Don Scallen

For sheer visual pleasure it’s hard to beat the splendour of ducks on a sunny winter’s day.

I was invited to search for mudpuppies in a Wellington County stream last December.

This is a special winter for bird watching in the hills.

There is no guarantee that brook trout will continue to thrive in Caledon, Erin and Dufferin in the years to come.

Singing tree crickets are beautiful. They raise diaphanous wings like miniature sails and vibrate them as they trill their songs.

This is the time of year to get out after dark and explore… especially as the rain falls.

From deep in the earth to high in the sky, forests shelter teeming life.

Here are six plants and animals, representative of myriad others, that depend completely on forests.

You likely won’t see many of these without a little dedicated searching.

Four beetles among hundreds of thousands, each with a unique story to tell.

While most moths release their pheromones after dusk, promethea moth females are an exception.

The Georgetown fox family is lucky to be living in an older section of town where yards are spacious and tree filled.

Vernal pools, like coral reefs, are theatres showcasing life and death struggles between prey and predators.

Remarkably, flying squirrels can glide up to 90 metres, though most of their aerial journeys are much shorter.

Wildlife populations in Dufferin and Caledon have come and gone over the past few centuries, most dramatically since European settlement. Some species have vanished from the landscape. Others have arrived. Now things are changing again.

The reappearance of otters in our hills is a hopeful sign that the capacity of our rivers and landscapes to support wildlife is improving.

Tracks inscribed on snow by unseen animals offer tantalizing multilayered puzzles.

Football-sized bald-faced hornet nests, hanging from branches, are prominent in the winter landscape.