Don Scallen

All you need is a smartphone and a love of nature to make valuable contributions to conservation science.

Fish are fast, slippery, and camouflaged, designed by evolution to avoid being eaten.

I’ve walked through meadows teeming with wasps, innumerable times, without being stung.

July is prime butterfly season in Headwaters.

Grab a flashlight and head out on a hike after sundown and get to know the creatures of the night – including moths, salamanders and frogs.

Most of our minnows, like our songbirds, breed in spring and many male minnows, like male songbirds, advertise their reproductive fitness with brilliant colours.

Calvin is a rare piebald version of a spotted salamander.

There is much to quicken the pulse at this time of year. So much to see, hear and appreciate.

Red foxes are making themselves at home in Inglewood, Grand Valley and Palgrave, hunting in our yards and denning under our sheds and garages.

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.