Niels Jensen spotted this lovely purple finch near Lake Memphremagog. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, this species seems to be declining in number, primarily because of competition from house finches that were brought to New York City in the 1950s. "One study of finch behaviour found that purple finches lost out to house finches more than 95 percent of the times  the two birds encountered each other."

Land birds and waterfowl will figure into the book on the history of Lake Memphremagog that Louise Abbott and Niels Jensen will publish in 2013.

Once Upon a Time, a short documentary that Louise Abbott recently finished for the Blue Metropolis Foundation, was the subject of an interview on CBC Radio's "Breakaway" program on April 20, 2012.

Louise Abbott in interview with Jacquie Czernin, CBC Radio, "Breakaway"

Once Upon a Time documentary on YouTube

Grey jay (Photo: Niels Jensen)

This summer the Rural Route Communications team will be heading to the high Arctic to shoot stills and video footage. Their subjects will include Inuit residents, as well as migratory and year-round wildlife.

(Photo: Louise Abbott)

 The Rural Route Communications team has been on assignment again for the Cree Outfitting and Tourism Association (COTA). We travelled for two weeks in March by truck, snowshoe, and snowmobile in Eeyou Istchee, as the Cree call their territory in northern Quebec. It was unseasonably warm, and by the end of our trip, the snow had largely melted, and thin ice was putting an end to snowmobile travel on lakes and rivers. The photographs that we took will be used to top up the COTA photo bank.

 (Photo: Niels Jensen)