Nature Principle.I was recently reminded of a memory from my childhood. Some good family friends had taken me mini-golfing with their grandma. It was a gorgeous day outside; some might say it was the perfect weather for golfing. Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case may be, I was more interested in the grasshoppers than I was in following a golf ball around the artificial turf. I remember my friend’s slightly annoyed grandmother having a conversation with my parents about what a “daydreamer” I was.

Perhaps author Richard Louv would argue that my early interest in entomology was a good thing.

In his best-seller Last Child in the Woods - Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, Louv makes a strong case for children to get outside – and not just for organized sports and activities either. Louv compiles facts and studies and makes the argument that what many children are missing in their childhood today is the simple opportunity to go outside and have free, unstructured play.

Free, unstructured play could be building a stick hut, discovering swamp creatures, finding a special hiding place, climbing trees, playing in the mud and getting your hands dirty…and making mysterious mud creatures while you're at it too. What unstructured play does, among other things, is allows for problem solving and engagement with the imagination.

Yes, as a society in general when we think of dirt we think of germs, and we live in a world where it seems we have to protect ourselves from everything, especially when it comes to the outdoors. If you think of the typical arsenal of sunblock and bug spray that many people use just to go for a walk outside, it seems like we always have to arm ourselves from nature.

Yet in his most recent work, The Nature Principle - Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age, Louv makes a strong case for adults to do the same as kids, and to get outside just for the case of being outside in nature…to get some fresh air, to give yourself the time and space to focus on the little details around you (again I think of those grasshoppers and how they crawled on the turf and how infinately more fascinating they were than golf was), to connect with other species, as well as an inner sense of peace. This is what Louv ultimately boils down to something he calls “Vitamin N,” something he argues we can all benefit from.

And the weather is getting warmer. And Turdus migratorius, our American robins, are officially here. So the question is: have you been outside today?

I looked out my window on Thursday to see hundreds, maybe thousands of cedar waxwings. I usually see a small flock in March on a nearby crabapple but I'd never seen such large numbers. The photos here are taken from about 6m distance with an itouch.

The waxwings had descended on our next-door neighbours' mayday tree to eat the dried and likely fermented fruit. Further investigation found flocks of them down the entire block on every fruit-bearing tree such as Mountain Ash and crabapples. For several hours, they tossed berries around, gobbled snow off the neighbours' roof and littered the sidewalk where there are now noticeable "wine stains."

Cedar waxings (with the yellow stripe, unlike the larger Bohemian waxwings) are one of Calgary's fancier looking birds with their crests and multicoloured plumage, so it's always a treat to see them, and it's often a one-time event with no advance warning--a rave of waxwings if you will. By 5 p.m. the party was over, and all the stragglers had left.

From Flickr, copyright Dan Dzurisin (NDomer73)The greater Sage Grouse is an iconic prairie bird. Forty years ago, when we first began keeping records, hundreds were strutting their stuff on our Canadian prairies; this past year only 13 males were counted in Alberta, and 35 in Saskatchewan. Scientists say the species’ days in Alberta could be numbered – they could be gone as early as next year.

The cause of their rapid decline is simple: loss of sagebrush habitat – the only habitat in which they can live – due to oil and gas exploration. The birds will not go within 1.9 kilometers of a disturbed area, so the fractured landscape created by oil and gas exploration basically shuts them out of their natural habitat.

Sage grouse males are known for their complex courtship dance, where they puff up the colourful air sacs in their chest with up to 5 liters of air, and make otherworldly sounds to attract a female. What was once a common sight on the prairies now attracts people by the hundreds to see the last remaining few.

They were first recognized as a species that ‘may be at risk’ in 1996, and were listed as endangered under Alberta's Wildlife Act in 2000. Since 1996 the population has crashed by more than 90 percent. Read about the politics of saving the sage grouse here and here.

So, what’s the value of a species? Do we let the greater sage grouse fade to black? Only public pressure for swift action in defense of this species will help now.

Contact the Alberta Wilderness Association for more details.

A few weeks ago on a hot summer’s day a friend and I drove south out of Calgary to a natural oasis just beyond the city limits. The Ann and Sandy Cross Conservation Area is 4,800 acres of protected aspen forest, pastures of introduced grasslands, and native prairie. Sandy Cross, son of one of the Calgary Stampede’s “Big Four”, A.E. Cross, along with his wife Ann donated the land to the Province of Alberta in 1987 with the stipulation that the land never be developed.

The land is protected and carefully managed to allow native plant and animal species to flourish. As my friend and I hiked under the hot sun, up and down rolling hills and through stands of aspen we spotted dozens of wildflowers. While we didn’t see any deer we found lots of areas where they had obviously bedded down. We also didn’t see another living soul on our entire 3 to 4 hour hike. It was blissful.

I highly recommend you make the short trek out to the Ann and Sandy Cross Conservation Area. Bring a picnic lunch, and definitely bring your camera. Before setting out, make sure you register your visit online, as they request. They also have a variety of fall programs you can sign up for, which give you a guided look at the land, its history and its inhabitants. Check out Paradise preserved : the Ann and Sandy Cross Conservation Area by Bruce Masterman for some beautiful pictures and more information on this conservation success story.

I went on a walk this weekend in Banff, along a trail just outside of town. The trail was edged by buffaloberries, the small red bitter berries that bears eat with abandon at this time of year. Usually I’d feel cautious and extra aware, hiking in a berry bonanza. Usually I'd holler periodically to alert any nearby bears of my presence. But I was in a small group, a group very familiar with the outdoors and with bears, so I relaxed, stayed quiet and floated along, tasting berries. Then we saw the bear. He was a large, very large, very near, very black bear. He was also munching on berries, very quietly, on the path about 10 feet away. He looked at us as if to say Leave me alone– I’m eating dinner, and we turned and silently walked out the way we had come. We should have been making more noise, but thankfully the bear wasn’t too disturbed by our presence.

As we walked out we talked about how differently it could have gone had we been on bikes. Riding quickly, as bikers tend to do, you’d be on top of this bear before you saw it. I don’t think he would have taken kindly to his dinner being interrupted by four bikers shooting out of the woods beside him. God forbid the bear be a momma bear, with young cubs by her side, like the one that charged a Calgary cyclist in Banff on Saturday morning.

The Alberta Government’s Sustainable Resource Development department put out a Be Bear Smart Mountain Biking Checklist last year. They recommend that you “don’t bike in bear habitat in early spring when bears emerge from dens, in mid-August when berries ripen or in late fall when bears are preparing for winter.” If you do encounter a bear while biking they recommend you get off and put the bike between you and bear and walk away slowly. Don’t try to be Lance Armstrong and take off like a rocket. A bear can outrun even the fastest cyclist, even going downhill. Now that’s food for thought, eh?

Check out these Calgary Public Library items for more information on bears and bear safety:

Bear Attacks : Their Causes and Avoidance by Stephen Herrero
The definitive guide by Alberta’s top bear researcher

Staying Safe in Bear Country: A Behavioral-Based Approach to Reducing Risk by Stephen Herrero
A videorecording compiling the knowledge of leading experts on bear behavior, including Dr. Herrero

The Grizzly Manifesto : In Defence of the Great Bear by Jeff Gailus
Gailus is a Calgary author and conservationist