PUBLICITY: NANCY IRONSIDE

    Although Nancy has long been a member of the Orillia Naturalists' Club, she has rarely been on the executive. Learning to do a web page was an interesting challenge, and the job of Publicity followed from that.

I arrived in Orillia at 3 years of age, attended Central School and Orillia Collegiate Institute, before going to University of Toronto for Medicine, then Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to study Anaesthesia. I  returned to Orillia in 1962. My interest in Birds started on a dude ranch in Arizona - all these beautiful birds were on their way to Canada! Bill Cattley and Fran Westman were wonderful mentors in the early days, and friendships made in the Club have continued to stimulate my interest. I have branched out to butterflies, mushrooms, mosses, and I would love to do lichens. And, who can ignore the flowering plants?
 For many years I travelled, mainly to South America, to see birds, and before that I had travelled to most of the significant dive spots in the world to look at tropical fishes.
Visits to wild areas is  rejuvenating, and the science behind some of these studies is mentally stimulating.