Orillia, ON. This gathering is an annual training, skills development and networking conference bringing together land trust and other conservation professionals from across Ontario and Canada. 

Good thing bears are (usually) more scared of us than we are of them. Yesterday afternoon, I took a walk from the office up to Boyer Drive to do a little field work. Half way up the hill, I found the first of many bear scat piles along the road. The scat was big, red and full of apples, which made sense because there are a lot of apple trees up that way.