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>>>> in Grand Pre about bird certified blends but have had no success s This is a multipart message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0010_01D06537.41829D30 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All, Thank you James, Kate and Nancy for your informative and proactive posts on the topic of birds and coffee. There is an excellent website by Julie Craves that is a comprehensive source of information on this issue: http://www.coffeehabitat.com/ I wish to emphasize again the importance of independent certification of forest-grown, bird-friendly coffee. As pointed out on Julie's website, there is at the current time only one certification that has the strong standards required for bird conservation. This is the certification by Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. More about this certification can be found at her website by clicking on the "Certifications" tab at the top of the page. So far, this listserv has identified two Canadian suppliers offering at least one blend of Smithsonian certified bird-friendly coffee: Birds and Beans, and the Atwood Blend of Balzac Roasters. Both are in Ontario but ship to Nova Scotia. We have yet to identify a Nova Scotia-based supplier. John From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [mailto:naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca] On Behalf Of N Robinson Sent: March-22-15 19:57 To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca Subject: Re: [NatureNS] more on Birds and Coffee On the coffee front, I see that Kicking Horse sells only shade-grown coffee as well. It can be ordered online. http://www.kickinghorsecoffee.com/en/story/ideas/organic Nancy On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 9:25 PM, N Robinson <nrobbyn@gmail.com> wrote: Check this out - Balzac's sells fair trade coffee that is not necessarily bird friendly, but now they have the "Atwood Blend" (as in Margaret Atwood) that is bird-friendly, in support of Point Pelee! http://www.balzacs.com/about/atwood-blend/ Nancy On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 7:36 PM, Kate Steele <katefsteele@gmail.com> wrote: Thanks, John and James for starting this discussion! I agree with you, John - I wish they had have put in a 'plug' for the bird-friendly certification. I have also attempted to speak with the folks at Just Us about getting the certification, but they never responded to my phone calls or emails. I would certainly be willing to pay more for a certified bird-friendly product to help cover the cost of acquiring the certification. James: Great ideas! I'm very proud to say that the Nova Scotia Bird Society serves Just Us coffee at our meetings. To my knowledge, there is nowhere in Nova Scotia where certified bird-friendly coffee can be purchased, but I do drink Birds and Beans that was purchased online. I thought I heard once that the NSBS did have a program at one point where bird-friendly coffee was purchased en masse and distributed to our members - someone correct me if I have that wrong. I think the best goal to focus on would be to have bird-friendly coffee available to purchase more widely - either by bringing Birds and Beans to Nova Scotia, or by having Just Us certified bird-friendly. Chris and I watched Songbird SOS on Thursday evening (as I hope many others did) with Chris' mom, who has since decided that she would like to start drinking Bird and Beans to help save the birds (she currently drinks Just Us). If a non-birder thinks it worthwhile, I think there's hope! In 2014 I made it my New Year's resolution to drink only bird-friendly coffee or the next-best thing - I was successful and have maintained it in 2015 as well, but I never thought to write a blog! Kate On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 3:53 PM, James Churchill <jameslchurchill@gmail.com> wrote: Hi folks, I have not yet seen the doc. I agree the topic of bird friendly coffee is an extremely important one. I know the NS Bird Society has discussed it on occasion. BNS has not yet. There needs to be more discussion/awareness of differences in certifications and brands in terms of their benefit to birds, and where and how we can introduce more bird friendly coffee into our days and events of our organizations. As a member of the BNS program committee, in addition to currently trying to line up a screening of 'The Messenger' documentary in the area (followed up by discussion), I'd like to help get some more discussion going around bird friendly and 'Bird Friendly' coffee too. This could include, among other things, an invited speaker for one of our monthly meetings. Our groups/organizations could be promoting bird friendly coffee by: - serving it at our events - encouraging local fair trade coffee companies to seek 'bird friendly' certification - writing up a promotional one-pager we can distribute to highlight the benefits - making web maps of locations in NS where bird friendly coffee can be bought when out birding and need a caffeine fix - start with our birding hotspots - donating bird friendly coffee to events held by other groups (e.g., town meetings, school groups) - subsidizing shipment of bird friendly coffee to the area from Birds and Beans or other certified companies (e.g., 'order bird friendly coffee through BNS or the NSBS or Bird Studies Canada and receive a 15% discount'); for organizations we could consider this as a donation/ investment for bird conservation - starting a listserv or Facebook group devoted to constructive discussions around this - putting a blurb on our webpages - it could also be a great topic for a blog or yearly challenge: a big bird-friendly coffee year (writing about daily challenges finding it, discussions with people etc), or "a year without Tim's". If you have other ideas on speakers or opportunities BNS could be involved in, please pass them along here, to Jameslchurchill@gmail.com, or the BNS Facebook group. Thanks to John for initiating this conversation. Cheers, On Saturday, March 21, 2015, John Kearney <john.kearney@ns.sympatico.ca> wrote: Hi All, I watched the Songbird SOS program that was first aired Thursday night on the Nature of Things. It was good to see the number of Canadian scientists that were featured. A longer program could have featured many more I'm sure. With my interest in acoustic monitoring, I was pleased to see how they used this technology to demonstrate the extent of nocturnal migration and what it sounds like. The piece on forest-grown coffee was well done but didn't go into what the individual consumer can do to encourage the expansion of forest-grown coffee. There is a Canadian supplier of certified bird friendly, forest grown coffee, Birds and Beans. They have a video on their website explaining what this certification means, and you can order certified coffee from them online. The website is birdsandbeans.ca. The scientist featured at the beginning and end of Songbird SOS, Bridget Stutchbury, has sponsored some of their blends. I have tried to initiate a dialogue on several occasions w