Don Scallen

Birds are drawn to feeders like Saturday morning coffee drinkers to Tim Hortons. The presence of birds in the winter landscape is life-affirming.

Our rural roads and historic schoolhouses may have ended up as dull as suburbia in the fall.

What has our impact been on native North American wildlife? I think we know the answer to that.

We revel in their beauty, relax in their shade and are calmed by the soothing sound of their leaves soughing in the wind.

Both male and female wrens generate a potpourri of chatter – a profusion of messaging rivaling the texting of human teenagers.

Many new point-and-shoot cameras have a macro focus function, allowing you to take close-up photos of miniature creatures.

Most butterfly caterpillars will mature and form chrysalides within two or three weeks.

We need to learn how to coexist with these fellow opportunists.

If you have seen a luna moth recently in Headwaters please let us know.

Fishers are said to attack porcupines in a particularly grisly manner.

The Jefferson salamander is a cause célèbre locally because of its very restricted range in Canada.

Merlins in Caledon would have been almost unthinkable 25 years ago. At that time, except on migration, Merlins seldom strayed south of the lakes and forests of the Canadian Shield.

Great horned owls along with other members of the owl tribe are gifted with adaptive traits beyond their acute senses.

The Christmas Bird Count is an annual tradition that entices naturalists to down steaming cups of pre-dawn coffee and then head out birding at first light.

I grew up in the shade of elm trees that arched magnificently across the suburban street where I lived as a young boy. Then, one by one they began to die.

Make sure to enter Don’s “Name these fish” contest (see details in this article). Deadline: November 30th!

Despite their “refined” eating habits, vultures have traits that endear us.

On cool September mornings, dew reveals the intricate weavings of spiders.