It's just a ditch... or is it?

Honourable Mention

Driving along old farm roads, truck in four-wheel drive and kicking up a cloud of dirt, you can see the curvature of the Earth. "There it is!", I cry in excitement— after a week of driving around the agricultural fields near Ottawa, I've gotten quite good at finding ditches, the drainage structures farmers use to control water levels on their fields. As drab as a "ditch" sounds, in this bizarre, alien landscape or rows upon row of corn, soybeans and other forage crops, they can be biodiversity havens. All summer, I'll trap insects as they emerge from their watery larval habitat and measure their nutritional quality for insectivorous birds, a group that are severely threatened and declining in Canada. In doing so, I'll play a part in helping farmers find the delicate balance between the needs and health of animals, humans and the environment, because it's not just a ditch.