Al Lowe

The cry of the loon. That haunting call coming across the lake in the evening.
No sound represents Northern Ontario better.
The loon, however, is not confined to us here in the north. It breeds all across Canada, except in the really far north and the great plains of the Prairies.
It also breeds in parts of Europe, where it is called the Great Northern Diver. But about 80 percent of these loons nest in Canada.
Wherever it nests, it is always close to the water, usually in a small lake in the woods or in a bay of a larger lake.

The Labrador duck was a medium-sized one—smaller than a Mallard, but bigger than a Goldeneye.
None of you have ever seen this duck in the wild, though. And you never will. It is extinct.
As far as looks go, this duck was quite a pretty one. It was all black and white. The main body was black, including the underparts, back, tail, and so on. The head and neck were white, as was the major part of its wings.
It also had a narrow black stripe on the top of its head, and narrow black collar around its white neck.
Quite a good-looking bird!

There are a lot of fruits which are called by these names, but they really fall into (mainly) two categories.
Fruits which are usually black (or blue), which may or may not have a dusting of blue, but which do have quite a few seeds, these are often (but not always) called huckleberries. These are all in the genus Gaylussacia, for those of you with a botanical bent.

Here we are again. It’s wood-tick season.
I imagine most folk think of ticks as insects. Well, they aren’t. In fact, they are related to spiders, scorpions, mites, and so on—all of which are classified as Arachnids.
Arachnids have either eight or 10 legs while insects get along with only six.
Most ticks have a life cycle something like this. The female lays several thousand eggs, often in the grass. They hatch in a week or two into what are called larvae.

Most of the warblers, of which there are a lot around here, usually are dressed up in shades of green or yellow, with a bit of black or brown thrown in sometimes.
But there are two which have become quite different from the run-of-the-mill—being decked out in black, white, and bright orange.
These are the Redstart and the Blackburnian Warbler.
The Redstart is one of the handsomest of all our warblers. A lot of its plumage is black (head, neck, back, and most of its tail). Its underparts are mostly white, but the sides of the tail are bright orange.

This past weekend, four teams from our region travelled to Sturgeon Bay, Wis. for a big smallmouth bass tournament on Lake Michigan—the Sturgeon Bay Open.
This is an extremely competitive event, much like the FFCBC and KBI, with a 200-boat field.
The fishing is a little different from what we are used to up here on our Canadian Shield waters, though. There are no islands within close proximity to Sturgeon Bay, so it is almost like fishing on the ocean—really big water.

I suppose the mallard is the most familiar duck in the northern hemisphere. The grey body, brilliant green head, yellow beak, and substantial size are the marks of the mallard drake.
About that green head. It isn’t really green at all—that is, there is no green pigment in the feathers. If you took those feathers and crushed them all up, no green would show at all, just a dull brown.
The green is caused by reflection of light from a very, very thin coating on each feather.

You all know this insect. He is a pretty stocky fellow—black and yellow. And he tends to fly in a sort of unprogrammed way.
Most insects fly as though they know where they want to go, but the bumblebee seems to fly in a sort of clumsy way. He even will fly right into things, and if he lands on something, he seems to move around as though he was lost.
I suppose this is sort of, well, bumbling.

The Bufflehead is a very small duck, with the males weighing a pound and females smaller still.
Many of you hunters will know these as “butterballs.” This is because, in the fall, they store up a large amount of fat for use during the long migration.
The male bird usually is seen as black and white. On the water, it is black on top, white below. In flight, a lot of white shows up—on the back and on the wings.
He has a prominent white patch on the back of his head, which separates him from the Goldeneyes and Scaups.

Will the caribou ever return to its old haunts in Northwestern Ontario?
Maybe? There are still a few in some parts of the northwest, and a few in the east, too.
Once upon a time, the caribou was the most common game animal in Ontario—ranging all the way from the far north to the shores of Lake Erie and Ontario.
Their population in Canada was estimated to be about 2.5 million. But by the 1960s, this had fallen to about 200,000.