OAK HAMMOCK MARSH, Man. _ The morning was absolutely miserable _ cold, cloudy and windy _ and banding birds or getting into the heart of the marsh by canoe wasn't going to be an option.
"The wind is quite strong this morning," Jacques Bourgeois wrote in an email. "Can you postpone your visit to tomorrow?"
A longtime interpreter and naturalist at Oak Hammock Marsh Interpretive Centre, Bourgeois works in marketing and communications and had hoped to showcase a couple of the center's more popular outdoor offerings _ banding birds and canoeing into the marsh.
Unfortunately, we already were in Manitoba and had exactly one day to play with; this was it.
Turns out that wouldn't be a problem.
Oak Hammock Marsh Interpretive Centre about 15 miles north of Winnipeg offers plenty to see and experience even on days when it's too blustery to spend much time outdoors.
The interpretive center is a veritable museum of natural history, filled with interpretive displays and interactive learning opportunities pertaining to the marsh, its history and the wildlife that live there.
Oak Hammock Marsh has 25 species of mammals and 300 species of birds depending on the time of year, Bourgeois said, not to mention amphibians, reptiles, fish and invertebrates.
"The whole continent has about 600 bird species, so that's half the birds on the whole continent," he said during a mid-May tour of the interpretive center. "In Canada, we have about 460 species so three-fourths of the species are found right here.
"We have anything from the smallest hummingbird to the largest" bird in Canada _ the white pelican.
