to know the land

When we see certain things everyday, we start to encounter them with routine and we can sometimes begin to overlook them. They become mundane and the magic is forgotten. This is tricky in human-human relationships as well as human-plant relationships. Sometimes it is good to remember the qualities that got us stoked in the first place, that filled us with awe and wonder, and bring us back into goo...

I have been out with my students a lot in the past month and a half and it seems that every time we go out we are looking to the trees and shrubs that are growing in disturbed areas and likening these disrupted habitats to post glacial landscapes. Some of my students are able to recognize the similarities between an urban construction/destruction site, and some are still picking it up. I always do...

After my recent jaunt to go visit some migrating salamanders, I had so many questions. For years I have been making my pilgrimage to visit the salamanders as they make their ways to their breeding pools. All the while, I have been reading about “Unisexual Ambystomas” and was confused by the complexity of “the complex”, a small group of closely related salamanders and sperm stealers. Yeah, sperm st...

The other day, while out with my students, we came across four basking snakes on the side of a gravel access road cutting through an Eastern White Cedar ( Thuja occidentalis ) forest. Two Eastern Garters ( Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis ), a single Red-bellied ( Storeria occipitomaculata ), and a Brown Snake ( Storeria dekayi ) . Three of the four stuck around and we watched, told a story, and asked...

Two friends and I got in my car on a stormy night to drive 35 minutes through the thick rain to sneak around the woods looking for migrating Salamanders. This wasn’t the first time either. I have been doing this pilgrimage for a few years, and am still excited every time. This time I brought a recorder with us as well, to try and hold the moment to better convey over the radio. Thanks to all the S...

On a very cold day in February, while trailing a Algonquin Wolves ( Canis lycaon ) across the frozen Lake of Two Rivers, South of highway 60 running through Algonquin Provincial Park, a fellow tracker and I came across a nest. I took out my phone and quickly took some measurements and moved on. It wasn’t too long, as it was -30°C (-22°F/243K) and my hands we’re screaming at me, but this little dis...

It’s always nice to have a few days off during this time of year. While a lot of folks are busy with family, or having cozy times at home, I can wander through the snowy woods looking for the signs and tracks of all the other animals who we share the land with. For today’s show I am just telling some stories of some of the trails I have been on over the past week, detailing some of what I have bee...

Winter Solstice has returned. Technically it’s in a few days but with the longer nights, it’s certainly being felt. This year I have been out tracking, indoor climbing and baking up a storm at home. It’s been a lovely, snowy descent into the dark. Again, like last year, I have been reading, writing, listening to a lot of film soundtracks and watching silly movies. But I also try to make space for...

While out tracking in the new snow the other day I came across some relatively small tracks, reminiscent of a Chipmunk ( Tamias striatus) or Red Squirrel ( Tamiasciurus hudsonicus ), though small enough to be a Short-tailed Weasel ( Mustela ermina ). It took a second before I recognized them as Southern Flying Squirrel ( Glaucomys volans ) tracks. I have been encountering Southern Flying Squirrels...

While tracking White-tailed Deer at Mono Cliffs with the Earth Tracks apprenticeship, we saw lots of signs of the rut and the subtle ways deer communicate. We studied three main signs: scrapes, rubs and lick branches. Together, these clues form a multisensory language of scent, sight, and even ultraviolet signals that share details of identity, territory, and mating readiness. These clues along th...

I have missed a few of the notable migrations this year; Salamanders, raptors, and until yesterday, the Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). The salmon are a unique one on this list for me though, special in a strange kind of way. Firstly, fish and I never sat well until I got to know the salmon. They changed how I saw all fish species, and now instead of a feeling of ick, I get a wonder, aw...

It isn’t often that I get to see bear scat down here in Guelph, but in Parry Sound, there are many Black Bears, and while visiting the Sound for a trailing workshop, we came across some of their scat. For me, it was an event. A highlight of the weekend visit with friends and practicing our trailing together as a crew. Black Bears are pretty majestic, if that’s the right word, and carry a weight, b...

I am in love with Black Walnut ( Juglans nigra ) and I want shout all about it throughout the late Summer, early Autumn season. They are big, beautiful, and bountiful with their tennis ball sized fruit with bright green husks and nuts snug deep inside. Slowly colonizing the sunlit fields and edges, home to all sorts of creatures both large and small, these towering monuments tell of the abundance...

