The Bird in My Backyard

Three million years ago, camels roamed through Greenland’s endless forests and our ancestors lived in the trees. It all came to an end with the Ice Ages. What died and what survived, as natural selection shaped the evolutionary tree during this epochal shift from hot to cold? Until now, scientists have known less about the natural world before the Ice Age than they did about the age of dinosaurs, which ended 64 million years ago. A new discovery is set to reveal this lost world, species by species. Led by Danish gene-hunter Eske Willerslev, a team of scientists for the first time in history is sequencing DNA from before the Ice Age. The picture that emerges is of a hot planet, when forests blanketed the Arctic and carbon levels matched those in our atmosphere today. Is this a portrait of our own climate future?

Nearly 150 North American bird names have not aged well, ruffling feathers in the ornithological world and revealing deep roots in colonial legacies. Keen birders explore what's really in a name?

Sandpipers' Last Supper tells the story of the western sandpiper’s long-distance migration and the biofilm in the mud that supports the species’ survival. The documentary highlights the ecological value of intertidal mudflats and the urgency to save these vital habitats for shorebirds, one of the fastest disappearing groups of birds in the world.

One of British Columbia’s last remaining fire lookouts, 72-year-old Bart Vanderlinde, scans horizons and distills life lessons during what may be his final fire season in the watchtower.