Of crappies and conservation
Black crappie (Photo by Eric Engbretson, USFWS)
If you've ever tossed a line into freshwater in eastern North America, there's a good chance that you've hooked a feisty, speckled panfish that puts up quite the struggle and is a year-round favourite of anglers everywhere. They go by a number of...
2015 - A natural reflection and year list
Belted kingfisher at Lake Ontario (Photo by Tianna Burke)
Blogging for me has always been as much about sharing nature with others as it has been about personal reflection. I have never written a year-end post before, however after learning about the Nature Conservancy of Canada's (NCC's) Creative...
Look to the sky and feel the wonder: Gillies Grove, Arnprior
Ontario's tallest tree - a white pine in Gilles Grove (Photo by NCC)
"It’s a reverential place," I whisper to my companion. "You seem to leave the outside world behind when you step onto the path." He agrees. "It reminds me of when the Pevensie children stepped through the wardrobe into Narnia." Indeed...
An osprey family affair
An osprey soars around its nest (Photo by Lorne)
This journey of an osprey family, between early May 2015 and mid-August of the same year, is almost as much my journey as theirs. It begins as a young boy some six decades ago, when my maternal grandfather would pick me up to spend some quality...
Excerpt: Safe Passage
Grizzly bear (Photo by Erwin and Peggy Bauer/USFWS)
On a soggy September afternoon in southeast British Columbia, Nancy Newhouse swung her truck through a bank of pearl-colored fog and bounced to a halt on the shoulder of Highway 3A. Newhouse, Tom Swann and I emerged into the cold mist, stepping...
For the love of real Christmas trees
Balsam fir Christmas tree pruning (Photo by Blake Wile/Wikimedia Commons)
If I even think about a balsam fir I can smell it. Of all the scents in nature, isn’t it one of the best aromas? Especially during the holidays! I love my real balsam fir Christmas tree; from selecting it at the tree lot to how it smells...
Deck the halls...With invasive species?
Conservation Volunteers at the Deck the Halls event, 2015 (Photo by Nick Tardiff)
As typical Canadian Decembers go, this wasn’t one of them. The landscape at the Nature Conservancy of Canada's Rice Lake Plains property was shrouded in fog, without a snowflake in sight. The volunteers’ task for the day was to remove...
Ferns and mosses of the Happy Valley Forest
The Christmas fern, green against dead leaves in the fall (Photo by Dr. Henry Barnett)
The Happy Valley Forest is home to a large number of common and uncommon ferns (my daughter Ann Love has records of 18 fern species in this forest area). The Christmas fern is very common in the forest and at its edges. It retains its green...
Advocates for health!
Conservation Volunteers removing barbed wire to allow better passage for wildlife (Photo by Natalie Trofimencoff)
On November 6, an eager group of Conservation Volunteers (CVs) was greeted by mild weather and sunshine at the Gray Property near Cooking Lake, Alberta, recently acquired by the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC). The goal was to remove the top...
That friggin' phrag
Shoot of alien species of phragmites poking through (Photo by Bill Moses)
Are you aware of the phragmites problem? We all know that at one time our native species thrived in a balanced ecosystem that is now being compromised by the rapid spread of some non-native plants. Phragmites australis (also known as common reed)...
