Stephen Heard

"Some careful thought about the four kinds of writing “errors” can help us (and those we mentor) meet the challenge of balancing genre conventions with style and voice. Our literature needs all the help it can get with that balance."

Sneak preview of the paperback version of More Than Words, including some updated chapters and additional discussion material. Coming October.

How to lead a journal club you won’t be embarrassed by later One of the jobs facing an early-career scientist, and a developing writer, is to learn what their field’s literature looks like. One of the best tools to that end is the journal club. If you’ve nev…

Very much ditto in the sciences. We ought to be deliberate about structuring discussions to avoid this: scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com/2026/01/13/h...

I'm just a social scientist, once again asking the people of the world to consult one of us before deploying survey instruments. 🤦🏻‍♀️🫠

The first pic, by the way, shows pre-filtration through a jelly bag. That takes out any twigs or insects that have wound up in the sap. Not much of that, this early in the season, but later on this is more necessary!

Four kinds of writing “errors”, and how you might respond when you spot them When you’re working with a developing scientific writer, you may be doing a lot of different things – but one thing you’re almost certainly doing is reading drafts and making suggestions for improv…

We're often rather good at spotting "errors" in student writing. But are they always, really, errors? On four different kinds of writing "errors", and how we ought to respond to them.

True!

Pair of Carolina wrens checking out our back porch. And it would be a treat to have a nest right where we can see it - but I feel like I should warn them that the lovely spot they seem to be considering will be INSIDE the screened-in section...

I won't finish any syrup, of course - this would make only about 300 mL. But I'll boil it down to a litre or so and then store that in the fridge. Fingers crossed for better sap weather this weekend! #BackYardSugarBush2026

A large stockpot sits on a stovepot. There's a strainer on top supporting a fabric jelly bag. A hand is holding a 2 L pop bottle as it drains clear liquid into the jelly bag.

The same stockpot, now nearly filled with clear liquid (sap)

First boil today. Not because I have very much sap - only ten litres so far! But it will eventually spoil, even sitting in my high-tech SASSS (snowbank-assisted sap storage system). Especially as it will reach +17 C today...

This elephant reminded me of my obsession with terrible lions in depictions of St. Jerome, which reminded me I'd written a blog post about that, so I re-read it - and although it's a bit of a long read, I think it's fun and *might* even be right. scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com/2024/08/27/s...

Thanks for not savaging my very amateur attempt at trespassing in the field of history😀

(And just as icing on the cake, the effects that the reviewer says are weak and we only detect because our far-too-small sample size is far too large, are actually quite strong....)

I've sometimes had my work criticized for having small sample sizes (so effects are hard to judge). And sometimes for having large sample sizes (so significant effects can be rather small).

But I've never before had a reviewer criticize it on BOTH grounds, in consecutive sentences of the review!

Photo of several relatively large (15cm high) crustose lichens on a flat, rock wall surface. The lichen in the middle is light grey with black specs. The lichens on the left and right are orange in colour. The large light grey lichen in the middle has three brown lichens growing on it that look two eyes and an open mouth…giving the grey lichen a ghost or ghoul-like appearance.

Boo! Happened upon this scary fella a few years ago on a hike here in #Newfoundland. Crustose lichens on rock. Height is about 15cm.
#lichen #fungi #fungifriends #ghost

St. Jerome’s lions, Pólya urns, and the evolution of biodiversity Warning: long, rather strange post; but stick around; there’s art. If you’ve been reading Scientist Sees Squirrel for a while, you’ll know that I enjoy finding interesting connections between seemi…

Lons are often similarly awful. I speculated about how this might happen (I think it might be more interesting than just 'painter had never seen a lion) here: scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com/2024/08/27/s... (Warning: longish post but you can skip ahead to the lions)

Also had to discard two buckets due to stemflow from yesterday's rain. I can never predict when the geometry of the trunk and the spile will conspire to direct stemflow into the bucket, argh... (You can tell because "sap" in buckets is yellowish. We call it 'squirrel pee' when we're being 12.)

Weather forecast for the next 4 days. High 13 today, but +1 overnight; Monday high 11, low 5; Tuesday high 15 (!), low -1.

Rather unsatisfying update: just 4 L of sap stashed away this morning - nearly all of it ran overnight. It's running now, but slowly; and forecast doesn't have it freezing overnight until at least Tues/Weds. We need cold nights, not just warm days! #BackYardSugarBush2026

This is terrific. Writing is a way to think; waiting to write until you've worked everything out is counterproductive. On the discomfort of thinking through writing, from @patthomson.bsky.social

Photo of about a third of a large, round, yellow lichen growing flat on reddish/purplish rock. The right half of the photo is lichen, the left half is bare rock. The lichen consists of a middle with a sugared, grainy appearance…hundreds of tightly packed branches radiate outward from the centre.

Polycaulinia sp lichen. #Newfoundland, Canada. Photo covers about 6cm top to bottom. #lichen #fungi #fungifriends

This was way more interesting than I expected (and any shade perceived thrown there is definitely at Patterson, not @vauhinivara.bsky.social)

Lets put a spotlight on Maria Sibylla Merian, a German naturalist and artist. She was famous for her detailed illustrations of insects and plants, and her pioneering work in entomology. 

👁️ https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/stories/10-things/story/maria-sibylla-merian-en

I could try and say something relevant, topical, profound even on the general state of everything. However what I feel I need is a small, purple, Sea Lavender Weevil. So here it is. #Nature

I've tasted syrup from Norway maple (very similar) but not the others. Anyone want to give flavour notes? But all other trees have much less sweetness to the sap - so you need to boil much more sap to make syrup. #BackYardSugarBush2026 will stick to sugar maple!

No sign of sap today, as expected. Meanwhile, a note on the trees. I'm tapping sugar maple (Acer saccharum), which is the canonical tree for syrup. You can tap other species, though: pretty much any maple (Acer), birch, walnut, and I'm told hickory, butternut, and pecan.

Yes, absolutely - it's a public talk, the whole idea is that everyone is welcome and it should be accessible!

Poster for the Bryan Priestman Lecture Series. Talk: The Origin of Modern Species", presented by Dr. Dolph Schulter. Monday March 16th, 7 p.m., Head Hall C13 with reception to follow in the McCain Commons. Featuring an introduction by Backyard History's Andrew MacLean.

Fredericton folks: mark your calendars for a public science talk by Dr. Dolph Schluter - a Canadian ecologist/evolutionary biologist and winner of the 2023 Crafoord Prize. That's a big deal - it's basically the Nobel Prize for fields that don't have a Nobel!

Online Courses | Atomic Ecology Online training in the application of stable isotopes to ecological and environmental research

Most isotope users were never formally trained in isotope ecology.

They learned just enough to get by.

That gap shows up later — usually during interpretation.

That’s exactly what my course is designed to fix.

God help me, I've just started a Word file headed "edits for 4th edition". (Because I'm noticing things I can't really change in proof).

Let's hope this file sits quietly on my hard drive for at least 5 years...

Tiny elephant or really big farmer?