Nature Blog Network

Here it is, your first installment of the shiny new Nature Blog Network community bulletin board! Due to the rather short time period since the initial announcement of the community board, there are only a handful of news items for this first week. However, I very much hope to see this grow in coming weeks!

Don’t be shy, send in your news, event or classified listings to me for posting on the community board, to get the word out to everyone! Submissions can be sent to sanderling [at] symbiotic [dot] ca, with the subject line “NBN Bulletin Board”. The weekly board will be posted every Sunday.

Our first official member-submitted announcement comes from Amber of Birder’s Lounge. Amber has two ongoing contests being hosted at her blog. The first is a photo ID challenge, where participants try to identify the plants/wildlife shown in three photos. Some months it’s tricky, some months less so (depending on your skill). The winner of the ID challenge receives a $10 donation to the charity of your choice, in your name, by the Birder’s Lounge. More details on the prize and how to participate are here.

Amber’s second contest is a year-long campaign to, in Amber’s words, “celebrate and encourage conservation Actions of everyday people.” She provides a list of Actions that are little steps the individual can take to help make a difference for our local flora and fauna, or the planet as a whole. The campagin is called Do Something! (Good). For every Action each participant takes, the Birder’s Lounge will put $1 into a “pot” that will be split between two worthwhile causes at the end of the year. Amber’s efforts to try to help effect some change are commendable, and I encourage everyone to drop by to see what you might be able to do yourself. More details on the campaign are here.

Mike, blogger at 10,000 Birds and the original cog in the NBN machinery, offers up two more announcements that might pique your interest. The first is called the Funky Nests in Funky Places challenge, and is being presented by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as part of their Celebrate Urban Birds project. Participants are encouraged to share their observation of a bird’s nest in a really strange place through photographs, video, painting or storywriting. Contributions are uploaded to Cornell’s site (or, in the case of video, to a site like YouTube and then the link provided to Cornell). Winners will receive a Leica C-LUX 3 compact camera, bird feeders, shrubs for planting, and more. As if that wasn’t enough incentive, the first 50 entrants will receive a copy of the “Doves and Pigeons” poster by well-known NBN blogger and artist Julie Zickefoose. To learn more about the challenge and its entry rules, visit here.

And the second is open to citizens of my own home and native land, Canada. It is a contest being run by Canon Canada, called the Nurture Nature Awards. The goal of the contest is to encourage Canadian citizens to “help protect or improve the natural habitat of an Endangered or Threatened species.” Participants submit a short proposal consisting of a brief video and an accompanying written explanation of their project. Three winners will be chosen from across Canada based on the strength of their proposals. The winners will each receive $20,000 toward their conservation or restoration project, as well as a Canon DSLR and a Canon video camera, to be used to document their project’s journey and final results. For more about the contest, the rules, prizes, and deadlines, visit here.