Don Scallen

As development continues unabated, our growing population and urban footprint will inevitably diminish biodiversity.

During a trip south, naturalist Don Scallen gets a closer look at introduced lizards in Florida and asks questions about our own invasive species in Ontario.

Most of us have the good fortune to raise our families in safe, comfortable houses. Birds want nothing less. 

Rivers in the Headwaters region still flow clean, clear and cool through areas not yet urbanized. This natural heritage is a gift to area residents and well worth protecting.

Don Scallen explores how birds, mammals and reptiles have adapted to survive our long, trying winter.

Male tree crickets – rock stars of the insect realm – sing to attract females, and display other courtship behaviour not so different from ours.

Fall is the perfect time to get down low and take a closer peek at the stunningly diverse and complex organisms that are fungi

From a swath of turf grass came a thriving meadow ecosystem full of wild flowers, pollinators and biodiversity.

Bats hunt with their astonishing echolocating ability, sending out pulses of sound and then “reading” the returning echoes for the shape signatures of potential prey.

Could the answer to my pollination puzzle be butterfly wings?

From a small observatory in a Belfountain backyard, the heavens are revealed.

The breeders and the egg stealers make a river chub nest a happening place in springtime.

Calvin and his kin depend on two things for their survival: forest and fishless ponds.

Merlins have been recorded nesting in Orangeville, Caledon Village and just south of Headwaters in Georgetown.

Animals use camouflage, poison and deception to live another day.

In March nature pushes against the shackles of winter, and then bursts free with birdsong and butterflies.

Deer are lovely but too many can hurt the environment.

Starlings have three strikes against them.