One of B.C.’s smallest birds is responsible for a four-month stop-work order on one of the federal government’s largest projects, the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Anna’s hummingbirds are protected by Canada’s Migratory Bird Act, which says any work that could negatively affect the population has to be halted until nesting season is over. The order, issued by Environment and Climate Change Canada, was put forward after conservation officers saw the company felling a tree with an active hummingbird nest in it earlier this month. The pipeline, originally built in the 1950s, was taken over by Texas’ Kinder Morgan in 2015, which then made plans to triple the exports of the existing operation, upping production to up to 890,000 barrels each day flowing from Alberta to the coast of B.C. The federal government purchased the pipeline in 2018 for $4.5 billion. The Trans Mountain expansion (TMX) is projected to cost $12.6 billion.