Something's Fishy: The good, the bad and the goby
Round goby (Photo by Peter van der Sluijs/Wikimedia Commons)
Think of the meanest, toughest fish in a Canadian river. The one other species actively avoid, swimming faster as it approaches. Is it the longnose gar, with its mouth full of sharp teeth? Or the largemouth bass, a species which devours its prey...
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...
Birds of a feather
Ruffed grouse (Photo by Yaremchuk)
This winter I am taking the second half of a two-part ornithology course. The coursework is focused on taxonomy and identification, and as such I spend a lot of time in a lab handling specimens, both mounted and study skins. The average birder...
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)...
Reptiles and amphibians of the Happy Valley Forest
Red eft (the immature form of the spotted newt) are the commonest reptile in the Happy Valley Forest and crowd the forest trails during egg-laying time. (Photo by Dr. Henry Barnett)
The reptile species in the Happy Valley Forest number 19. The area provides one of the last redoubts for the threatened Jefferson’s salamander. Red efts are common, red-backed and spotted salamanders will be regularly seen in the but the...
NCC teams up with David Arrigo for the 2015 Gifts of Canadian Nature (Part Two)
David Arrigo, artist behind 2015's Gifts of Canadian Nature art prints
Recently, I phoned David Arrigo to chat about his art, his experiences with nature and this year's Gifts of Canadian Nature campaign collaboration. Below is Part Two of our two-part interview (Part One is here): WH: Can you tell us a story behind...
The Traills at Rice Lake
A view of the former home of Canadian author Catharine Parr Traill taken on Friday, September 19, 2014 on Smith Rd. in Lakefield. (Photo by Clifford Skarstedt/Peterborough Examiner/QMI Agency)
Ontarians usually associate Catharine Parr Traill with her book, The Backwoods of Canada. Those backwoods were located near Lakefield where she and her husband Thomas first pioneered on land just to the south of what is now Lakefield College...
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign!
Group photo at Fishing Lake, ON (Photo by Nick Tardif)
It was the Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign Conservation Volunteers event at The Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC’s) Fishing Lake property in the Frontenac Arch Natural Area. We were there, on time, and rearing to go. There were six...
A natural take on Black Friday
Crow (Photo by Linda Tanner, Wikimedia Commons)
Learn more about a few of our Canadian species and share these tweets to show others how natural #BlackFriday can be! ...
