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Frances Backhouse


Frances with a saw-whet owl.
While studying zoology as an undergraduate at the University of Alberta, Frances Backhouse's favorite courses were those that took her outside. Her best memories of working as a biologist are times spent in the field getting up close and personal with ancient murrelets, Cassin's auklets, grizzly bears, and other fascinating animals. She now satisfies her passion for nature by writing about wild places and wildlife, informed by firsthand experience whenever possible. Frances is the author of numerous magazine articles and five books, including Woodpeckers of North America and Owls of North America.


Frances Backhouse's blog

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Anti-Oil Paintings

By Frances Backhouse
12/19/2012

Artwork: Mark Hobson

 

Seabirds befouled with black ooze are potent symbols of the havoc oil spills can wreak on marine and coastal ecosystems, but the ebony plumage of the bird in Mark Hobson’s “Pelagic Cormorants: Diving for Gobies” is entirely natural. Nevertheless, viewed in the context of the Art for an Oil-free Coast exhibit now touring British Columbia, the painting’s message is unequivocal: wildlife and petroleum products don’t mix.

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An Extinct Woodpecker Flies Back Into View

By Frances Backhouse
10/27/2011

One species that modern birders can never add to their life lists is the imperial woodpecker, but now, a rediscovered 85-second film clip offers a unique opportunity to see this vanished species in action.

Imperial woodpeckers (male on left, Museum specimens, UMMZ 29216 on left, 29217, collected in Durango, Mexico in 1898). Credit: Phil Myers (photographer, copyright holder), Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan.

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