Recently I was talking with one of my adult programs about successional and keystone species. Successional species are those early plants which come into disturbed landscapes, helping to knit the ecological neighbourhood back together. They are quick to come and quick to go, providing the land with nutrients to heal and grow. Keystone species are those species who are provide for many other forms...

Sisters Alex and Tasha Sawatzky’s knowledge of and growing appreciation for the land they lived on was tangible and real, so how could they tell the stories of the species they were coming to know and love, while also countering the dread of our modern world? They decided to start Minnow, a magazine about ecology, conservation and all sorts of species we share a home with. This magazine project ha...

Sight is the dominant sense in humans, followed close behind by hearing and perhaps touch. Many of us have cut ourselves off from the natural world by “gating” our senses, only using what is needed to navigate an urbanized, mechanical, constructed and conditioned environment, and we end up isolating ourselves, and leaving the more than human world behind. In times of ecological, political, and cli...

An ancient plant of the genus Equisetum , (the only extent genera of the family Equisetaceae , and only living member of the order Equisetales) , Horsetails are some of the most primitive of fern species, being closely related to the Calamites of the Carboniferous era some three hundred million years ago. Inspired by a fun workshop I got to host, along with such an amazing history of evolution tho...

Grey Treefrogs ( Hyla versicolor ) are my favorite frog species at the moment. They are cute little colour changing, antifreeze laden, Lichen-Spirits who really belt it out when trying to find a date. I have been hearing them pretty much nightly lately, screaming their short trill all over nearly every wetland I encounter as long as it is fairly adjacent to trees. Because of their powerful calls p...

It started with a little hole at the base of an Eastern White Cedar ( Thuja occidentalis ) tree, and a couple of seeds. Who had collected and consumed the contents of the seeds? What about the feathers? And the boney remnants of bill? Join me as I go deep down a Deer Mouse ( Peromyscus maniculatus ) hole. To learn more : Mammal Tracks and Sign by Mark Elbroch and Casey McFarland. Stackpole Books,...

I have been excited about Song Sparrows ( Melospiza melodia ) for a while. Theirs was one of the first complex songs I learned to identify, and being such a common neighbour on the landscape it’s hard to go a few days without hearing them, even in Winter, but especially in the Spring. While out today, I came across a couple Song Sparrow tracks in the silt newly laid down by the receding Eramosa Ri...

I have found sign of three dead White-tailed Deer in the past three weeks. One, killed by Coyotes. Another, hit by a vehicle, found on the side of the highway. And also, I found a White-tailed Deer leg while trailing a Coyote. All of these encounters have been teaching me a lot about the legs of the deer and I wanted to look a little bit deeper into these moments, and to share the stories. I go on...

Fishers aren’t known as an urban adapted species. They tend to avoid our built up landscapes and prefer landscapes of mature forests comprised of appropriate denning habitat such as old trees with cavities and lots of course woody debris (think of big piles of dead branches and fallen logs), characteristics not usually found in urban forests. Because of this Fishers avoid our cities… or so we thou...

As I mentioned on the previous show about the Lynx trailing trip, I was planning on heading up to Algonquin Park to trail Moose, Algonquin Wolves, Martens, Snowshoe Hare, Flying Squirrels, and whomever else’s trails we may come across. Well, I went and it was great. So good that I wanted to offer a bit of a report back from the trip and tell some stories of what we saw. This is the 24th year of th...

I have had a lot of conversations with biologists and ornithologists over the years, trying to learn about how different animals sleep. Are the functions of sleep in humans similar to similar animals? What about different kinds of animals, like insects, or birds? More recently I have seen the Canada Geese along the Eramosa River where I live, standing or sitting still on the frozen river and wonde...

I just got home from an amazing week away up North in Elk Lake, Ontario, Robinson-Huron treaty territory, trailing Lynx with Earth Tracks. It was an amazing time and I had a ton of fun. We trailed Lynx for days, as well as get on some trails of other animals including Peromyscus mice, Short and Long-tailed Weasels, Marten, Snowshoe Hares, Fisher, Grey Wolves, Moose, and more. There are so many sto...