🐦This week’s boreal bird is the Northern Hawk Owl — a sleek, fast hunter and unlike most owls, it’s diurnal, meaning it’s hunt day or night. It scans the Boreal Forest from treetops before diving with incredible speed and accuracy to catch its prey - mostly small mammals during the summer and mostly other birds during the winter. The Northern Hawk Owl thrives in open stretches of the Boreal, especially areas recovering from fire — a reminder that disturbance can be part of a healthy forest. 🌲�

Did you know? The Boreal Forest in Canada has more surface freshwater than any other ecosystem on the planet. Millions of lakes, thousands of kilometres of unbroken river systems, and a quarter of the world’s wetlands — taken together, these fresh, clean waters contain over 80,000,000 hectares of freshwater and nourish an entire continent-wide landscape of plants, animals, and communities. | Boreal Conservation

The Boreal Forest is a place of incredible diversity—from the towering trees above to the berry bushes on the forest floor. But did you know that all of this unique plant life blooms and benefits after a controlled fire? As Dr. Amy Cardinal Christianson shares, “A fire can affect the forest and definitely look like it has negative impacts, but there's also benefits where things will regrow after. It's very important to the boreal ecosystem.” Indigenous Peoples have long understood the benefits o