Many people have noticed an increase in the number of large, black birds on our northern lakes in the past few years. They are cormorants, or to be more precise, Double Crested Cormorants (Phalacrocrax auritus). Old-timers tell us that they used to be very numerous here years ago, and then […]
Al Lowe – Nature Science and You
The Marsh Hawk is different from almost all other hawks in many ways. It hunts low to the ground, the male and female are of different colours, it makes its nest on the ground, and it lays more eggs than other hawks. This is a fairly common hawk in Northern […]
Some of our warblers, here in the north, are quite easy to identify due to their special marking here, or bright colour there. Here are a couple which are fairly common and shouldn’t be too hard to identify: These warblers do not care for the deep forests at all, nesting […]
The gourds are a fairly large family of plants which are all trailing vines with broad leaves. Some of them climb but most of them just trail along the ground. In proper conditions, they are very rapid growers. The squash vines will take over your garden if you don’t watch […]
All of the thrush family are very good singers. In North America, there are several species which qualify, including the robin and the bluebird. In the Old World, there are many thrushes, including the famous nightingale. In Northwestern Ontario, we have our share of these fine-singing birds, including the Veery, […]
Here we are again. It’s woodtick season. I imagine most folk think of ticks as insects. Well, they aren’t. 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. […]
In 1834, explorer Paul Kane recorded “. . . the trees on each side of the river and part of the Lake of the Woods, for full 150 miles of our route, were literally stripped of foliage by myriads of caterpillars. “This scourge extended to more than twice that distance.” […]
Buntings are small birds, about the size of a sparrow or a bit larger. There are four species of buntings in Canada. Two are resident of the west (Lazuli and Lark), and one comes to us only in the winter (Snow Bunting). The fourth is the only one which nests […]
Our most familiar harbinger of spring is most likely the robin. But its close relative, the Bluebird, is another. In Northern Ontario, there are only two other birds which are blue. But the bluebird can be easily identified by its red-brown breast, its deep blue head, back wings, and tail, […]
The sparrow family is the largest in the world. It includes grosbeaks, buntings, finches, and crossbills, as well as a host of real sparrows. There are 56 species of these birds in Canada. I suppose most people think of sparrows as those little brown birds which hang around the yard, […]
When we think of the birds of spring, we usually think of the robin or some other nice one. But actually, the bird which comes back to us really early is the crow. You usually can hear him long before the snow has gone. In almost any other situation, the […]
There are not too many people who are really fond of spiders. Spiders have a bad rap, for several reasons. For one thing, they walk funny, with a gait which we–and the movies–have associated with evil. We hear about poisonous spiders, and there are a few, but not really very […]
