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Namibia: Etosha National Park (Part I: Mammals)
The next stop on the trip was Etosha National Park, a large (22,270 km2) wildlife reserve located in northern Namibia. Etosha is famous for its astonishing concentration of wildlife, which includes almost all of the iconic African big game animals, including savannah elephants, white & black rhinoceros, giraffes, zebras, gazelles, oryx, wildebeest, lions, leopards, cheetahs,…
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Namibia: Spitzkoppe
The semester’s over and I finally have time to write again! Note: The first blog post about my trip to Namibia can be found by clicking HERE. The next stops on the itinerary included Spitzkoppe and various sites in the Erongo Mountains. “Spitzkoppe,” which is derived from the German words for ‘pointed dome,’ is a group…
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Namibia Trip: The Welwitschia Plains
Note: The first blog post about my trip to Namibia can be found by clicking HERE. About 100 km from Walvis Bay is a flat expanse of gravel called the “Welwitschia Plains.” At first glance, it doesn’t look like anything special – it’s just a dry, rocky plain dotted with some dull-looking plants. Namibia has endless…
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Namibia: Walvis Bay Flamingos
Note: My first post about my trip to Namibia is HERE . After driving through the desert, we arrived in the coastal city of Walvis Bay. It’s a great spot for people interested in birds and nature, as many sea birds can be seen along the shore, especially in the Walvis Bay lagoon. There are…
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Namibia: Spreetshoogte Pass and Namib Desert
Note: My first post about my trip to Namibia is HERE . After the trip to Daan Viljoen, we headed towards the Namibgrens Guest Farm, which was in a picturesque area of the Khomas Highlands. I took a photo of the villas, which are built right among the hills and rocks. The next day, we…
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Namibia Trip: Daan Viljoen Nature Reserve and Avis Dam
Note: The first blog post about my trip to Namibia can be found by clicking HERE. After spending time on my own at a guest ranch, I joined up with a small tour group at a lodge just outside of Windhoek. This was through Rockjumper Tours, which is a birdwatching tour company. From my experience,…
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A trip to Southwestern Africa! (Namibia, Botswana, and Victoria Falls)
For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to visit southwestern Africa, and I was finally able to make that particular trip happen this summer. I spent about a month there, primarily in Namibia, but I also visited the Okavango Panhandle and Chobe National Park in Botswana, and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. So, why…
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Hiking in Grande Prairie and Some Drone Photography
There are a lot of nice places to hike around Grande Prairie, which is where I’ve been living for the past 4.5 years. A good place to access hiking trails is the “Evergreen Ridge Recreation Area,” which is just south of town. The recreation area itself has a network of trails, but there are many…
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Puerto Rican Parrots
I took a trip to Puerto Rico last summer (2022) during the end of June and beginning of July. My main reason for going was to attend the the American Ornithological Society Conference that was held in San Juan. There were various field trips that conference attendees could go on and I signed up for…
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North American Breeding Bird Survey
The North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is a long-term, large-scale ‘citizen science’ project that is used to monitor populations of breeding birds in North America (including Mexico). A ‘citizen’ science project is one where non-professional scientists are involved in data collection. Bird monitoring projects often benefit greatly from the efforts of citizen scientists, as…
Peace Country Naturalist
Hello, and welcome to my blog and website! I am Jessie and I am a biology instructor at Northwestern Polytechnic (formerly Grande Prairie Regional College) in northern Alberta, Canada. I teach university-transfer courses, including introductory courses in biology and second-year courses in evolutionary biology, botany, and animal physiology.
The blog associated with this site will feature posts on natural history (especially of Alberta and British Columbia, but also of other places I may travel to), ecology, hiking, evolution, dogs, and exotic pets. I often place trail cameras out in the bush to captures images of wildlife, and many posts will feature those pictures. I also use autonomous recording units to monitor vocal bird species and will post about those projects in the future as well.
I will also sometimes post items I have written for the students I teach, if I think they will be of general interest.
The latest blog posts are linked to below:
Peace Country Naturalist 