Postcards from the Field: Natalie James

Shell Conservation Intern Natalie James

Hello from Saskatchewan -

Born and raised in the grassland metropolis of Winnipeg, Manitoba, I have always been amazed by the prairie landscape and lifestyle.  For the past three years I have been studying Renewable Resource Management at McGill University’s Macdonald campus in Ste Anne de Bellevue, Quebec.  Although I love it there and I’m eager to return to finish my degree, I missed the flavour of the prairies.  I am proud to be back in the land of expansive and dramatic skies; where you have to stop a minute to watch in admiration as the wind sweeps across the plains of grasses teeming with life.

Cactus Hills, SK

I am honoured to be working for an organization so deeply committed to the conservation of natural ecosystems and who takes a proactive role in land stewardship.  This summer, my fellow intern, Leanne, and I are monitoring the health and range management of NCC properties in Saskatchewan’s Missouri Coteau.  The hilly pockets of native prairie are bustling with avian, mammal and insect life amid a quilt of pastel wildflowers, swaying grasses, marshy wetlands and treed coulees.  We are busy identifying grass species by their minute anatomical differences and birds by their buzzy songs; while performing ecosystem health assessments and recording sightings of invasive and special status species.  So far, we have been fortunate enough to observe some threatened species including Sprague’s Pipit, Loggerhead Shrike, Long-billed Curlews and Burrowing Owls thriving in their natural habitat.  We have also encountered, in abundance, the not-so-threatened Dermacentor andersoii, the wood tick.  But what would the prairies be without the wood ticks and mosquitoes? —they are but a rather negligible drawback to an otherwise amazing summer job.

Natalie James